A possum and cricket

What people call 'possums' in the US are not especially cute, though they are (the internet says) the only North American marsupial.

Australian possums are another matter, however. There is one that likes to sneak into the top floor of the Old Quad building at Melbourne Uni (where most of the philosophy offices are). Colin has seen it at least three times, and happened to have his camera once:

Cute, eh? For context:

Australians don't seem especially fond of them. They're invading pests in New Zealand and Kiwis (the people, not the birds... or maybe the birds too) loath them.

Speaking of animal names which don't mean quite the same thing here:
When we moved to Melbourne, one of our goals was to figure out how the game of cricket worked. We don't have it totally figured out, but we now have a slightly better idea. A couple friends who follow cricket invited us to a game of what we were told was fake cricket ('20/20', it's called). The fake-ness came out of the fact that it lasts only about 3 hours. Real cricket games last 5 days.

The first thing we learned is that the basic dynamic in cricket is pretty straightforward. There are two people in the center of the field. When they swap places, their team gets a point. A ball gets thrown at one of them (bouncing off the ground), and he hits it. While the ball is away, they can swap places. If the ball goes a long ways away, they get multiple points. If the ball is caught, or comes back before the place-swapping is done, one of the place-swappers is out. Outs are bad. There are more details, but those are the crucial bits.

All of that is the wrong terminology, for the sake of US audiences. But we're not so clear on the proper terminology yet.

The second thing we learned is that there is a surprising amount of fire in cricket... at least at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds.

Fire when the teams come onto the field:

Fire when someone is out:

And fire during halftime (fireworks, really). We didn't catch that, but here's the smoke:

In addition to fire, there was a camera on a Segway, and a pretty sunset:

Tasmania! (More pictures, fewer words.)

Australia Day gave us the opportunity for a long weekend, so we spent the last four days of Liz's visit in Tasmania.
In four days, we made it to: Oatlands, Bicheno, the Freycinet Peninsula, the Tasman Peninsula and Hobart.

Oatlands!

This was a stop on the way to Oatlands: the town of Richmond. The above bridge is, they say, the oldest bridge in Australia. It was built by convict labor ('labour').

We were very excited about getting to Oatlands.

This is the main attraction of Oatlands: a restored and now operational windmill. We brought home a bag of stone-ground flour.

While we explored the windmill, Liz found a good spot to paint by a small lake/marsh.

Bicheno!

Bicheno is a small town north of Freycinet National Park (which was our main hiking destination). We weren't planning on doing much in Bicheno, but then found ourselves spending a couple hours walking along the coast there.

The famous 'Bicheno Blowhole.'

A wider view of the coast.

Freycinet!

Approaching the park. Those big things are called The Hazards. They're granite peaks that define the peninsula.

A view from the side of one of the Hazards of Wineglass Bay (the beach you're most likely to see in any book about Tasmania).

The beach looked even better up close.

This is a wild wallaby, stealing food from someone who had fallen asleep by the water. It had the look of an experienced thief. Colin shooed it away, but it showed no remorse.

On the other side of the peninsula from Wineglass Bay was Hazards Beach. Hazardously beautiful:

In fact, 'Hazard' was someone's name. The main hazard here was sunburn - the park listed the UV levels as 'EXTREME.'

The wallabies were smart enough to stay out of the sun:

A view from further north, looking south:

Our last stop in Freycinet was 'Friendly Beaches.'

Since it's what we would have asked: No, sadly, we did not see any Tasmanian Devils. Their population is being devastated by a disease (they're also nocturnal). Having seen their charming side in Healesville, we hope for the best...

Tasman Peninsula!

On the southeast corner of Tasmania is the Tasman Peninsula, which is best known for the infamous prison that was established at Port Arthur. We only briefly made it to the prison, since we got distracted by more natural beauty.

This is called the 'Tessellated Pavement.' For some complex geological reason, the rocks cracked in almost a perfect grid.

This used to be a sea-cave, long ago. Then the roof fell in, making it an arch.

At least one pamphlet claimed that the sea cliffs on the Tasman Peninsula were the highest in the Southern Hemisphere. We didn't measure them to check, but they were pretty awesome...

Hobart!

Our last day was spent in Hobart, Tasmania's capital and largest city. We didn't really have time to take much in, sadly. 

 This is Salamanca Place, a row of old buildings along the harbor with cafes and galleries.

This is the harbor. In the background is Mount Wellington, which you can see from most places in the city. Having a mountain define which direction was west made Colin feel a bit like being back in New Mexico.

Our main destination in Hobart was the newly-opened Museum of Old and New Art ('MONA'), built by a Hobart native who made millions in gambling and wanted to give something back. The thing on the left is fairly representative of what was in the museum.

Now we're back to our usual routine. Colin has a few weeks to prepare for the semester, and Naomi's work is going well. We hope February is being kind to all our friends and family up north!