Slovenia and Prague and a hearty Thank You to everyone!!

Well this is officially the last blog of the WorldRamblers. We spent our final adventures in the beautiful countries of Slovenia and the Czech Republic. In Slovenia we enjoyed both Ljulbjana and Bled. Bled was our favorite and is nestled nicely in an outstanding mountainous setting. With mountains, rivers, lakes, caves, cliffs and so much to do we are definitely planning a return visit! We passed the days walking around the river, enjoying the delicious and inexpensive pizza and taking a boat to the island in the middle of the lake. We enjoyed it so much we extended our stay. For all you outdoor adventure types this is someplace that we absolutely recommend! I think also I will be looking into buying retirement property here.

From there we hopped on the train and headed to the Czech Republic. We decided it was going to be too difficult and too stressful to hit another country and we had heard so much about Prague we wanted more time there. My friend from High School, Alison, was living there and she said we could stay with her so off we went! We had a full 5 days in this city and it truly is as wonderful as everybody says. It's clean and full of character. With winding and endless streets to explore it is the perfect spot for the avid wanderer. And if you ever tire of the city there are several places outside of Prague to visit as well.

Tara and I spent a solid THREE days just wandering around the city. We couldn't get enough! At night it was totally different than during the day and even taking a different street often delighted with some new statue, building or fountain. We also rented a peddle boat and cruised around the river. The best was when we chased the ducks. QUACK QUACK! We also visited the island in the middle of the river...and I um got us stuck in the sand for a good 5 mins which was pretty funny business!

Well, that's about all from us. Tara's flown back home and with that concludes the ramblings of the WorldRamblers (for the time being!). We will leave the site up and use it for our future travels together. From the bottom of our hearts thank you to everyone for your support, care, emails, comments and everything else that let us know we were not forgotten!! It made all the difference in the world. I am heading to Spain to study and will make my way home after that.

Slovenia Pictures

Czech Republic Pictures

RAMBLE ON!!!!

Love,

Jonathan and Tara

"We are strong enough to do this, we are just stronger when we are physically together"

BerlinKrakowBratislavaVienna PHEW!!!

Sorry about the link posted in the blog, I am not so computer saavy and Jonathan is sleeping!

Berlin

Wow we really loved this city! It has a long and lengthy history, but also is a relatively new city. Only about seventeen years since it has been reunited into one Berlin, no more East and West. We spent two days journeying through the past and experiencing the present. Amazing. We took a free walking tour that included quite a history lesson, I tried to include some of what we learned in the history lesson underneath the corresponding photos.

Berlin Pictures

Krakow

We were met at the train station by our wonderful couch surfing hosts, Lukasz and Agnieszka! It was so nice to be met upon arrival into a city! We havent had this happen since Shanghai, where someone was there waiting for us! They were amazing hosts. Every night we ate a meal together, got to eat wonderful home made Polish dishes. Agnieszka was a wonderful cook! Lukasz and Jonathan had much in common with computers and technology and spent many hours sharing and learning from one another! What an experience! We definitely left Krakow feeling wonderful about the city, its country and the people!
We did get a chance to visit Auschwitz. It was something that we were very glad that we did, but something that we could not say was “great” or that we had a good day. It was heavy on the heart. Really heavy and it felt more real than just seeing photographs or reading about what had happened. It is real and devastating. We only posted three photos on the blog, because we didn’t want to force the photos upon anyone. Of course we would share our photos with anyone who wanted to see them when we are home. The photos need an explanation and a little bit of information.
Overall Krakow was a wonderful experience for us! We fell in love with our couch surfing hosts and the culture in Poland!

Krakow Pictures

Bratislava

The weather here was absolutely beautiful! For the first time since we have arrived in Europe it was sunny and warm enough that we wore tshirts during the day!!!! WOOHOO! We covered the major sights in one day! We were not expecting that at all. The city has become quite the tourist destination because it is an hour ferry ride up the river from Vienna. Swanky shops and restaurants line the streets. All the buildings have been refurbished and painted. It looked much more new and modern than the historic beautiful town we were expecting. We had a good time enjoying the sun and walking around the town but decided the next morning to head over to Vienna.

