Map of Tasmania!

Do you know what that is? Get yourself an Australian slang book and look it up if you don't and you'll get a giggle out of it :)

Two weeks ago, WR and I went on a quick but fun trip to the island of Tasmania, just south of Victoria. Tassie, as it's known here, is one of the last frontiers of Australia, still containing wilderness where no human has ever set foot in. Needless to say that we decided to leave that piece of history just the way it is and followed a fairly common tourist trail, being the first time here and all. Also, hotels, rental cars and food & wine down there aren't exactly cheap, and seeing that we're both currently not winning any bread, we thought that 3 days of hedonistic vroom and click should suffice, thank you very much! Tasmania was beautifully sunny until we arrived and decided to show us some blue sky and sunshine just before we left but for most of the time, it was rainy. No problem for our Seattlite but a bit depressing for the other half of the duo.

Thing is, though, we went to see the rainforests of Tasmania, and rainforests just aren't rainforests if it ain't rainin', so we got the authentic experience. It was pi$$ing down for most of the time really, once when WR was driving on the left side for the first time in her life, 'twas pretty scary. She also managed to lightly tickle another car while parking. It made the other car giggle for a short time but it didn't tell :)

Our trip was based on the famous Cradle Mountain, a beautful piece of jagged rock in the centre of Tasmania and UNESCO world heritage site in its own right. Of course it was freezing cold and raining sideways because of the wind blowing up there when we were there but we managed to snap at least a few shots of the peak. Here's one:

In the foreground is lovely Dove Lake, which you could circumambulate in 2 hours if the weather was decent, alas..it was one of the 9 out 10 days up there when it's not, so we chickened out after about 3 minutes of stoicalness.

Cradle mountain is also surrounded by an ethereal otherworldly landscape which is absolutely unique. I can honestly say I've never seen anything quite like it before. There was moss, lichen, pandanus, more moss, tree ferns, button grass, and about another 5,000 species you or I have never heard of. It was fantastic. Willierose just called me a plant nerd but I take it in stride. She loved it too but is just too cool to admit it.

There was a short walk around the lodge called the Enchanted Walk and enchanted we were. Here's just one shot. I'll upload some to my Flickr account soon so you can check them out when you have some time.




But the by far cutest thing was this little guy: The non-Australians reading this may not recognise it as readily as us VB-gargling folk but to the uninitiated it's a Vombatus ursinus or wombat. Ursinus means 'little bear' and you can kind of see why. When I snapped this shot he was standing on a tuft of grass and was scratching himself with his hind leg. Very very cute. Lots more happened but that's all I've got time for today. Hit us up on Skype or something if you want to know more.

Tooroo, possums!

Guido and Willierose

Seattle, Washington, USA!!! October 2008

Here's some great pictures of my dear Jennie's (and Alex's) beautiful wedding. It was SOOO fun! And absolutely, positively awesome to be hanging out with my best friends again.

G&W Crib

This is our new home! We don't have much in it yet, but we love it!

Cawongla

Here are a few pictures from Guido's parents' house in Cawongla

Hello there! We're really sorry that it's been so long since we've last posted anything. We're here in Australia now, in Melbourne. Here's what we've been doing: we arrived in Sydney in February. We stayed there for a week, and I met many of Guido's awesome friends! We had a really great time there. Thanks again to Greg, who let us stay at his place for a few days.

Next, we headed north to Guido's parents place in Cawongla which is a small town about 800 km away from Sydney. It's beautiful there and I loved G's parents' house. Arnie and Trudy Gautsch were lovely people, great cooks, fun to talk to and generally an enjoyable pair. They also have their own art gallery in the nearby city of Lismore. We stayed in Cawongla for a few weeks and relaxed on their quiet 10 acre property, and I even saw a few wallabies around the house.

Guido was offered a job teaching by the Department of Defense in Melbourne, so off to Melbourne we went! It took us a couple of weeks to find a place to live, but we finally found a great two bedroom townhouse in Seddon, a nice suburb of Melbourne. We love our place, and Guido is really liking his new job. We're still getting to know Melbourne, but so far, we think it's a great city. There are a lot a great shops, cute cafes, and delicious, cheap restaurants. The beaches are nearby, and not too crowded (although it is fall right now). We're sure we'll grow to love it since it looks like we're staying here a while.

Here are more pictures!

KL Pictures

Langkawi

So when we left Koh Lipe, we took the Tigerline Ferry straight to another island called Langkawi in Malaysia. It's only about an hour away from Lipe, but the difference between the two islands is huge. Langkawi is a major port and a duty free island so many tourists, Malaysian and foreign(mostly European), come to the island to do their vacation thing and their shopping thing. Our first night there was not so good; we ended up sleeping in an old, dirty hotel room with cracks, paint peeling in the floor and on the walls, and a big piece of plywood for a window. It was pretty crappy (but only $8!). We were eaten by a ton of mosquitos (thank goodness no other big bugs were in there, or else I would've freaked), and woken up by what sounded like wrestling from the floor above us at 6 in the morning. Needless to say, we packed our stuff the very next morning, and moved to this beautiful, new, and clean hotel called the Sweet Inn. We didn't do much in Langkawi, other than more beach-y stuff. The beaches, Cenang and Tengah, were really nice. They were big and there seemed to be hardly any people on them. The sand was like light brown sugar. The views of other islands from the beach were beautiful, and made for nice sunsets. We had some good food, drank really cheap beer (60 cents!), and walked around a bit. So that's why we don't have many pics from there-- we didn't wanna bore you with more beach pics.