Tassie!

I'm halfway through my trip to Tasmania, Van Diemen's Land, home of the world's largest carniverous marsupial. What a claim to fame! Actually, it's quite lovely here, very different from the rest of Australia (at least, from that small part that I've seen so far). It's richly, lushly green here, and the weather is constantly changing from one minute to the next. I haven't seen any snow yet, but there has certainly been frost in the mornings. The daytime temps are hovering around 12-15 C, and about 5 at night. I keep reminding myself that this is winter -- though I'm sad that I'm missing patio season, the only part of the year when it is actually enjoyable to sit outside in Canada. I'm hoping the beaches of the north will make up for it!

I'm on a tour around Tassie at the moment, starting and ending from Hobart. We spent Monday and Tuesday nights in a tiny village called Tullah, and are tonight in Launceston. So far we've been to Mt. Field National Park, Doneghy's Hill, Lake St. Clair and Platypus Bay, Russell Falls, Montezuma Falls, Strahan, the Henty Dunes, and Cradle Mountain, as well as honey tasting in Chudleigh. Tomorrow we head over to the east coast and the Freycinet peninsula and Wineglass Bay, spend the night in Bicheno, then "home" to Hobart on Friday.

There are only three of us on the tour: myself and two German girls, Roumina and Eva (they didn't know each other before). We're having a good time, eating too much in the van!