Bratislava Pictures

Vienna

BEAUTIFUL. This city is breathtakingly beautiful. The architecture, sculptures, gardens are all just beautiful. Our first day we spent walking are the Old part of Town. We walked around and marveled at all of the glorious buildings. We had Viennese coffee in front of the Hofburg Palace. Frolicked down the streets and raced go-karts at the famous Prater Amusement park. The next day we walked through the gardens of the SchonBrunn Palace and avoided the crazy rains in the afternoon. The last day we ventured to the Zentral Freidhof, the largest Viennese cemetery. We had lunch with Beethoven, Mozart, Shubert and Brahms! WHOA! We felt a little unqualified. Vienna was absolutely wonderful! What a wonderful time!

Vienna Pictures


Tomorrow we are going to Slovenia to see what it has to offer! Enjoy the photos! Don’t forget to leave comments. There are only ten days left of our traveling together and we would love to have some more comments written on our blog!
Love,
Tara and Jonathan

Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland!!

Ok we are going to get this blog caught up right now! We are currently en route to Berlin, Germany and have been to Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland in the last eight days.

In Belgium we tried out this phenomenon called “Couch Surfing!” It is a really neat community of people who have traveled, are traveling or want to travel and are willing to let people stay on their couch or spare bedroom free of charge for a few days. People create profiles with descriptions of themselves and their couch and you send out requests to say “I would like to surf your couch!” They respond back and you make arrangements to meet up! We now have a profile and have successfully completed our first couch surfing experience! We stayed with a great guy name Lukasz, originally from Poland but living in Brussels at the moment. He was a great host! He was working while we were there but was really great in pointing out places of interest to go and see!
We spent one day in Brussels. We thought that was plenty of time to see the sights and get a taste for the city. We had delicious Belgian waffles and hot chocolate! YUM! The next day we went to Brugges, a romantic picturesque town, with amazing architecture and even better waffles…. It was a quick train ride and even more than what we were expecting to find! We had a wonderful time walking around the city, taking lots of pictures of the buildings in the town. We went to the Church of Our Lady and saw Michealangelo’s “Madonna and Child” sculpture. We ate a basket of frites otherwise known as French fries, and they came from Belgium not from France. And they were the best fries we have ever had! Turns out my habit of liking mayonnaise on my French fries is not so weird, because that is the custom in Belgium! We had an even more delicious Belgian Waffle, this time covered in caramel sauce. So delicious! Not to mention that the guy that sold us our waffle had actually been to Albuquerque, New Mexico and he had been to Carlsbad Caverns twice!
The next morning we took a train to Luxembourg. We went right into Luxembourg city and stayed in a hostel that was in a really pretty valley. The weather was really cold and rainy, but we made the most of it! We explored the casemates, which are a series of tunnels that extend all around the city. The city is actually still surrounded by a huge wall, through which the tunnels run. It was a neat little town and quite pretty we had a great time walking around the city. We didn’t have much time here because we left midday the following day to go to Amsterdam.
Into Holland, we arrived right as work was letting out for the day, needless to say the city of bikes, had turned into a sea of bicycles and the public transit was packed. People were not shy to try to shove us and our backpacks out of the way so they could get on the bus. Unfortunately for them we have been doing this far to long to be shoved out of the bus. After finding our hostel, we walked around and saw the sights. Spent the next morning doing the same thing. However, what I really wanted to do while we were in Holland is to go see the tulip fields and the windmills. We also decided that one night in Amsterdam was good enough for us and headed out to a town called Haarlem. It was a pretty little town and we got a steal on our room for booking it at the last minute, quite cheap compared to the weekend rates in Amsterdam!
We explored the town, had THE BEST Dutch cheese, enjoyed walking through the flower markets and seeing all of the people. We did get to see lots of tulips and daffodils fields as well as a few windmills!!! Yesterday we went to Keukenhof, which has tons and tons of bulb flower displays. It was really beautiful! Exactly what I wanted to see! Even better was behind the gardens there was fields and fields of daffodils! It was perfect! This was the Holland that I really wanted to see!
Jonathan and I are excited for Berlin! It is definitely a country full of history. We have about two days there before we head to Krakow, Poland to do some more couch surfing!
Love to all,
Tara and Jonathan

Check out the pix: Belgium, Luxembourg, , The Netherlands

Tokyo and Paris!

