Trains, Planes, and Bicycles: We get by with a little help from our friends

Along with excitement to embark on our trip way back in March, we also felt sadness to say good-bye to all our friends. We rely on them so much for support, love and laughter, and we wondered whether that void would be hard to fill as we left it all behind. Fortunately along the way we've had wonderful relationships with old friends and new, and nowhere more so did they sustain us than in Tasmania.

Demonstrating the uniqueness of travel relationships, where it is possible to have brief encounters with previous strangers which have lasting impacts, was our encounter with Melissa in Turkey, who'd spent extensive time in Tasmania and couldn't recommend it enough to us. Her enthusiasm and love for the island were all that we needed to convince us to devote more time there.

And the value of old friends was brought home when I saw Kara. Visiting her while we were in Tasmania was high on my agenda.

I first met her when I was just a year older than Jacob. I immediately loved her sense of humour and independence, and was glad to be a part of her life. Being so far apart meant it has sometimes been hard to keep in touch, so the time we had in Tasmania to reconnect was priceless.

Melissa and Kara had both given us extensive suggestions of what to do, and Kara's assistance with planning our time went far above and beyond helpful. Not only did she book Picaninny cottage and wallaby friendly Fortescue campground,

make inquiries about transportation, and even return our rental car for us, she also hosted us near the beginning, middle and end of our time in the state. Meanwhile Ben, who we'd only met since coming to Tassie, and who could understandably have been reticent about sharing his space with a family of five (including an especially boisterous six year old), instead made us feel incredibly welcome, cooking us bbq dinners, delicious pancake breakfasts and more. Ben's daughter Olive gave up the privacy of her room, letting us make it our base and putting up with Tom's constant companionship (euphemism for pestering).

A shared love of the outdoors and a passion for bicycles meant Paul and Ben had a great rapport.

Ben introduced Paul and Jacob to the joys of mountain biking down Hobart's Mount Wellington

and told us all about Derby's amazing trails.

The kids found such joy in the friendships we had in Tasmania as well. With Olive they had fun at home on the beach, and leaping onto bean bags at MONA, the incomparable Museum of Old and New Art.

To say the gallery is unique would be an understatement. For one, it is funded primarily through the proceeds of founder David Walsh's professional gambling syndicate. Secondly, it is no mere collection of art, but an entire experience. When we got there we sat and picknicked on a cornucopia Ben had brought - fresh rolls, cucumber and tomatos, ham, salads and chips - on the bean bag chairs, metres away from works of art and buildings of the highest design standards, while resident chickens and peacocks wandered over.

A live jazz band played on stage, and Violent Femmes guitarist Brian Ritchie, who is a curator of the famous MONA festivals, wandered by. The one of a kind visit continued with a walk through the mirrored entrance,

then a descent in a glass encased elevator deep into the earth, as most of the museum is underground. Patrons could sip on cocktails from the old fashioned gin bar before examining the highly provocative art within, which was tempered by the G rated grounds without consisting of a trampoline, outdoor sculptures, tennis court

and a pavilion that is both an outdoor lounge and light installation.

The Tasmanian camaderie continued when we met up again with Ricky, Karen and Dorian who were hiking the Walls of Jerusalem at the same time as we were. Geological features in this remote area of Tasmanian highlands were given biblical names by early surveyors. We wandered through Solomon's Jewels, where azure tarns glittered in the sunlight,

clambered up the rocks

to the top of Solomon's Temple,

and ascended Mount Jerusalem when the mists of dawn still covered the landscape,

to watch a stunning sunrise.

We travelled sometimes in convoy,

sometimes in small groups of friends,

and were often accompanied by wildlife like the rare Forester kangaroo, endemic to Tasmania.

Though we were planning on camping at Wild Dog Creek, other hikers exhorted us to press on to Dixon's Kingdom, set high in the plateau with an incredible view of the surroundings.

The kids wrestled,

played tag and Uno together, and we all shared a love of swimming in the tarns.

Breakfast and dinners were on the boardwalk that protected the fragile alpine ecosystem.

On the way out we walked over the edge of the plateau,

then descended down to more lakes

past tussocks and tarns,

through bleached forests, killed by past fires.

