Douglas-Apsley National Park, Tasmania

When you are doing a trip like this with kids you have to pick and choose what walks you do.  If it was just the two of us we’d do more, I’m sure.  But with the kids we have to choose carefully.  Balance a long walk with a couple of short ones.  Hard, steep walks with easy ones.  This was a short, easy walk with a waterhole at the end. JitterBug spied this log and started bouncing on it, marvelling at how he could move the whole log.  He looks serious because he is concentrating on throwing his weight into it. TurboBug observed, and after his brother stepped down he went straight over for his turn. He wasn’t quite as successful at moving the log, but he tried.  🙂 We reached the waterhole at the end and JitterBug was determined to go in.  Apparently it was freezing.  So I’m told.  He stood there shivering for most of the time, watching some other boys in their wetsuits jump right in. When the kids wear their footy shirts they often receive comments about the merits of their team (or lack of merits in many cases!).  On this day they enjoyed much discussion with a couple who came down to the waterhole while we were there.  As we talked we thought they seemed familiar and finally worked out that we’d seen them on the ferry on the way over to Tasmania a couple of weeks before.  Dad jumped in.  He’s a little crazy but we keep him anyway. You can see the scratch on LadyBug’s cheek that she got from a fall riding her bike.  It was superficial and has healed nicely, fortunately. TurboBug busied himself throwing rocks in the water.  It’s what toddlers do. The others set off exploring. JitterBug started collecting rocks.  He had this whole story worked out about them and he was telling me all about it in this picture.  It was so cute, but I can’t remember any of it now. Then they started collecting gold rocks, pretending they were pirates with treasure.  I’d love to tell you they all played nicely, but instead one got upset that the other one had bigger rocks.  In the meantime, this one found a rock just his size. On the way back we found a wallaby next to the path.  He didn’t stay long. I’m including this picture solely because it shows my fabulous sunhat.  LadyBug must have had the camera at this point.  Isn’t my hat the best hat ever?  Perfect, lovely hat.  😉 More LadyBug snapshots… This park was a short drive from Bicheno.  The waterhole looks to be a popular spot.  There are other walks to be done at this park, but this one suited us the best that day.