day one

Barely been on our trip a few hours, and already Conner is wiped out. It's hard work to sit in the back of a motor home, watching TV and drinking juice.

After an hour of driving, and being thrown around in the back, Wes the navigator, somehow discovered this beach out of nowhere. We don't have a clue the name of it or anything. But it was a nice little break.


Apparently, Conner hadn't got enough sleep... or he just finds beautiful Tasmanian beaches incredibly boring.


Here's some video of us at the nameless beach. It's not the greatest quality, but it's better than nothing! And if you hear some silly comment in the background about the moon being bigger in Australia... that is a joke courtesy of a family we met when we first moved here. They are also from Canada, and are desperately in love with Australia, and told us in all seriousness that they believed the sky, sun, and moon were bigger here. You be the judge...

day two

One of the greatest things about going on vacation... you get to eat disgusting cereal, like Fruit Loops.

Awww... all the boys lazing around together. Reid especially looks as sweet as an angel.

There was a great little park at our first stop over... Reid had a great time with this digger... and he wasn't the only one, as you'll soon see.

Here's our other boy who loved the digger... ahhh... to be so young and innocent again...


So... Reid spent all that time digging up the sand and piling it together so he could make a mountain. And five seconds after he walked away from his creation... along came Conner...

And he destroyed all of Reid's hard work.


When you have nothing better to do than drive around and look at scenery... you get great ideas, like lets stop and take pictures of hollowed out trees... and after you do that, you all go and stand inside the tree. You would think the boys would have loved the idea... but surprisingly enough, they weren't too thrilled with it.

You will be surprised and amused to know, that Wes has a deep love of lighthouses... just something I have discovered in the past few months... just when you think you know a person...

Now here we are on the worlds most deceiving hike. We were led to believe that it would take about half an hour to get to a lookout of wineglass bay (supposedly the second most beautiful beach in the world), but in reality it took us almost an hour... and it was torturous, uphill all the way... steep and rocky... and the only members of the family who complained were Jarom and I... and honestly, Jarom had good reason, because he is a little on the clumsy side, and his little ego can only handle so much tripping and stumbling before he gets all embarrassed and starts to cry. And so, here we are on one of our rest breaks, the boys exploring a weird looking rock... which unfortunately ate Wes' head... something you'd think we'd be upset about, seeing as he was our driver... but we managed the ordeal pretty well.

And here it is... wineglass bay... to be honest we thought it might be a little more spectacular... but after you look for awhile, it really is beautiful, with all the nice mountains behind, and it is completely secluded. It would have taken another hour for us to make it to the beach... and because we didn't want to die on only our second day of touring Tasmania... we opted to go back to the motor home and have some lunch instead. And as you can see by how deserted the beach is, we weren't the only people to feel that way.

Here's the family, alive, and in one piece and actually looking pretty happy. But in the backs of our minds, we were all secretly dreading the walk BACK down the mountain.

But before we trekked back... the boys naturally had to climb on all the dangerous rocks and squeeze into places that just weren't meant for people to be...

Look closely... Jarom is not happy in the least to be there... his screams and cries could be heard echoing throughout the valley.

The cutey pies... Reid, Conner, and Jarom... in case you've forgotten.

After such a long and slightly dangerous day, what else could Conner do but try to call for someone to come and rescue him from his crazy family. Either that, or he just wanted to reach someone and beg them to change his seconds-from-exploding diaper.

I was going to share some video of wineglass bay, but it was a little boring, and doesn't show much more than the pictures, and I thought you might prefer to see some video of the boys... so here they are at the park. And at the end you can catch a glimpse of our beautiful motor home.

day three

Conner's favourite position in the motor home. Laying down, drinking juice, and watching Finding Nemo. We never want to see that movie again...

Reid and Jarom weren't always content to watch movies though... they spent most of their time wrestling around the bed, but then every once and awhile they would relax and be the little angels they really are, and sit and colour.

Here's the nice view we had of Wes a lot of the time... although he didn't always have the map stuck in his face. It would get in the way of him speeding as fast as he could over the bumpy, narrow roads of Tasmania.


The point of this picture is the speed limit signs... there seems to be a bit of a conflict here. Take your pick I guess...

As soon as the vehicle would stop, Conner would run up to the drivers seat and kick his daddy out. And there he would sit and play with the steering wheel... and the wipers... and the indicators, and pretty much everything else he could get his hands on. In this picture, he couldn't stand to leave the seat even to eat his lunch. So... he ate it there.

Cradle mountain... this was the place we were hoping to see some snow... as you can obviously see, there is no snow, which was disappointing, but we were compensated in the fact that we discovered the place where rainbows end... take a look at the next picture for the proof.

There you go... the end of the rainbow! After all this time, being told there is no end to rainbows... we make this discovery. Unfortunately, as you can see, someone already nabbed the pot of gold... greedy thieves. Where were the leprechauns to guard it? Wasting their time drinking in Ireland... someone should have told them they should be living in Tasmania.

Look off to the top right under the fog on that mountain... a pathetic little patch of snow. Didn't satisfy us in the least.

I know what you're thinking... what a cheery looking place. And to think it only took us two hours to drive there.

day four

Despite the ordeal of hiking to wineglass bay, we felt pretty good about this walk to Nelson Falls, as you can see by the description of it on the sign... easy grade. Like the sound of that.

So, we bundled ourselves up... freezing cold, after all :) and set out in the drizzly rain forest to see what we could see. It ended up being a really nice walk, really beautiful stuff.


Nelson Falls... of course. The picture looks black and white, but really it was so dense at this point in the forest, I don't think our camera could deal with it. Still a nice picture though...

In honour of all the Coates' out there. It's even spelled right... how nice!

Make your judgement... is it dead or alive? Poor little Conner had the hardest time figuring out what to make of this cat. He could poke it and pet it as much as he liked, and it wouldn't fight back at all. Yeah, that's right... we let him touch a stuffed cat. Gross...

The dead cat (and many other stuffed animals) were part of a tourist center at a place called Lake St.Claire. It was a really nice place, actually, out in the middle of nowhere. It had a really good little restaurant where we had some lunch... and which ultimately caused some incredible grief to our sensitive soul Jarom...

The story goes like this... Jarom had a ham and cheese sandwich for his lunch, which he didn't finish. But when we got up to leave, he decided he would grab it and finish it off as we walked to see the lake. Little did he know, that there was a big flock of dare devil birds hanging around outside... and we had barely walked a few feet, before they all swooped down at us, and one of the nasty little things snatched the sandwich right out of Jarom's hands. Poor Jarom was so stunned at first, it took him awhile to realize what had actually happened. But once he figured it out, the tears came flowing like crazy! And he could not be consoled. No matter how much we tried to convince him that it was neat that he got to feed the birds...

day five

Our last day was spent just hanging out and relaxing in Hobart. And because there was a minigolf place where we were camping out, we really had no choice but to play. Even if it was raining a little.


Just check out that technique on our youngest son... he's going to be a pro some day.


Reid had the most fun of anyone I think. He ran ahead and played the whole course before the rest of us had done half of it. But that didn't stop him from playing it again.

Conner thought the way to play was that you watched someone hit the ball, and then you had to run after it, and pick it up and bring it back to the person who hit it. See the determination on his face... he took his job very seriously.


Yeah, we know that hat makes his head look humongous.


And our final stop was the chocolate factory... sorry no pictures or video... we weren't allowed. But it was a neat place, and we did get fed some chocolate, but I wouldn't really consider it 'free' samples, seeing as we had to pay to take the tour in the first place. It smelled soooo good in there.


Some video of our minigolfing adventure.