Lil' bebe

Wow wee! Here's our baby. We had this pic taken yesterday and watched the lil' thing on the big screen for about 15min. A-mazing. It was holding its hands together and moving its legs and bouncing all over the shop. All looks "perfect" according to the radiographer and we counted 5 fingers on each hand and checked out the tibia and fibula and everything. She could even tell if it had had a drink that morning by what was in it's tummy. I was having the Nuchal Translucency test for Downs Syndrome. At 36 I'm in a very high risk category to start with but after all the blood and ultrasound info was punched into the computer for the probability result...I came in so low the probability was average for a 15 year old mum not a crusty 30-something. How puffed up was my ego do you think?! We are overwhelmed by the creation of life and the goodness of The Author.

Yeh, this is what you want to see

I spent our holiday looking in the mirror and asking M, "Do you reckon I'm showing yet or is this all just lunchtime's fish and chips?" It wasn't really until today and I changed the winter gear for the t-shirt when I realised The Cashew was all grown up. I'm so proud. I've got more photos of my tummy to blog but somehow I think I may lose an audience if I get into the habit of just posting pregnancy information. I've just finished another bowl of macaroni cheese but while we were away I couldn't get enough Chicken 2 minute noodles. Nothing else satisfied.

Tasmania Highlights for Michael & Rachel

We are back from 2 weeks in Tas. We have never had so much sleep or eaten so much. A good getaway where we hired a car for 2 weeks and clocked up 2000+ kms as we did a loop around the state. It's tiny. The weather was superb all the time. It's hard to get a good coffee. We went to incrediblely beautiful sites. Their news is very 'small town' and didn't hear a word about the rest of the world except the Californian bushfires. Tried to buy an Australian newspaper many times but they didn't stock them. I found some great places to eat and buy handcrafted goodies. So, below are the highlights according to each of us.

Moss highlight for Rachel

Tasmania has heaps of different types of moss and lichen. I love all of it. I took photos of all of it for one day when I've a textile designer and I need organic inspiration.

Port Arthur for Michael

The infamous Port Arthur was both beautiful and haunting. So much pain in one place. Our friend Adrian's father was killed in the shootings there and so the remembrance site was particuarly moving. Even though we see so much turmoil around us, after hearing many stories about how they used to 'reform' people (or try to) I'm convinced as a society we've never treated people so well as we are now....and that's an incredible thought. After travelling thru Tassie and hearing lots of stories of convicts and ministers and settlers and housewives, I still believe in our time we are generally understanding of people and their issues. But we aren't even half way there.

Tesselated Pavement for Rachel

I absolutely love these rocks. These were just by the edge of the sea somewhere and it was fascinating.

Wildlife for Michael

While we were marvelling over the rock formations we were joined by this baby seal. Oh so cute.

Adventurous plane rides for Michael

This was a great day. We took a day trip to the south of Tasmania - the World Heritage Wilderness that is generally uninhabited except for a few crazy bushwalkers who think walking for 5 days is fun. We landed on this tiny airstrip made of quartz and spent the day being shown around the area - on foot and by boat. It was amazingly ruggard and remote. The history of this place is made up of a few reclusive characters who've mined the area for tin all their life. It took one man 3 years just to build this airstrip. The same guy would carry 50kg bags of smeltered tin on his back, through swamps, for 4 hours to get it to the coast. And then row heaps of these backs in a tinny through the surf to the fishing boats who would take it to Hobart port. Tin was his livelihood so if he had to get 15 bags of tin to the port, he'd spend all week doing it the hard way.

High altitude lakes for Rachel

This was great. Maybe if we'd been to Patagonia we would this this was similar.

Horizons that go forever for Michael

M loves this photo. It had recently snowed so there was a dusting of whiteness on everything.

Wilderness meandering for Rachel

I love nothing more than seeing an old, old river from the air.

Stanley for Rachel

There's this cute little town called Stanley which is famous for 'The Nut' which is the core of an ancient volcano that won't go away. We took the chairlift to the top and had a look at Bass Straight from on high. We stayed at the red-ish pub in the middle of the picture. The population of Stanley is about 600 but they have 40 B&Bs.

Cradle Mt for both of us

We did the 2 hour walk around Dove Lake at Cradle Mt. It was a spectacular day and I hardly complained at all....even though I am pregnant as you can see. The wind was cool and the sun was warm and it was beautiful.

Gordon River World Heritage for Michael

Another World Heritage site - this time by boat up the Gordon River. It was a great day, stopping off at a convict island (Sarah Island) and having a walk through ancient forests. The lunch on the boat should get a mention too since food in Tassie needs all the encouragement it can get.

Huon Pine for Rachel

What an amazing tree. They are the 2nd oldest tree in the world and extremely slow growing. This particular one is fallen over (but still alive) and is 2200 yrs old. Because of the particular oils in the pine, they do not deterioate. They've recently dug one out of a swamp in Tassie which has been wet for hundreds of years and the wood is still good as gold. The forest in this area was choc-a-bloc full of moss and thousands of years of leaf litter and fallen trees. It was beautiful.

Surprise!

Hard to tell from this photo who he/she takes after, but nevertheless, here is the sign that our lives will change forever. We are 11 weeks pregnant and eating alot of macaroni cheese. Don't ask why, it's just the only thing I feel like eating at any time of the day. Michael has named it "cashew" and I'm milking the all-day sickness to avoid cooking, cleaning, entertaining, washing up and getting-up out of bed. It hasn't been bad but just a tingley tongue all the time that usually indicates you are getting ready to vomit. I haven't needed to use the toilet the wrong way around and I'm hoping my days of nausea are nearly over.

We are expecting the Cashew to introduce itself to us around the 1st May next year. Good eh?

We are heading down to Tasmania on Saturday for 2 weeks of holiday bliss. I'm looking forward to takeaway macaroni cheese every night and being propped up in a motel bed every night with a remote control. And....apparently Tassie is beautiful. Getting pregnant was the only way I could think of saying 'no' to Michael's idea of a 5 day white water rafting adventure in icey water and never-dry wetsuits in October. Ugh.