Shack Weekend

Tasmanians have this endearing habit of calling their beach houses "shacks".  We're not sure why.  But if nothing else calling a place a "shack" is a great way to resist the urge to over-fancy it up.  Last weekend we went with some friends to a shack in the delightful seaside town of Bicheno, two and a half hours or so from Hobart.  We walked on the beach and went for a bushwalk to a billabong and stayed up late at night drinking wine and playing games and slept late the next morning.  All good.  Plus, there were penguins nesting under the bushes around the back porch, and in the woodpile, and under the house itself, and they all groaned and roared through the night.  Too cool.  Our friends ended up staying an extra night, but we had to get back to town as the dogs we're watching at our current house-sit needed our attention.  Plus the fact that I'm heading to New Zealand this week to look at a boat, then I'll turn around two days after I'm back in Tassie to fly to the States for a three-week work trip.  Things are suddenly feeling a little rushed.

Top picture is backyard cricket at the shack - the dads are playing and the four year olds are lying around in the grass.  Middle picture is of the mob on the bushwalk, and the bottom picture is Elias drinking out of the billabong.  He LOVED drinking this way, and did it over and over, though inevitably it ended with a slide into the water, soaked clothes, and tears.