Same drill: fed, caffeinated, and on the road by 10. Today’s drive took us back on the same road that we took yesterday, but in the opposite direction so we got a whole new set of views. Beautiful once again.

There were lots of “watch out for wombats” signs which I thought were cute and quaint until we saw a dead wombat on the side of the road. And then another. And then one in the middle of the lane on its back, legs up to the sky, and blood coming out of its mouth. It was a wombat massacre. We arrived at our hotel without hitting any.

We were hungry so had lunch in the hotel restaurant. Millie played her first game of pool and won.

In the room she dressed up like me and did an impression of me. It is always so funny (and humbling) to see how kids see us.

At about 2 we headed to the Cradle Mountain National Park visitor’s center. We got our park passes and took the shuttle into the park. We are here all day tomorrow so started easy with some walks around the base. Everything was well-signposted and beautiful. I don’t know how many times in my life I will need to relearn this lesson but today was one of them: I feel most peaceful in nature.

The trail had these special little informational tunnels just for kids, and Millie had a scavenger hunt so she was happy as ever. The secret to getting her to do anything seems to be scavenger hunts. On the sheet it had information about various scat and how to identify them. Did you know wombats’ poop cubes? They are the only animal in the world to do so. To which I say: challenge accepted. Anyway, I was VERY excited when we spotted some cubes of wombat shit.

At the very end of the trail we came upon the man himself, a real wombat. We have seen some in zoos but they are always burrowed and sleeping, so this was the first awake and alive wombat I’ve ever seen. I love them.

After 2 hours of very easy hiking we rewarded ourselves with a beer at the tavern. We had them overlooking the lake. Another day of perfect weather.

I said to Nick right after I took this photo “I can’t believe I want to go home and get a job. This is exactly what I’ll miss when we’re back.” He agreed, but then also said “but I really want to go home.” Dorothy was right.