Tasmania!

We have arrived in Tasmania! Watch out for Tassie Devils!

We began our trip by stopping by lookout spots. Tasmania is beautiful! The water is turquoise and the mountains are high!

The four of out at a lookout. One of many!

Lookout! It was amazing to see the shear cliffs going into the ocean.

Campsite number one. Our tent is right by the beach! It was wonderful!

This was the beach behind our tent.

Our beach...it was called Richardson's Beach.

More beach.

And our backpacking trip begins!

Lunch break on the beach. This is Hazards Beach. Yeah, it was amazing!

Hazards Beach.

Our hike took us long the beach. It was my first backpacking trip along the beach! It was gorgeous!

Almost at the end of the beach.

Campsite number two. Right on the beach again!

Justin relaxing on the beach after our long hike!

Double rainbow! These rainbows were the most brilliant and distinct rainbows I had ever seen. They were beautiful.

Day two of the hike!

Beautiful scenery on the hike.

Me and Justin with Wineglass Bay in the background.

Finally, we made it to Wineglass Bay! It was a LONG hike to get there, but way worth it!

Wineglass Bay from a lookout.

Back in Hobart for New Years Eve! We ended up going on a cruise and watched fireworks at midnights on the water. It was nice!

A big boat race called Sydney to Hobart just finished up and here are all of the boats.

Me and Justin!

Now, we are back in nature. We had to cancel our second backpacking trip because it was so cold and it was snowing. Now, that might seem normal to those reading this back home, but it is the middle of summer here. It was the coldest December in Tassie in 15 years. Most of our hikes were in 40 degree weather, when last year at the same time it was in the 70s-80s.

Beautiful scenery from a lookout.

Us on top of a lookout.

Pretty much the last two days of our Tassie trip it either rained or snowed. Here is me and Ben surviving out in the rain!

Mountain waterfall!

Cradle Mountain....in the snow!

Cradle Mountain

Hiking around Dove Lake at the base of Cradle Mountain. It was like a snow storm!

Justin by a snow man...now please remember this is the middle of SUMMER!!

More mountains!

Melbourne!

This is us on top of the ANZAC shrine.

This is the ANAZC shrine. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. It was mostly dedicated to the soldiers in WWI. Inside was huge and you could go up to the top to look out or down into the basement to look at displays. On the main level there were flags and memorials to the soldiers.

Boats down by St. Kilda

Jenny and Ben finally arrived after a LONG journey to Australia!

Boxing Day Cricket at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) Australia was playing South Africa. We lost :(

MCG. It can hold up to like 90,000 people. When we were there, there were 65,000.

Federation Square.

City Circle tram in downtown Melbourne

Docklands.

The Kombi Van. Rowan and Nyoli picked us from the airport in their van. They were on holiday traveling around Victoria in their Kombi. It is a 1965 and it has a split windscreen which is special for that year. It was really nice!

In the Kombi!

Rowan and Nyoli driving us around Melbourne!

So that is Melbourne in a nutshell. All these posts are quite short since we did so much in a short amount of time! We were in Melbourne December 26th through the 28th. Jenny and Ben arrived the night of the 26th. Next stop after Melbourne...Tasmania!

Christmas in Australia!

Christmas night in Adelaide on the beach. What a sunset!

Justin and I at sunset. You don't get Christmas nights like this back in the States!

The whole gang who headed down to the beach.

Justin and I at the beach. Yes, tank tops and shorts on Christmas!

A little backyard cricket at Bob and Anne's. Justin and Brett were the bowlers!

Justin practicing his batting stance.

The Christmas Ute! (No normal cars were available to hire, hence a ute)

Well, for our first warm Christmas, I would say it was wonderful! We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day! We were quite busy with church, lunch with Bob and Ann, a BBQ at one of our friends; houses, then to the beach! No snow this Christmas, but don't worry because we had plenty in Tasmania (check out that post!)