We have been moving so fast that we've got a bit of catching up to do! Tokyo was AWESOME and we both had a really good time there. It is UNLIKE any other part of Asia! It is clean, crisp, the people are lovely, expressive and eccentric. We saw some crazy outfits and there are no boundaries for how people can express themslves. The technology is truly world class and is a mustdo experience for any technophile. One of the main reasons for visiting Tokyo was to see the Cherry Blossoms. They were as beautiful as we had hoped and we walked through the imperial palce, found many shrines, and enjoyed the healthy food of many street side vendors as we walked other various parks and streets. Of course there is also the anime - which we spent a day at the International Anime Convention center. Tara was a good sport - good thing there is shopping in Europe! haha.

So after Tokyo we headed to Paris, France. We had a CRAZY flight with British Airways. They opened a new terminal and it's all a mess at the moment. After hours of delays, a near * miss * on the runway (we almost rammed our nose into the back of another plane while landing) and over running our parking spot at our final destination we made it. Exhausted and a little jumpy we greeted Paris and boy oh boy did it greet us back! It is a city of beauty and the architecture. It is difficult to put any of it into words, so I'll let the pictures do the talking for that. All I can say is a day spent walking in France is a day not wasted! We spent 3 days there and met up with my cousin Kevin who is teaching elsewhere in France. He is fluent in French and we had great fun roaming the city. He knew all the shopping spots', good places for food. It was a good time and we finished it off with the best hot chocolate ever at a place called Angelene's! It was seriously like drinking a candy bar mmmm. We also did our best to eat lots of pastries :)

We will be updating again soon!

Jonathan and Tara


Tokyo

Paris

So long New Zealand - Konichiwa Tokyo!

Ahh New Zealand was such a refreshing visit. We had a blast finishing up on the west coast and truly enjoyed the country. Our stop to Milford Sound was amazing. It's a truly unique area b/c the water there is part fresh water and part salt water! There's a layer of fresh water approx 4m deep that sits on top of the salt water. As a result the scuba diving is amazing b/c it simulates a deep sea environment. The freshwater is all murky and light can't penetrate it so the stuff that's on the bottom comes up closer to the surface!

We really enjoyed seeing all the areas where Lord of the Rings was filmed. There were also some incredible Mirror Lakes that looked as as though a sheet of glass were over them. Water so still you'd think it were fake!

Tara and I enjoyed cruising around Milford Sound on a boat and were a bit sad that we had to give up our camper van.

We've got a short stop in Tokyo before heading off to Europe. We decided to break up the flight since it was going to be 30 hrs =p

Keep on truckin'!

Jonathan and Tara

New Zealand - numero dos

Welcome to Middle Earth!!

NEW ZEALAND!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Where to start?! This country is breathtakingly beautiful and we are IN LOVE with this place!!!
It has been a while since our last update so we will try to do our best to give a good update on our travels.
WE RENTED A CAMPERVAN!!! Haha! This one is the super deluxe suite of campervans!!! We have a toilet and a shower! So we are able to travel wherever we want whenever and it makes seeing New Zealand that much more enjoyable!
We went to Hanmer Springs and enjoyed the hot springs on our first day! The second day was amazing! We went to a town called Kaikoura and went whale watching. We saw 2 sperm whales!!! AND a pod of about 200 dusky dolphins surrounded our boat! WE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE LUCKY!!!
The next day we drove up to Mt Cook! Fabulous views and scenery and also wonderful photos! We walked through the valley and had such a good time we didn’t realize that more than half a day had already passed! Oops! On to our next spot… We saw the Tasman Glacier and walked through the Tasman Valley!
Then to Oamaru to see the penguins! We were really excited to see yellow eyed penguins and we did…we saw 1… Of course we thought they would show off like the dolphins, flaunting themselves, ASKING to be photographed but no luck.
Off to Dunedin to see KELVIN AND SOOHEE!!! WOOHOO!!! We were so glad to see them, how cool to meet some of your friends in one country, than another and than in another! PRETTY DARN COOL! We spent the weekend with them and their friends at Kaka Point where they had rented a house for the weekend. We also got to meet up again with Mike and Laura, who we also met in Malaysia! We had a great time getting to meet some different people and learn new things. We learned how to play cricket!!! Turns out I am not so bad and got a few compliments about my cricket skills! We had a delicious barbeque at a friend of Kelvin’s! Jonathan also got to experience super cold water snorkeling and they tried to find some abalone! However, the water was really rough and the waves were huge that they didn’t get any abalone but had a blast! After swimming Jonathan and I went our own way and headed towards the west coast of the island.
We ventured to the southernmost point on the South Island! Only about 4000km to the South Pole! We had a good time adventuring through farmland and taking photos of the many sheep and cows!
Last night we camped in Middle Earth! Actually we camped right where they filmed many of the scenes from the Lord of the Rings movies! Check out the photos and see if you recognize the scenery!
Today we arrived at Milford Sound, one of the 8th wonders of the world! Pretty impressive! It is beyond words beautiful! Tomorrow Jonathan is going diving and than we are going to explore the waterfalls and unique landscape of this location.
Bottom line: New Zealand has been our favorite country so far, it is beautiful and you should come visit!
Love to all!

