Some more photos

Just a few extra photos ...

Xiao hou hou and da zhu zhu go on holiday: day 4

Day 4 was our last day in Tasmania :( We woke early, had a rather slow breakfast in the town (in the only cafe that was open) and went to the internet cafe because I'd forgotten to print out our return tickets and so didn't know when the flight left. We visited Launceston Gorge. I finally managed to convince Sha to go on the chair lift - the longest single span chair lift in

the World. This chairlift brought us to the edge of the gorge where we walked around some spectacular flowers, watched the peacocks, had coffee and found a big blue-tongued lizard before walking back over the swing-bridge across the gorge. We drove back into the town and went shopping (where I bought Sha her first English book - My

Family and Other Animals - to make up for parking the car a few miles from the shops), had lunch and finally drove to the airport. Sha lost her boarding pass.

The flight back was fun and then, after a big argument with our taxi driver (which Sha enjoyed), the holiday was over. The holiday was great!

Xiao hou hou and da zhu zhu go on holiday: day 3

Sha got attacked by lots of animals on day 3. We also spotted three different echidnas. It was a good day. This blog entry is going to have lots of pictures of animals. After getting up early and eating a huge cooked breakfast we headed straight off to the Bichino wildlife park. This is a wonderful zoo! It is a beautiful zoo. The animals have large enclosures (including the snakes) and the zoo is definitely rather hands-on.

Sha decided that the Tasmanian devils were rather cute and so thought that it would be a good idea to dangle her camera in their enclosure. We can now report that a devil can just about 0.5m directly upwards whilst showing an awful lot of teeth! Luckily the camera survived. Then we went and fed some kangaroos. At this time a pelican flew in and decided that Sha was edible. We later fed the pelican some fish. Sha and I then went into a section of farmyard animals to feed the goats. I must say that watching Sha run around with a big goat chasing her was rather funny!! Sha probably doesn't agree!! Then she went off to feed a kangaroo. It grabbed hold of her hand and wouldn't let go. Obviously animals like Sha!

We saw a quoll!

Then we continued driving north. We headed up towards St Helens with a few stops en-route to search for more shells on the various white-sand beaches that we drove past. We stopped for pizza in St Helens before turning West and driving inland across the mountains. Wow! The road was windy. It was a long way. The views were spectacular. We stopped off in a rainforest to go for a walk and found a beautiful waterfall. We spotted echidnas. The road kept winding its way up and down the mountains.

We stopped in Derby, but the tea shop was closed and we'd missed the recent "Duck racing". Nancy from Pioneer had won. The duck from Derby came 3rd. We went along some dirt roads trying to find a museum of the Chinese tin miners that had been in the area. We couldn't find the museum.

Finally we drove into Launceston. It's a fun town. We found a motel and then walked into the town and discovered that Launceston has plastic seats in the street that speak to you. We found a Chinese restaurant. Apparently, according to a website that I've just found, this restaurant is a place to "Discover the delights of the Orient". To my great delight and to Sha's digust we discovered that all the shops were closed. We ambled around the town watching all sorts of strange people in Halloween costumes, found what definitely was a street full of ghosts, and then headed back to the hotel.

Xiao hou hou and da zhu zhu go on holiday: day 2

(click on the panorama for a high quality image)

I enjoyed day 2. Sha ate her instant noodles for breakfast. Then we drove off to Coles Bay. The route took us through some beautiful countryside with views of Oyster Bay on one side. We listened to 1,000 Chinese words in the car. In fact, we didn't listen to all of them, but I do now know that hou hou is "monkey" in Chinese. "zhu zhu", by the way, means pig, which I think is a very bad thing to call your boyfriend :P. We ambled into the Freycinet national park centre where Sha found a stuffed wombat to turn upside in order to look for its pouch which, in case you happen to be interested, has its opening facing the back legs. Then we drove off to the Wineglass Bay car park. We parked next to a wallaby with a joey in her pouch. There were plenty of signs saying "do not feed the wildlife". The signs should have added that the "wildlife will feed itself" as the wallaby stuck her head in my bag and started munching away on my bag of crisps.

The walk across to wineglass bay was spectacular. It took us about 5 hours to get down to the bay and back again, but we spent most of the time simply staring at the landscape. There were lots of big rocks! There was another wallaby hopping around on the beach. Sha added to her sand and shell collection. I got wet.

We saw dolphins.

Then we walked back up the mountain. It was hot.

We drove back to Coles Bay to buy ... haha ... some more instant noodles and some drinks. Then we continued on to Bicheno. I like Bicheno! We found a hotel. Then we went to look at the blow hole. We met a ghost. He had a big beard and must have been about 200 years old. He told us to look out for snakes on the rocks and then he disappeared. We found the blow hole. I got wet again. Sha bought dinner and got drunk on cider. We discovered that you can't buy crabs to eat in Tasmania. We then found some penguins sitting under a rock.

