Holidays, Baptisms, Fire, and More

Where has the time gone!  It's apple season and you know that means Marvin's apple pie making is in full swing.  We traveled down to the Huon which is where the apple orchards were and are.  Tasmania used to have a booming apple market and shipped apples all over the world.  We were sure we could buy apples in one of the sheds, but they were all closed.  We did find a roadside shed with different apples in the coolers and you left your money in the jar.  What trust!!!  We stopped at this apple museum which had a good display of the business throughout it's start to the present.

Every apple on the shelves was a different kind.

 A small sample of the Huon Valley.  Unfortunately the picture doesn't do the area justice.

Our friends from Scotland, Catherine and Alistair Ross.  We are celebrating their 55 wedding anniversary at the Riverfront Restaurant.

Brother Geoff Palmer, and others at the dinner.

Still more friends at the restaurant:
Archor Fulsang and Carrie Fulsang
Chris and Marin Barnhard
Sue and John Lownds

Marvin always wanted to make a race track for remote controlled cars at our home in Heber.  Well, we found one here in town, a really nice one.

We got hooked into watching My Kitchen Rules on our tv.  It is a contest where teams cook and are rated by judges.  Here at Harvey Normans (an appliance store), the Tassie girls who were in the show are cooking.  It was before Easter, therefore, the bunny ears!








The Australians really celebrate Easter.  Good Friday is a huge holiday and everything is closed.  The Easter holidays were 5 days for us, 4 days for those on the mainland.  So, after church on Sunday, we traveled to the northwest of Tasmania and enjoyed traveling around that area.  The weather had been beautiful until the day we left.  It rained most of the time we were gone, but that didn't stop us from seeing so much beautiful country.

Leaves are turning colors.

This is Stanley, Tasmania.  We were going to hike up The Nut (the rock mountain) but it was so cold and windy that we got pictures and ate our lunch in the car.

We found two caves where the aboriginal people once lived.  There were lots of shells just outside the cave where they ate.

 The view from the cave.

This is as far as we could go.  There are signs asking that we do not enter the caves for preservation purposes.

 Quite a beautiful view from their "front porch".

This picture doesn't do the area justice. (Again!)  There in the northwest, the area just rolls with beautiful green pastures.  There are lots of small ranches with cattle.

Finally, the sun comes out.  We were driving down the "most beautiful highway in Tasmania".  It was in a gorge area.  It was so striking, that we stopped right on the road and took a picture.

The little community of Wahrata.  It has a waterfall right in the middle of town.  A miner founded the town and used the waterfall as part of his tin mining business.

Cradle Mountain is a very different area.  It is about 5,000 ft in elevation.  The picture above is north of the national park.  We hiked up the hill to get this view.  To the left, we are in the park, in a rain forest area.  It was so thick with "mother nature".  It was beautiful.

You needed to watch where you stepped on the boardwalk as the wombats also use the walkway and deposit dropping along the way.  Those droppings are not so small!

Turn the corner and we came upon this lovely waterfall.  The clouds were too low for us to see the unique geography of this area.  So, we will have to return when it is clear.

We stopped and had lunch (in the car) at Sheffield.  This town is noted for it's mosaics which are painted on most of the buildings in town.  They were having the International Mosaic Festival so we got to see and talk to some of the artists.

Yes, we love waterfalls, even if they are just painted.

Marvin bought himself a tin whistle which he is learning to play.  It was pretty rugged at first, listening to him as he practiced.  But now, he can play through some songs and it sounds pretty good.  He already has some ideas for the band at home, using the whistle.

A Sunday afternoon walk in the park and the black swans have come down to our area.  Marv couldn't get a picture with their heads up.  I guess they are finding lots to eat down there.

And then there was the fire in the library.  We were working one morning and the fire alarm went off.  I left the room to see if others were leaving (we had had fire alarm checks not too long before, so we didn't know if it was the same).  Everyone was up and leaving so we left also.  Thank goodness for school fire alarm drills.  They finally came in handy.

This is where we evacuated to.  This is the senior center which is between the library (on the right) and the theatre playhouse (on the left).  This is also where we like to eat lunch during the summer on pleasant days.

We were out there for about 1.5 hours while the fire department put out an electrical fire in the ceiling in the library.  It didn't effect us in the archive but I guess the library was pretty stinky.  Marvin played games on his ipad and I went shopping.  Thankfully it didn't rain until we were back inside.

The is the Blackwell family.  Tara (kneeling with her little sister) had been going to the church for about a year.  When we arrived here, she and her sister Brianna (pink jumper) (that's sweater in Australian) were attending church.  Her parents told Tara that she couldn't be baptized until she was 18.  On April 6, conference Sunday, Tara, Brianna and Jarod (young boy in the middle) were baptized.  The following Saturday, Janette and David (mom and dad) were baptized.  Two weeks later, Shantelle is baptized by her father.  That is remarkable.  When we visited the family at Christmas, we said to each other that there was no way this family was ever going to make it.  And here they are.  The other couple in the back are older children/spouse which hopefully will listen to the missionary lessons.  David is heavily tatooed and Janette was a chain smoker.  At David's baptism, he bore his testimony stating that earlier in the day, a neighbor had asked him where he was going.  He told him "Church".  The neighbor responded that he would have never figured David to be a church going guy.  David's response was that it's not what is on the outside of a person, but what is in your heart.  He is so open to learning all he can about the gospel. It is wonderful.