Australia, cont.

From Canberra, we flew to Melbourne. I wish we could say that we loved it, but we were a bit underwhelmed. We admittedly are not big city people, so there was no real draw to Melbourne. Maybe we missed something, but we didn't find it all that special. We did rent a car and drove south from Melbourne to the Great Ocean Road, which was built in the early 1900's by Australian soldiers returning home after WWI.

It is an impressive feat, as most of the original road was built by hand. The road follows the southern coast of Victoria and has some great views. We did find it a bit touristy but enjoyed the views of some of the famous rock formations, like the 'Twelve Apostles'.

After the Great Ocean Road, we returned to Melbourne for the night, then flew to Tasmania. We picked up a campervan in Hobart, then headed out for a lap of the island. Here is a map of the route we took over the next 7 days.

From Hobart, we headed east where we did a short hike in Tasman National Park. The next day, we were supposed to take a ferry to Maria Island for some hiking, but the weather was terrible, so we headed North. On our way, we spotted an echidna on the road, and I was able to catch a video of this neat little creature!

From there, we headed to the Bay of Fires, which was beautiful, even in the rain. The orange color is from a lichen on the rocks.

We headed north to Mt William national park, where we stayed the night near the beach. We saw a bunch of wallabies!

The next day, we headed to Cradle Mountain National Park. We stayed just outside of the park at a campground on a lake. We were lucky enough to see a platypus!

We woke up early and drove to Cradle Mountain to start hiking. We decided to do several different trails to take advantage of the time we had- we ended up hiking 15 miles, including the Summit! It was a really challenging hike requiring us to scramble over rocks, but the views were incredible.

We also saw a wombat on our way down from the mountain.

After hiking all day, we went to the Tasmanian Devil sanctuary to see their nightly feeding.

Tasmanian Devils are carnivorous mammals, and are endangered, so it's hard to see them anywhere but a sanctuary. They were hilarious to watch- snarling and fighting with each other over their dinner!

Next, we drove down to the most southern point of Tasmania. From here, we hiked part of the Southern Cape Track, which was a ten-mile hike that brought us to the ocean. The next land mass is Antartica.

From there, we drove to Kettering and took a twenty-minute ferry to Bruny Island. There is a very narrow point on the island called the neck- you can see why from this picture.

We drove around the island and stopped for whisky, beer, cheese, and oysters. Yum.

We returned the campervan to Hobart and spent one night there before flying to New Zealand.

Overall, we had an awesome time in Australia. My favorite parts were seeing Sydney, spending time with family, and exploring Tasmania.

I feel so privileged to be able to travel like this. It's hard to describe how much fun we've had getting to see all these new places and experience so much. All I can say is that I'm grateful for this time, as well as for our health to be able to accomplish so much.

Next, to New Zealand!