Xiao hou hou and da zhu zhu go on holiday: day 1

We woke early. We woke very early. We got to the airport by about 5am (if I remember correctly - it's all a bit of a haze now). I'd booked us on the 6:30am flight to Melbourne. This was silly. It was early and we didn't want to go to Melbourne, but we did have breakfast number 1 at the airport. We also bought a book on Chinese etiquette to read on the flight. It's fascinating! The flight was as wonderful as ever - we had breakfast number 2. We then walked around Melbourne airport for 30 minutes before getting on the connecting flight to Hobart. we had breakfast number 3. Actually, Sha very sensibly packed away her breakfast for later on the holiday. This was useful. She'd found a webpage in Chinese saying that Tasmania is a bit short on instant noodles and so she seemed to have a suitcase full of them ... but the extra breakfast was used in the end!

The flight into Hobart was fun and rather bumpy. We flew over the mountains and the coast on landing! The weather was perfect! We then found our rental car (which looked like a panda bear and luckily wasn't the pink one) and set off into Hobart with Sha complaining that I hadn't hired a GPS navigator.

Hobart's beautiful! We did all the touristy things. We walked around the harbour front, went shopping, had fish 'n' chips, admired the mountain which was almost, but not totally, clear of clouds ... then we drove North. It really is spectacular. We stopped at various, completely empty beaches with white sand. We saw the "Three Arch Bridge" built by convicts in 1845. Sha added to her shell collection. We stopped for coffee in a rather odd little service station. We ended up in Swansea where Sha had already found a good hotel. It was on the beach. Without resting (sorry Sha) we set out for a long walk in the cold wind along the edge of Oyster Bay. The Loontitetermairrelehoiner track took us past muttonbird breeding holes and an anchor from the cutter Resolution which sank in the bay killing quite a few people. Sha spotted a big lizard.

This is bad! I have no recollection of what we did for dinner that night. Oh yes!! We went to a pub and drank a lot of cider. We also had a huge pizza.

Xiao hou hou and da zhu zhu go on holday

What a holiday!! Can't write much now. My battery is about to run out on my computer and I really ought to get some sleep! We had a great trip. Sha got attacked by 1) a pelican, 2) a tasmanian devil, 3) a goat and 4) a wallaby. I had wonderful fun driving around some incredibly windy roads and getting wet in the sea. We started in Hobart (perfect weather), drove North to Swansea (past Pontypool!), went on a walk with the longest name I've ever seen and ate lots of sea food. On the second day we walked down to Wineglass bay (wow!), played with the wallaby on the beach (and another few wallabies in the car park - a 5 hour walk away), saw dolphins, collected some of the white sand, drove on to Bicheno, saw penguins in the wild and an impressive blow hole, met a ghost (at least I think that he was a ghost - he was at least 200 years old). Sha got drunk on cider. It was on the third day that Sha got attacked by a Tasmanian devil and we had the most amazing drive along the coast to St Helens and then inland over the mountains to Launceston (stopping to go for some walks in the rainforest and to play with the echidnas that were ambling down the road side). We got lost on a dirt track trying to find a Chinese tin-mine museum. Today was out last day, but we tried to make the most of it by taking a chair-lift across the Cataract Gorge, chasing blue tongue lizards, walking across a swing bridge above the gorge, doing some shopping and finally driving back to the airport.

More later!!

It's all happening ...

How did I ever find the time to update my blog? So much is happening. Since the last time I updated my blog, I went to Sha's graduation day. That was fun!! I bought her a big bear. Sha's parents came around to stay at my house (I spent almost an entire week before that trying to tidy up) and Kate's family all came around to try their Chinese and help cook a BBQ. I then hired a car and drove Sha's family down to Kiama and back. What a wonderful trip. We saw the big potato. We also saw the rainforest near Kiama, drove down some very dramatic roads, the blow-hole (which was blowing) and had an exciting drive back up along the coastal road.

Oh dear, I think that my corn has just exploded in the microwave

After driving Sha's parents to the airport Sha and I went for a lovely drive and walk in the Botany Bay national park and saw Captain Cook's landing site.

Vikram came and stayed again at my house. I started a Chinese course!! I sat on the front row. It was very exciting. We all said "ni hao" to each other. The class was mixed between people who worked a lot in China and people who had a Chinese girlfriend!

On Saturday evening I played in a wonderful chamber concert. We got a standing ovation!! I played the slow movement from the Rachmaninov cello sonata, Tracey played the fast movement from the Mendelsohn violin concerto, we both played a Haydn trio with Maureen and finished with a renaissance quartet in which I played the recorder. Then we had lots of wine.

On Thursday, Sha and I are heading off to Tasmania. We having a holiday before she starts working next week. We're going to fly into Hobart and then drive up the East coast to see places like Wineglass bay. We get back on Sunday night.

Oh, I forget to mention that Sha and I went to Newcastle. We went to Newcastle. We played in the sand. We ate fish 'n' chips. We got wet. I got in trouble for reading the newspaper on the train ride home. We found a possum.