The first  big project on the agenda and one of the main reasons for Fabi to come back again (of course he came back mainly to see the de Vries family again) was the South Coast track (see seperate article). But there were smaller project on as well, such as shopping, Mt Wellington, pancake train and day trips to different national parks  for the next fortnight.

One of those trips went to the Hastings caves and the thermal pools. The caves were rather impressive with their stalagmites and stalactites, nothing in comparison in Switzerland.

Another day we made a trip to Mt Field National Park. This park is famous for its waterfalls and the platypusses living in the many streams and lakes. Unfortunately, platypusses are very shy and we didn't see any in this park. It's no good if you are quiet and all the other tourists chatter like gees.

After Mt Field NP and only a 30 minutes drive away is the quiet Styx Valley with its enormous gum trees situated. One of these huge trees is approximately 86m tall and the other one slightly shorter, nly 80m. They have been bigger in the past but storms helped to made them smaller bit by bit.

On the way back we went to Mt Field NP again in the hope of less people. But we were wrong and it had even more tourists. We had almost given up on seeing a platypus as we drove by an animal orphanage called 'something wild'. We tried our luke and shortly after standing quietly over an overlooking stream we saw one of those egg lying mammal.

The boys would have loved to go fishing once but unfortunately Johnnys boat wasn't fit. Luckily, on the very last day, Johnny got a call from the mechanic and he could pick it up. They went fishing with Fabis brand new fishing rod, a birthday present from the Swiss. Shortly after lunch they came back with 7 flatheads (they caught about 40 but only those were big enough...) which were skinned immediately and Mieke prepared them for lunch. Mmmh...

The fishing trip was the last we did in Tasmania. Fabi and Angi went back to Melbourne the very next morning where they caught up with Dani. Dani went to Melbourne four days earlier to explore the grat ocean road. To say goodby after such a great time wasn't easy as we really enjoyed the time with our old and new friends...