Thirty-Four Tetras: Catch up Blog

So I've been a bit slack in updating the blog this past couple of months...

Here's a bit of a run-down of some of the places we've been:

Bridport

Craig and Sharelle came down to visit for a few weeks in September/October. We only managed one weekend all together, so we went for a drive to Bridport (north coast).

We stopped at Lilydale Falls along the way

Despite the perfect opportunity to be immortalized on film, he refused to fall in...

Spring in Tassie - Daffodils growing wild

(seen along roadsides, in paddocks - pretty much all over the place)

We also stopped briefly at Bridestow Lavender Farm

Coast at Bridport

We had lunch at Bridport, then went for a walk through the Wildflower Reserve. There were plenty of flowers to photograph (I got well and truly left behind...)

We drove home via Low Head and stopped off to see the lighthouse (and to terrorise the penguins)(Craig)

Overlooking the mouth of the Tamar River

Lighthouse

Craig intruding on a poor penguin's privacy

(also prime opportunity to capture a penguin attack on film)

(disappointed again)

Binalong Bay

One of our favourite places to go mountain biking is Derby. Unfortunately the trails are about an hour-and-a-half's drive from here (which makes for a pretty long day), so we decided to combine a biking trip with an overnight camp at the southern end of the Bay of Fires.

Coast near Binalong Bay

We were hoping to drive north to The Gardens, but turns out the road was closed, so we turned back instead to camp at Swimcart Beach, close to Binalong Bay.

Our campsite

(and the BT loaded up with bikes)

Wandering along the beach

Lots of photogenic rocks

Including the lichen-covered boulders that the Bay of Fires is famous for

Aurora Chasing

We've never managed to top the shots we got of the Aurora on the 9th of September, but it's not for want of trying...

11th of September - faint colours under the clouds

(photobombed by a car)

2nd of October

(Ryan and Craig at Cressy - may not be the Aurora, but the milky way looks cool)

7th of October

(quick trip out for me after staying back late at work - rewarded with beams of light!!)

10th of October

(no Aurora so Ryan made some star trails instead - photobombed by a plane partway through...)

7th of November

(maybe the most colourful yet, just obscured by clouds)(sigh)

Mole Creek Caves

We made a spur-of-the-moment decision one rainy weekend in November to check out the Mole Creek Caves (a place we've driven close to many times but never stopped to see). We had a tour of King Solomon's Cave all to ourselves.

Which was packed with spectacular formations

More formations

And a couple of dodgy tourists

Followed by more formations

We stopped to check out the Alum Cliffs on the way home.

There was a sculpture along the track that consisted of some (very artistic?) beams of wood arranged on several boulders. Ryan hatched a cunning plan to make a superman-like leap off the end of one while I captured his attempt to fly with some rapid-fire shots on the camera.

Here goes...

It's possible that I messed up the camera settings so that rather than capturing a heroic flight I may have only gotten Ryan lying in the foetal position after landing not so gently on his ankle

(I wasn't his favourite person for a while after that)

(apparently the pain was all in vain...)

Hobart

We also decided that we better remedy the fact that we'd not yet visited Hobart, so we planned a weekend trip to see the city as well as Port Arthur.