All4adventure/Natureworld

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Our first break at Friendly Beach

We are ready to go!

Can you find Rudd?

I went first through the puddle.

We had a really fun day. In the morning, we headed back to Freycinet National Park. We were going on quad bikes in the park with ALL4Adventure. We were trained on how to use the vehicles and demonstrated our skill before heading out.  Rudd and I rode on regular quads. Adam and the kids road together on a Polaris Ranger. We road out to Friendly Beach. We stopped once along the way to look at a place where people had stayed when working in the tin mine. The beach was really white and the water a beautiful blue. We had morning tea. The kids drank hot chocolate and we had coffee. Sam, our guide, also brought cookies. We got back on the quads for another ride.

Adam, Sydney and Dagan coming out of the puddle.

 There were quite a few puddles on the trails. I went through much slower than Rudd and Adam. Dagan loved when Adam soaked them, and Sydney not so much. After a while, she figured out to bend her head, and the water went over her helmet instead of soaking her sweatshirt.

Dagan having lunch on a rock.

Rudd at lunch

At Bluestone Bay after lunch

View at Bluestone Bay

We rode out to Bluestone Bay. As we came down the hill to the bay, the view was absolutely spectacular. With the cliffs and blue water, it was hard to pay attention to the steep trail. When we got on the beach, Sam told us to find golf ball sized stones that were smooth. Then he showed us how these will bounce. It was the first time we had ever seen a rock bounce and was really fun. We had lunch on the beach.   It was a great spot. After lunch, we rode back to the starting point. We were gone for 4 1/2 hours.  It was so much fun that all of us could do it again!

A mom and baby kangaroo

Fallow Deer

The kids were too nervous to try to feed the ostrich.

Tasmanian Devil

After our great ride, we went to Natureworld. The kids wanted Rudd to feed a kangaroo. It was a nice wildlife park. We saw some unusual pheasants, different parrots than we had seen before, wallabies, Tasmania paddmelon, quolls, fallow deer, an ostrich, emus, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, bettong, and more.

a colorful pheasant

Tiger snakes

We also watched them move 13 venomous tiger snakes from one enclosure to another. Sydney and I got to touch the tail of one of them. At each wildlife park we have gone to, we have seen different animals found in Australia. It is really neat. The best part is that we stayed for the Tasmanian devil feeding. We learned more about them and at the end got to "pat" one of them. It is softer and more muscular than you would think.

Rudd feeding a wallaby.

Two Tasmanian Devils

This kangaroo kept bugging Adam for food.

We were able to pat a Tasmanian Devil.

We were all rather tired by the time we got back to the cabin. Dagan and I went down to the water after dinner. We wanted to see what the blowhole looked like. It wasn't high tide, so the water didn't shoot up, but we enjoyed our hike on the rocks.

We are headed to another part of Tasmania tomorrow. It will be fun to explore another place.