Alex's dad hosted a brunch the following morning for any wedding guests who wanted to attend. Here's Dena, Hanya, Katie, and I about to head to the brunch. This is the view from our holiday house balcony. Pretty sweet!
Hanya, Mrs. Ellis!, and Dena
me, Joey, and Katie
Everyone milling around on this beautiful sunny day. What is up with the weather?!
The party is still going strong 3 hours into the brunch and 1 hour before Alex's dad has to check out of his house!
Katie's 'got milk?' commercial shot. Doesn't it look like an add? She does have a milk mustache if you look closely. The two of us giggled in hysterics throughout the weekend. We barely had to look at each other to bust out laughing. It could have something to do with a severe lack of sleep... or not.
A snapshot of our house and car for the weekend.
Katie and I took a very scenic route on our way to Cradle Mountain. We headed way up the east coast past St Helen's to Bay of Fires. We liked the pictures in the brochures - that was all the incentive we needed.
The day turned from beautiful, warm and sunny to overcast, cold, and rainy JUST as we pulled into the parking lot to get out and see Bay of Fires. Seriously.
We had a bit of a modelling session on the rocks.
The orangish-red rocks were amazing!
Bay of Fires was a pretty stop, well worth the detour.
The scenery on the road was ever-changing from farmland to mountains to beach to rain forest.
This rock fish came out of no where.
We saw a few more rainbows, and you can even see the purple band in this one.
Moo!!! I suppose all this rain is what keeps it looking so green around here.
We hit Launceston at dusk, which was a bit later than we hoped. As with deer in the northern states, it is best not to drive at night to avoid hitting Aussie wildlife. These signs were posted everywhere and given the roadkill evidence lining every square inch of the highway, I was expecting to encounter a few myself. While we saw plenty of wallabies, possums, and other creatures scurrying about and even wiping out, I managed to avoid hitting any myself - a marvelous feat. The sign-posting was as poor as I remembered it during my last visit to Tassie, and Katie and I found ourselves lost more often than found. We stopped to ask directions twice before making it out of Launceston. We asked one 20-something guy if he knew where Midland Hwy was. He said "yes" and stopped. After a dreadful pause, I prompted "would you like to tell us...or...?" In all seriousness, he said, "oh, I thought you were just asking me if I knew where it was", this after Katie specifically asked if he could help with directions. Things that make you go hmmmmmm.
We fumbled our way to Cradle Mountain, many wrong turns and turn-arounds later. We arrived at 10:20pm for my first hostel experience ever. Reception was closed with a sign that said 'Absolutely no check-ins after 9pm, no exceptions'. What?! After a mild freak out, we found keys to our room in an envelope with my name. Phew! We lucked into a 4-person bunk room to ourselves with the heater pumping when we arrived. Katie teased me that this was not the true hostel experience. Excuse me? We had to make our own beds, walk outside to get to the toilet and shower, and my bunk shared a wall with the communal kitchen which was quite noisy. I have to admit it was quite do-able and much cheaper than the alternatives.
