Day Two - Devonport to Poatina

The kids spent their first day in Tassie today. We had a smooth sailing with a minor swell for an hour or so before the waters calmed. When the 5:30 wake-up call came, the girls were ready but the boys needed a bit of coaxing to get out of bed. A few went straight back to sleep as the bus pulled out of the Devonport terminal.

We had a quick breccy at Maccas before the long and curvy drive to Cradle Mountain. We are amazed that no one has been seasick or bus sick yet. Wayne Priest has been an excellent driver and is keeping us laughing and joking. Maybe that's the secret.

Today we toured Waldheim Hut, an Edwardian mountain retreat built by an Austrian migrant and his Australian sweetheart, before walking through a Myrtle Beech and King Billy Pine rainforest, admiring the forest giants, many of which are thousands of years old. We finished off our explorations with a guided tour of Dove Lake, where we learned about glacial landforms and the unique features that make the Tasmania Wilderness a World Heritage area. The mountain itself remained elusive. We only ever saw a ghostly outline of Cradle Mountain's iconic shape, but the rainbow over the lake and the mountain's snow drifts made up for what we missed. The wombats also came out to play rolling around in the buttongrass as we passed.

Isaac and Liana entertained us on our journey with their smooth ukelele playing as we descended into Sheffield. Our students quickly made some wraps and then we explored the town famous for its murals. The rain set in shortly after our arrival, so we pushed on to Poatina a little earlier than expected.

We are now based at Poatina for a couple of days. Poatina is a 1950s worker's village built for the construction of Tasmania's hydroelectricity scheme. The village is part intentional Christian community for those in need and part artist's colony. We were hosted to an excellent chicken parmi dinner with pear crumble and custard for dessert by the volunteers. Tomorrow we will be involved in a service project for the town and plan to visit a glassblower's workshop.

Our students finished the evening with a devotional activity before having messages from home read out. If you continue posting to the blog, we will share your sentiments with the group. All the kids who receive messages were glad to hear from home and Hannah is pleased that the she won't miss the best of the Bachelor while she is away! 

Please keep the messages coming!