Tara and Jonathan

Check out New Zealand!!!

The end of an era -

We officially sold our campervan today for $6800! An English couple put a $200 deposit on it a week ago and slowly but surly they’d been taking the rest out of their accounts to pay us today…in cash. Nothing like walking around the city with 132 $50 dollar bills in your pocket !#$!@ But hey that’s ok b/c we had my two body guards – Mr. Right and Mr. Left. Haha. The sale was rewarding, but also sad – especially as we watched them drive away…IN OUR VAN!! After the sale we went and checked out the Sydney Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House which was absolutely fantastic. They played songs from West Side Story and both Tara and I really enjoyed it!

Tomorrow we fly out to New Zealand where we will explore the South Island, meet up with some friends and explore some of the greatest untouched areas in the world!

Adventure on!

check out the pix:
goodbye lollie

Jonathan and Tara

From Mushy Mallow to Luscious Lollie!

Mushy Mallow, a chocolate covered marshmallow from Western Australia, was desparate for a makeover. Covered in Mission Brown House paint and an interior of has been 1970’s print fabrics, she needed it desperately. So with the help of this makeover and all of the lovely people involved, she would become a hot commodity!
Let’s see what she had done:

****MECHANICAL****
1.) New (and under warranty) 2.0L Engine (only 20,000km on it)
2.) Rebuilt 4 speed transmission
3.) New clutch
4.) New Starter
5.) Rebuilt Throttle Body
6.) New suspension
7.) New Tyres
8.) New oil/oil filter
9.) Repaired pop-top struts
10.) Fabricated new passenger window lock
11.) Repaired rear license plate lights and welded on new latch
12.)

****INTERIOR****
1.) New carpet
2.) New paint (water based so there is no noxious smell!)
3.) New upholstery for cushions
4.) New blinds
5.) New Hinges for storage area
6.) Re-fabricated Windshield washer bucket and bracket mount
7.) New hinges/mount for glove box
8.) Seal repair done to fridge

****EXTERIOR****
1.) Rust free (all rust has been removed, cut out, ground off, re-welded and filled!)
2.) Beautiful New Paint (1 pack Acrylic Lacquer from Paint City, color codes and touch up paint included)
3.) Completely redone wheels/rims with matching bolts!


Now let’s meet Luscious Lollie!

Lucious Lollie

Keep the love coming!!

Tara and Jonathan

Raining in Bed!

