The Longest Day.........

Our last day in Tasmania!!!  The time went to quickly for me, I don't even like to write it, even now.......all these months later!

We packed stuffed everything into our car, said good-bye to Willaway Apartments and headed off.

 

We stopped at Braddon's Lookout in Forth to have one last look at the countryside.

We stopped off at Dianne's and Graham's, Dianne and Katrina were there, so we got to say good-bye again!  I'm a glutton for punishment!  It was so nice of Katrina, Jason and Andrew to come all the way from Western Australia to see us.  Hopefully, on our next trip, we will be able to to to WA ourselves.

Joshua and Jessica wanted to stop at

Ashgrove Tasmanian Cheese

on our way to Launceston.  We had driven by there several times and the car park was always full, they wanted to see what it was all about.  I don't think the fact that there was "food tasting" involved had anything to do with their desire to have a sticky-beak??? he he he

 

The first thing that we noticed as we drove-up was the weird cows that they had at Ashgrove.

Judge for yourself!!

 

Here is one up close and personal, just in case you didn't get a good look at the first cow.

There are still a few hippies hanging around Tassie.

The tasting area and shop.

They even had a Milk Bar.

We came away with some yummy cheese, crackers and a cheese knife.

We climbed into the car once again and headed to Launceston.  This would prove to be quite a little adventure because I don't know my way around Launceston very well.  It did go better than I thought however!!!

We went to the main shopping area in Launceston and we were not terribly impressed.  We did find a nice place to have some lunch and then we walked to the monkey park.  I know this park probably has a proper name, but if you say, "Where is the monkey park?" everyone knows exactly where you want to go.

 

Monkeys at Monkey Park

Fish ponds

Sam swinging at the park

Sam and Mum going for a ride

This was Sam's favorite part of the whole day - riding the train.

We went to the Cataract Gorge to have a look.  It was very convoluted to get there, I had forgotten!  But, we finally did find our way there.

 

 This map made it look so easy......it lied.......big time........

We had a picnic with our cheese and crackers - very delicious.

The big kids went for a ride on the chairlift.......

There they are.......way up there in the air.

This photo doesn't do justice as to how high up they were.

 

The peacocks wanted to share our cheese.

Peacocks can run very fast........

but, so can Sam.

Suspension bridge over the Gorge.

We had enough........tired, border line cranky, so we headed off to the airport to turn in our rental car and wait for our flight.  Airports are not a great place to be when you are tired and border line cranky.  In fact, by the time we actually sat down in our seats on the airplane, we were no longer border line cranky........some of us more so than others.

The flight to Sydney was eventful.  Normally calm me offered to have Sam spend the last 15 minutes of the flight sitting on a certain gentleman's lap.  Joshua told the gentleman to settle down.  Jim was going to help him settle down.

The remainder of the flight I gave Sam free reign in kicking the back of the gentleman's seat.

Swearing at a 3-year-old child who was up way past his bedtime and happened to be autistic, didn't sit well with me.  He also swore at Joshua, but if you have seen Joshua lately, he could have probably taken care of himself.  Besides, the passengers sitting around us were on our side.  Moral of this story?  Don't mess with cranky Purdys.

The car they sent to take us to our apartment was way to small, so we had to wait for a bigger one to be sent.  Sydney had changed a lot since I was last there.  Our apartment was in the middle of the business district, had a great view and exceeded our expectations.

It was good to climb into bed.

Sally (don't mess with my kids) Ann