Dove Lake at Cradle Mountain in Tazmania. During our two hour visit we experienced rain, snow, sun, and wind! What an amazing place!

On the way to Nella's house we stopped for cows crossing the road.... lots and lots of cows....

Here's a photo of the Tazmanian devil making his famous sacry face. He can open his mouth 90 degrees!

More on Tazmania...

We stayed with the librarian Nella, and her husband Richard who live in a house about 3o minutes outside of Launceston in northern Tazmania. Nella is responsible for making all the connections that brought us here. They VERY generoulsy put all three of us up for 4 days! Their house was out in the county surrounded by beautiful fields of cattle and sheep. An adopted peacock strutted around the oustide and making regular appearances at the windows!

Tazmania was amazing! The highlight of our trip there was a visit to Cradle Mountain to see the endangered Tazmanian Devils. We ere given a private tour at the privately funded research and rescue center, and even got to pet one! This amazing animal is dangerously close to extinction so it was a sobering experience. The man in the photo expertly picked up the devil by the tail (so he wouldn't get bitten) and the devil immediately snuggled into his arm. We witnessed babies playing and adults sunning themselves on rocks, and heard the amazing sounds they make. Shannon descrbed it as kind of like a cross between a fighting cat and a barking dog. It's VERY loud!

We were of course horrified to see a nativity scene along with a Chrsitmas tree and Santa's chair at the mall in Canberra! This would NEVER happen in the U.S.!

Be sure to visit Shannon's blog of our adventure, as she is the true bloogging guru! It's schinag-o-blog.blogspot.com

Just a note. ... This and the previous blog post are dated Sunday, but it's actually Monday here!

We are staying with our incredibly generous hosts, Nella and Richard. They live in a house they built themeselves,which is about 30 minutes outside of Launceston in the north of Tazmania. Yesterday they took us to Cradle Mountain, where there is a wildlife preserve that has Tasmanian Devils. It's really the only place you can see them, as the species is nearly extinct due to a fast-spreading cancer. They are SO cute- I will download photos later today. We even got to pet one! We also saw an echidna on the way home. It quickly curled up in a ball, hiding it's head. But we got a close up look at its quills which was very exciting! We also stopped at famous chocolate place (to be extensivly reivewed on Shannon's blog, I'm sure) and had tea at a little place with live bagpipe music!

Jim, Shannon, and I are getting quite silly with all the travel, and I'm glad our workshop is today. I imagine Nella (the librarian who put her reputation on the line hiring us sight unseen- and seeling us to the others on our tour) might have been wondering if we were capable of giving a serious presentation after witnessing us in contant giggles the last two days!

We continue to be amazed by the incredible landscape, people, language, and sights of this incredible country, and look forward to two whole days of sightseeing in Melbourne following our presentations.

I'll try to post some photos later today.... Ta Ta for now!

Christmas shopping, anyone?

Today we slept in (well, Shannon slept in- I snuggled in bed with my Starbucks Via and Kindle w/ booklight). Either way, it was wonderful and just what we needed. Our workshops went really well yesterday, and we all felt finally we said everything we meant to!

The morning was spent at the local mall shipping books home (by boat), as we have all surpassed our alotted weight.... Then a mall breakfast of waffle with fresh strawberries, whipped cream AND ice cream! Crazy! It seems like everything order comes with some sort of cream! The mall here was quite different, and as you will see when I get a chance to upload some photos, in full Christmas decor! There is even a Santa chair and full nativity along with a 2-story Christmas tree! Fa la la la la, Mate!

We are in Melbourne waiting for our connecting flight to Tazmania where we'll be until Saturday night. Can't wait to see what we're told is this magical place!!

We are beginning to imitate each other's presentations, which is pretty hilarious. I keep telling Jim to leave the room so he doesn't have to sit through mine, but he claims to be learning all of my songs (which, but the way, he will TOTALLY change!).

Well, here we go again!! Up, up, and away... Ta!

Day whatever...

O.k., I know Shannon is doing a great job, but I feel like I need to chime in.

We are having a fabulous time (of course), but we're getting to the point where we don't have a clue where we are or what day it is! The weather is just starting to warm up, and I actually bought a hat today! Those of you who know me know that I DON'T do hats, so this is a big deal. The uv rays here are particularly dangerous, and all of the school children have mandatory hats in addition to school uniforms. "No hat, no play!"

We awoke in the capital city of Canberra this morning. So far it's pretty steril compared to the other places we've been. We'll have tomorrow to poke around until our flight leaves at 5 PM.
We've reached out weight limits for flying (actually we were over and had to do some fancy rearranging amongst our bags), so we're going to have to send some things home. People keep giving us books, so you can see how this would be a problem. Little Jonathan is going to have a nice little library by the time I get home!

Everyone has been so wonderful to us, and we feel like we are leaving good friends behind each time we go. It's intersting how similar the track to early literacy is between our countries, and it's been fun for me to just have to tweak some of my lyrics to make a song fit the culture. For example, I have a song that has "penny" in it, and the smallest coin here is 5 cents. They don't actually have a name for the coins, like "nickel." But they do have very cool animals on the coins, so I've changed the song lyric to "platypus." How fun is that?

We have settled into a nice routine with our workshops, and could probably present for each other in our sleep at this point!

Shannon's reporting on chocolate bars in her blog, so I feel I should say a word about the coffee... THANK YOU Starbucks for making the Via instant! I brought a box of 12, and I've begun rationing myself! It is WONDERUL and has saved me as we have only had time to make coffee in the rooms. Purchased coffee is made with "full milk cream," which really is cream WOW! I've been forced to use that in my coffee. Oh well--- if I must!

I finally purchased my first coffee today, and it was quite good ( of course, made with full cream!).

Well, I guess that's it for now. We hear there are kangaroos hopping around in the wild here, so hope to see some later today!

That's it for now!

Hello Everybody! I'm off to Australia tomorrow, and thought I'd document the trip. I'm travelling with two fabulous children's librarians- Shannon Schinagl and Jim Thomas. We'll be visiting Sidney, Canberra, Adelaide, Tasmania, and Melbourne. We'll be gone for about two weeks. I'll keep you posted!