What is hot, sticky, and gets rained on while lying in bed? The World Ramblers!
Yes it is true! Our delightful little van has decided to show us another one of its challenges. Our pop top on the van leaks especially during the huge downpours that we have been having everyday and all night in Cairns. Jonathan and I agreed that was the first time we had ever been rained on while lying in bed, hope it never happens again!
So we are now in Cairns up in the Northern part of Australia and we are enjoying it very much! We even got to get into a salt water swimming lagoon right off the Esplanade! We have taken refuge in the shaded parts of the lagoon almost every day we have been here! It really is a fabulous city!
We took a trip up a little farther north to Cape Tribulation. We really wanted to be able to explore the Daintree Rainforest, which is a Wet Tropics World Heritage site. It was wonderful. We stopped at the Daintree Discovery Center which had loads of great information on the different types of plants, animals, and other life in the rainforest. We were fortunate enough to spot a large Cassowarie bird off the side of the road. They are a huge black flightless bird, with a helmet structure on their heads and bright blue and red warblers. Jonathan went swimming and caught a turtle in the big swimming holes which are crocodile free and safe to swim in! We had local ice cream at the Daintree Ice Cream Factory, four delicious flavors; macadamia, blueberry, jack fruit and something else that we just cannot remember! All of that in just two days in the rainforest! After the Daintree we spent a night at Tinaroo Lake which was absolutely beautiful. However, the mozzies were so thick we couldn’t stay for more than one night.
We than headed back to Cairns and ended up staying at a really nice caravan park. It was actually a “Resort Tourist Park.” It was certainly the nicest place we have slept and showered since we have been on the road. They had a really nice pool and free mini golf and really nice facilities. They even offered free water aerobics which Jonathan and I went to while we were there! And of course when you are in Cairns you at least have to get out to the Great Barrier Reef…and so we went!
We decided to do a 2 day/1night live aboard with the same company that did Jonathan’s Advanced Open Water Certification back in 2002. Jonathan of course was diving and I was going to do some snorkeling. We spent the first day on Reef Quest and Jonathan did two dives and I went snorkeling twice! Okay so here is the most impressive part. Most of the time when I snorkel I get a little freaked out and have some trouble breathing for the first little bit and I won’t go out into the water unless someone is holding my hand. This time I didn’t have Jonathan there since he was out diving and I figured if I wanted to see the reef I was going to have to JUST GET IN. And so I did. I jumped off the back of the boat all by myself, I didn’t panic and I swam around on the reef for a little over an hour the first time! Of course there were a ton of other snorkelers around the boat but I got over a lot of my huge fears and did it by myself! Damn I’m a big girl! Throughout my snorkeling I got to see lots of turtles and tons of beautiful fish and amazing colonies of coral!!! And I even saw a shark! Ahh! I was so excited I squealed into my mask! You are SUPPOSED to keep calm and not make any noise, yeah whatever I was so excited! And for the record you could definitely get a great feel for the reef even if you are just snorkeling! Jonathan did a total of seven dives over the course of two days but I will let him tell you all about his experience and what he saw! *enter Jonathan* The diving was amazing as expected. The corals here and sea life are truly second to none and at this point I feel quite comfortable saying that! I shot some pretty good pics and vids of the underwater world including 3 new species (to me) of nudibranchs and several underwater worms! They are hard to spot but you’ll see that they’ve some of the most amazing colorations ever! My night dive was spectacular as I got to witness Travelli’s hunting by the light of our underwater torches. They were whisking so close to me that a couple of times they actually brushed my sides and shot out between my legs! WHOA! I also perfected my buoyancy and completely ditched my weight belt! But despite the massive quantities of fish, sharks, corals, urchins, nudibranchs I was most amazed at Tara – snorkellin’ all over creation SOLO in the Great Barrier Reef! She saw sharks AND turtles before I did and even pointed a turtle out to me when I came out to meet her. I’m way proud of her  Well that’s it, the boat life was good and the bed was a welcome reprieve from the van! *Jonathan out*

There is so much rain up in Northern Queensland. Enough that we are stopped in traffic waiting for the tide to go out so that we can hopefully get through the town and continue heading down South. But you will know we will made it safely it you are reading the blog! And the fact that it took us two weeks to get this blog onto our site…oops!

http://picasaweb.google.com/WorldRamblers/TripToTheGreatBarrierReef?authkey=Vol7C1sjFFw

East Coast Journey!

Knock knock
Who’s there?
The Police
Ah hell…
and that’s how we started our day a few days ago. I suppose you’re somewhat of a bonafide wanderer once you’ve been told by the local police you’re getting a warning for parking overnight in a ‘no overnight’ zone. The fine for this is $375. Ouch! Get just one of those bad boys and so much for saving money on a room by sleeping in your van. Tara and I have been movin’ on up in the world, instead of carrying our home we now drive around in it. We eat where we sleep, we sleep where we wash, we wash where we sit and we sit where we cook. We have one room, it is our livingkitchendiningbathbedroom, it sits on 6 tyres and once you add two people it is about the size 2.5fleas x @$# I just hit my head. This makes dorm room living feel like the 100th floor penthouse spread. Welcome to Australia on a shoestring. After working for a week, Evan and I made so many improvements to the van it’s crazy! New tyres, mounts, brackets, rivets, sides, hinges, battery – you name it and it’s been done! Tara and I are lovin’ it and guess what? We just got electricity in our house! Yup, a whole 300 watts @ 240 volts is flowing like soy milk and organic honey from our 2nd deep cycle battery. WOW! That trickle charged juice can run a 15cm fan at night, charge a laptop or even a camera battery. CRIKEY! We’ve retrofitted our water system and we now have a portable shower with a whole 5 gallons of water. That’s like enough water for four whole showers. CLEAN!

