busy (making memories)

over the past few months life has taken a rather busy turn - the most obvious cause being our preparations for our relocation to WA.

Less obviously, we have been spending our time trying to experience and re-visit our favourite places on this dear little isle before we leave. when we made the decision to leave Tassie we had no doubt in our minds that we wanted to see some more of the pretty place we've called home for the last five years. so we made a bit of a list...

...and we've accomplished an unbelievable number of scenic adventures over the last few weeks - a weekend away at our dream tasmanian destination cradle mountain (that one was kid-free - yay!), a day in the snow and an afternoon at hollybank forest reserve just to name a few - and have just been loving every minute of it. and when you know that its probably going to be your last time at these places for a while, you really try and make the most of it. and autumn/winter are really not a bad time to explore this place :)

king billy walk - cradle mt lodge

cradle valley

a snow-streaked cradle mountain

eamon at the snow, arthur's lake

arthur's lake (edges were frozen!)

eamon at hollybank forest reserve

the avenue, hollybank

winter wonderland

although technically winter has finished, the snowy season has not! last week tassie was still experiencing some ferocious dumps of snow (apparently it was even in WA news!) particularly around the cradle mountain area.

we took little mate up to the lakes a few weeks ago for his first snowy experience. nature put on such a wonderful show! it was truly beautiful.

eamon seemed to enjoy the adventure too - he spent a lot of time giggling and laughing as he was carried around with daddy... they did lots of boy things like breaking up ice on frozen lakes and kicking snow around and getting as far away from mum as possible so she couldn't take photos of them. unluckily for them i still managed a few :)

a taste of winter

last week, after a day of bitter coldness, the clouds parted to reveal a luscious white blanket of snow over mt. barrow and ben lomond.

i wasted no time at all and made it up the smaller of the two just as the sun was setting.
the little puddles on top were frozen and orange light was reflected in the frozen water on the snow covered bushes.

a much angrier mountain than it looks! it put up quite a fight in letting me + my little car get to the top but that is quite another story altogether. a frightening one at that. i will know never to casually and somewhat naively drive up a snow covered mountain pass on my own again!

not to worry, the views were well worth the prior moments of panic as i faced the thought of hours in the cold while i waited to be rescued! all good fun. and yes it was utterly freezing up there...i can't begin to describe how painfully cold my hands were after taking the photos!