Tuesday 4 June 2013

Tasmania Day 3 - Kelso


Today it really felt like we were on holidays. Yesterday was a lovely day but it didn’t feel like anything different to things we could have done from home (except perhaps for seeing the wild animals wandering about – although we do get kangaroos at home quite often so even that wasn’t completely new, just different (and much cooler) animals).

Anyway, today felt more special. We were up and out again early (for us) – walked down to the river at sunrise, all the animals had gone to bed so we had the place to ourselves. We pottered around in the cabin for a while then  Tony went for a drive to see some local wineries and Caitlin and I took our porridge down to the jumping pillow and sat in the sun to eat a late breakfast. When I was jumping on the pillow afterwards, I noticed that the tide had gone out and there was a large expanse of mudflat beyond what last night had been the beach. So we got ready to check it out – the kids figured swimmers were appropriate wear, and seeing as Liam went through 2 sets of clothes and shoes yesterday by going in the water, I figured that if they didn’t feel too cold then swimmers were a good idea. (I went fully dressed)  While I was getting ready the kids had gone back to the jumping pillow, and Millie had tried to come back to the cabin – she couldn’t find it, but then couldn’t find her way back to the others – I found her crying behind a caravan. She settled down quickly once I found her, then she wanted me to carry her the whole way, and I was quickly wishing I had a carrier with me – although it was lovely having a cuddle while we walked.

looking back to shore from the edge of the river
The mudflats were very cool – lots of ridges in the sand, lots of mud crabs and some sort of red crab that walks forwards (the kids said it was a soldier crab), and lots of creatures with conical shells on their back. It was a long walk out to the edge of the river and the water was quite cold, it was all fascinating  and I heard Liam at one point calling out ‘This is wonderful!!!’

Back to the cabin for a bit of lunch, and Tony returned. After a rest he and the kids played with the football then we drove about 10 minutes further north to Narawntapu National Park (and realised when we arrived that I’d left the National Parks Pass in the cabin – we decided to leave a note on the dashboard explaining that we did have a pass, and hope that either no one would check it or the note would be enough. Turns out no one checked so it was fine) We walked up to the lookout on West Head which had a magnificent view west along the beach and I think as far as Devonport.. I would have liked to continue the walk around the headland, but the kids were keen to get down to the beach so we went that way. Tony and the big kids went ahead and Millie and I were a bit slower. There was a long walk along the base of a hill, over rocks, which always slows me down. Millie was finding it hard too so I put her on my back in my new carrier, a Kinderpack, and it was comfortable and secure so I didn’t feel any more nervous walking over the uneven terrain even with the extra weight. Very excited to have this carrier! It looked  like the tide was coming in so I moved our bag and the shoes from where the others had left them – the waves were already lapping at that rock. I kept stopping to take photos which was frustrating Millie, she wanted to catch up to the others, so we walked along the beach until we reached Tony, then Millie hopped down and played in the sand with him. Caitlin and I found some animal tracks, and Liam showed me a big symbolic drawing of our family he’d done in the sand. Then they took me to part of the sand dunes where they’d found a place to slide down, so we all climbed to the top and the kids did some sliding. We watched the sunset over the water which was beautiful, then made our way back to the car.

This evening we cooked and ate dinner, and watched a much anticipated episode of ‘House Rules’ (we were just lucky that it was on tonight while we still had access to a TV). The big kids and Tony went for a late night walk to see more wombats and potaroos (the potaroos are surrounding our cabin tonight, every time we open the door 5 or 6 of them hop away) and now they are reading Anne of Green Gables.

Tomorrow we go to our alpine cabin in Mt Field National Park where we won’t have any electricity so I probably won’t be updating for a few days, until we get to Hobart on Friday. I’m glad we decided to go to Mt Field from here – because it’s the bit that needs the most planning and organizing I feel like my mind is always half on that part of the trip even while I’ve been enjoying this bit - it will feel good to get there and really enjoy it then move on to the other places with it out of the way.We’ll do a bit more shopping tomorrow and hopefully have enough food, equipment and entertainment to keep everyone happy. Its forecast to snow on Thursday night so very much hoping that it does (but not so much that its too hard to drive out on Friday morning!) and also very very much hoping that we see a Tasmanian Devil while we are there.

No comments:

Post a Comment