So aside from fixing up our home we’ve been enjoying our time in Oz very much. We’ve covered about 2500 miles and still have another 300 to go before we reach our costal destination, the city of Cairns. After that we’ll have covered the entire east coast and will head to the outback. The beaches have been beautiful and we’ve really enjoyed Queensland. As we have moved up the coast though we’ve encountered a harsh reality of summer here…jellyfish. The little bastards are about the size of a chicken bullion cube and their stings can be fatal. The other day we were camping next to the beach and I got in the water. I noticed a strange looking fenced in area down the way. It looked like a dog run and everything else was deserted. I entered the water to my waist and then got out quickly because I got a bad feeling (I always listen to that feeling). I went and asked a local and guess what? You can only swim in the fenced area because there are crocodiles. Did I mention this is the ocean? I love wave crashing and I love diving b/c I feel I like I belong in the ocean and can synchronize with it. But walking in and swimming on some deserted stretch like a lunatic just isn’t my idea of fun. You know what kind of people do that? Food. There’s the tropics for ya– sure the picture looks pretty but everything bites, stings, pushes, punches and scrapes like a barbed-wire tumble weed in a hurricane. We are both excited for the Great Barrier Reef though! We’ve visited the Ginger Beer Factor, Ginger Processing plants, the Crocodile Hunter’s Zoo and much more. It’s the little gems that shine like finding the Alaskan Malamute breeders at a random rest stop or the best meat pies ever! Well that’s all for now – we’ll write again soon enjoy the pictures!!

Jonathan and Tara

Australia Part Deux

Mission: Get to Cooroy!

Jonathan and I began our road trip with the mission to get to Cooroy, Queensland. It was a 3000 km journey but we had a great time and our little van was even better than we could have imagined!
Before we began our trip up North Jonathan and I decided to venture out West and see the Great Ocean Road. The Great Ocean Road, known as the Surfcoast Highway, runs along the Southeast Coast of Australia. We took this drive because of the outstanding views of the Australia coast and the unique rock formations found in that area. It was the beginning of a really long road trip in our new little van.
We camped in beach parking lots with other campervans or in the rainforests at designated camping spots. We found a delightful camp site outside of Lorne that had a little lake where the Kookaburras were fishing for Yabbies, otherwise known as crawfish. We drove along stopping at all of the lookout points, exploring lots of little walks down to the beach. In Victoria, due to the drought they have been having for quite some time, the black sand flies are overwhelming. They are everywhere and have no problem risking their lives at the chance to be ingested at any moment when you may smile or laugh or even try to talk.
We stopped at Apollo Bay to view the 12 Apostles. They are large limestone rock formations amongst the swirling waters of the ocean. They are massive in size and lovely to photograph. We ventured down to the beaches to be able to take photos up close and had a good time goofing off and playing on the beach. We stopped at a cheese factory to buy some cheese and wine which is our newest and favorite indulgence!
We visited Loch Ard Gorge which became a grave for the Loch Ard ship that wrecked there quite some years ago. There was a place called Thunder Cave which was the opening from the ocean to a long tunnel which lead to a saltwater lake about 100 meters inland from the ocean. The tunnel makes loud noises that sound similar to thunder as the waves rush through the tunnel and into the blowhole!
After our adventure on the Great Ocean Road we began our massive drive up to the state of Queensland, where my Grandpa’s wife, Alyce, was up at her sister and brother in laws house about an hour and half North of Brisbane. Family in Australia! WOOHOO! Of course the Eastern coast is the most traveled part of Australia and there is lots to see. We didn’t get to enjoy it this time but we will be traveling back down towards Melbourne after our trip up the coast to Cairns.
We made a few stops in little seaside towns and enjoyed the beach and the waves. Well… Jonathan enjoyed them, enough so that he volunteered his sunglasses as a parting gift. I, tried to get in only to have my swimsuit prove that it is not sturdy enough to withstand the waves…like a PG-13 take on the Waterbabies sunscreen bottle…oops. Enough waves for me.
We spent a day in Sydney on the hottest day of our road trip! We played in the fountains by Darling Harbor, enjoyed Starbucks on the water, went to Paddy’s market and visited the Sydney Aquarium. We did not make it to the Opera House but we will be back to visit within the next month.
Drive, Drive, Drive…… got new carpet for the van and installed it ourselves…Drive, Drive, Drive….
Finally, last Tuesday after about a week of driving we arrived at Rosella Roo which is the name of Daryl and Lynette’s property! It was absolutely breathtaking! They have made themselves a beautiful retreat out here! It was wonderful to meet new people and make new friends and be able to spend time with Alyce! Also at the house were Ronald and Sybil, Alyce and Lynette’s father and step mom, Evan and Les, caretakers and friends extraordinaire. They took us to Massimos, which is the best Gelato we have ever tasted! Jonathan was in heaven because Daryl let him use his shop to work on the van. Not only did he get to use the shop but Evan who happens to be allknowing when it comes to these “fix it” projects has been helping him out! The van got its pop top hinges fixed, rusted parts grinded away from the side and replaced new riveted sheet metal, 4 new tires on the rear (yes it has 6 in total) and we are getting ready to install a 2nd deep cycle battery for our fridge and fan! It already looks much better! We played endless games of SkipBo, had wonderful culinary journeys and experiments in the kitchen, shared favorite moments of Grandpa and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Oz East Coast - First 3500km.

