More beautiful Tasmania

Last Friday we had Danny Chin from Hong Kong visit us.  He is the tech person for the Pacific region for Family Search.  He spent the day with us, learning what and how we do things.  On Saturday, we took him for a mini tour of the countryside since he had never been outside of the city in all the years he has come here.  We first went to Richmond, a historic town, and poked around the shops, buying some interesting wood products.  Then down to the peninsula around Port Arthur.  We did some hiking at Remarkable Caves and then at Tessellated Pavement.  Very unusual geologic formations.

Remarkable Caves

Kay and Danny Chin

Tessellated Pavement

We had another holiday on Monday.  It is called "Eight Hour Day".  It is like our Labor Day, when workers finally got an 8 hour work day.  We decided to take a mini vacation, so after Church on Sunday we drove up to Swansea, on the east coast, about 2 hours from Hobart, and stayed in a Bed & Breakfast which was a lovely Victorian home.  They called it a Colonial home.  It seemed like a little farm, with ducks and ducklings and turkeys greeting us upon arrival.  We wanted to see the penguins which come in at dusk, so we drove up to Bicheno.  We found the tour place, but the tour was sold out for the evening.  But the note on the door made up for our disappointment.  They were only seeing 5-10 penguins coming in at night.  We didn't think it was worth the $50 for the tour for that few penguins.  So, hopefully we will be in a place to see many more next Nov/Dec when the numbers are in the hundreds.

On Monday we spent the day at Freycinet National Park. (Pronounced Fray si nay.  It is French).  It is on the coast with Oyster Bay on the inland side.  Marv hiked to the top to see Wineglass Bay.  Kay got 3/4 of the way up but realized she couldn't get to the top and back down in time for us to meet a group doing an ATV tour.  Our tour consisted of a couple from Darwin, AU and three from Hong Kong who had never driven an ATV before. Marv and Kay were in a Ranger and the guide took one of the Chinese girls in his Ranger. Our guide did some training with all of us and determined that the other two Chinese people could not operate the ATVs well enough to drive.  So the other girl joined the guide in his Ranger and the Chinese man took Kay's place in our Ranger and she got to drive the ATV.  She was so glad to have had the experience of driving over rocks and holes in the White Mountains of Arizona on our ATVs.  We drove 10k (about 6 miles) through the forest to the coastline at Friendly Beach.  Had a snack, then drove back through the rain shower.  It was a fun experience.

Oyster Bay

Granite Mts of Freycinet Nat'l Park

Wallaby on the trail

Wineglass Bay

Ready to Ride

Friendly Beach before it rained

Here comes Kay

Marvin and the Ranger

East coastline

Unusual phrases we hear often:
"Good on ya" said when you are doing something that they like.
"Let's see how you went" We would say "Let's see how you did."
"How are you going?" We would say "How are you doing?"