Tasmania!!!

After four and a half months in Asia we finally landed in the wonderful world of Oz! Australia that is! The Western world has never seemed so fabulous!!! We met Catherine, Jonathan’s mom in the airport in Melbourne and hopped on a plane to head to Tasmania, a little island off the Southern coast of the mainland!
Tasmania was wonderful! Catherine had rented a car so we had freedom to explore and go anywhere on the island. The first day we drove through the Northern part of Tasmania from Launceston to Devonport. We stopped and got fresh cherries, raspberries, went to a cheese factory and a bakery! One of the things we were most excited about in traveling to Australia was that we would have access to dairy and wonderful dairy products. We hadn’t had good quality cheese or milk since we had left the US! Yum!
We continued to travel around the coast taking in the beautiful landscape and keeping our eyes open for any signs of wildlife! We explored parts of Cradle Mountain National Park and walked around Dove Lake in the freezing rain! The night we stayed in Cradle Mountain we got to go to the Tasmanian devil wildlife park and watch their feeding habits and we even got to pet one! It was really neat. After the park we got out our headlamps and while Jonathan drove Catherine and I searched the bush for wildlife. We saw wallabies, pademelons, a spotted-quoll, wombats and possums! It was so wonderful!
We celebrated our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Queenstown Tasmania. We went to mass on Christmas Eve and had a wonderful spaghetti dinner. On Christmas Day Jonathan made his State Fair winning green chili whiskey stew for dinner. He cooked it all day which of course made our little cabin smell delicious. I made chocolate chip cookies for our little something sweet on Christmas! We exchanged gifts and got some special little treats from home. That was really special for both of us! I especially loved getting a photo album that my family had put together for me!
The next day, which was Christmas back home, we got to call friends and family! I called my family who was all at my grandparent’s house from outside a café, while sitting in the car. It was pretty funny but we didn’t have any other way to get internet!
We finished up our trip in Tasmania by going to St. Clair National park to try to find the platypuses, going to Hobart to watch the end of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, exploring wine glass bay and nine mile beach!
On the 29th we headed back to Melbourne to spend a few days there before Catherine headed back to the US. On our first day we explored the Victoria Street market and other parts of the fascinating city. The next day we took a tour and got to experience some bush Billy tea, a ride on Puffing Billy a steam train, we did some wine tasting and got to get up close with some of the wildlife at the animal park! That night we celebrated New Years Eve by going to a wonderful dinner on Victoria Harbor and watching the fireworks off of the Yarra River! Happy 2008! It is going to be a wonderful year! Catherine left the next morning, we had a wonderful visit with her and it was such a treat to have her with us for part of our travels!
We had decided a while back that to explore Australia we were going to buy a campervan and than resell it before we left. And so we did! It is an old Ford Econovan that has been converted into a little camper! It has a stove, a sink, refrigerator and a bed! So now we are busy living, cooking, driving and sleeping in our little van! Mechanically it is a gem; it just isn’t the prettiest to look at…. So Jonathan and I have been busy doing things to spruce it up and coming up with ideas to make the outside more exciting!
We have been traveling in the van for about a week and are having a blast! It has been wonderful and definitely more cost efficient! We have beautiful pictures from the Great Ocean Road and are other travels but we will post those in the next blog since our Tasmania Album is already up!
Something to look forward to right?!
Love,
Tara and Jonathan


Tasmania and Melbourne