Plenty of healthy trees remained, with views of the mountains through their branches,

but the sky was hazy with forest fires in the west, and we could smell smoke wafting in the air from time to time. The spell of incredibly sunny dry weather that made our hiking so enjoyable on Cradle Mountain and in the Walls of Jerusalem, was disastrous for much of the landscape, leading to massive fires which closed many of the trails we had been on - we felt as if we left a swathe of destruction behind us in our path, as Melbourne's Great Ocean Walk had also burned mere weeks after we'd completed it. More evidence of the effects of climate change - when you are confronted with it so directly it's hard to ignore.

We finished the hike and said our good-byes, wishing each other luck for the adventures to come. Back in the land of cellphone reception we got a text from Kim, who we'd had such fun with in November and had really hoped to meet in Tasmania during her family's eight day vacation there. We were so near and yet so far, missing each other by 50 km and one day, but glad nonetheless for the reminder of the friendship that had grown in Melbourne and would hopefully bring us together again one day.

Our time with good friends was far from done. We next went to Maria Island, where Tom found a gaggle of girls to maraud around with,

though they made much less noise than the gaggle of geese that liked to wake up campers early every morning. They would literally stand right outside each tent and honk a few times before moving on to the next.

More worrisome to Tom were the oppossums, who had raided our backpacks at the Walls and were also a threat to the food of careless campers on Maria Island. Tom was extremely anxious that they would take our boots, crying that the possums were going to abscond with them and "we're going to wake up and see just a trail of shoe dust in the morning".

There was much to see and do on the island, a former prison colony with the old buildings still preserved

but repurposed for the use of visitors. During the day we explored the ridges,

and summits,

wandered along the strikingly patterned Painted Cliffs,

peered into tidal pools full of crabs and sea anemones,

and swam in the waters of secluded bays.

We delighted in the wombats,

wallabies,

and kangaroos that bounded past us on our walks.

The car free island is a refuge for wildlife, and there is a small but healthy population of Tasmanian Devils, highly endangered in the rest of the state, whose regular monitoring by rangers we were fortunate to happen along on one hike.

In the evenings we did outdoor yoga with one of the rangers, cooked our meals in the old prisoner's mess hall and then joined campfire singalongs with a group of modern day troubadours who had brought slide and acoustic guitars, a flute, a saxophone and a chorus of great voices.

Next on the agenda was more precious time with Kara, Ben and Olive at Fortescue Bay. Jacob tried his hand at surfing again,

the kids played in the sand and swung in the hammocks,

and we relished our adult time on the beach,

venturing out after the kids were settled to chat and watch the moon rise over the water.

Then it was time for our final multi-day hike in Australia, the Three Capes, which began just a short drive from Fortescue Bay. We packed up and headed over to Port Arthur where we toured the historical penal site before boarding the ferry that would take us to the trailhead. We slowed to look at nesting shearwaters

and watery caves

before disembarking at Denman's Cove. Heading ashore with us were other hikers who would do the four day three night trek. We were all brought together only by the ferry and by virtue of the fact that we'd all be staying in the same huts each night, but otherwise we were independent of each other, and when the ferry pulled away it felt like we were contestants on Survivor, or the Amazing Race.

We resisted the urge to set off, sabotage the trail markers and win at all costs, but we did end up forming close alliances with some of the other hikers, especially Tom, who always found a hand to hold,

or a cozy lap to sit or lie on.

It was our good fortune that two of the other groups had children the same age as ours, so the four days felt like a nonstop party for our kids.

The trail turned out to be very easy to follow, with smooth earth,

carefully laid stone,

and wooden boardwalk forming the paths.

There were art installations designed by architecture students along the way that related to the historical significance of the area and the natural features, like the representation of the cubic wombat droppings along the paths,

and the flower stamens symbolizing the fertility of the plants and animals in the area.

The guidebook we were given at the start of our hike contained stories to go with each stop. Jacob read some sections aloud to a captive audience,

and when we later couldn't find our book then our audience took another hiker captive to read his aloud to them.

It was hard to decide what the best part of the experience was. Was it walking the paths along the cliffs,

seeing the forests in the late afternoon light,

playing indoor games in the bright airy huts,

doing impromptu yoga on the sunny decks,

relaxing in the deck chairs at the end of the day,

or sleeping in the comfy bunk beds?

Making it all even better were the wonderful friendships we had with Maite, Jorge, their daughters Alba, Paula, Nuria, Lua, (originally from Madrid) and Miah and her mom Cate (from Tasmania). The girls' peals of laughter sounded like the tinkling of bells, such sweet music to hike to!

Their companionship and that of their parents made the long hikes seem short,

the steep climbs feel easy,

the summits more rewarding

and the evenings so much fun.

Jacob summarized the experience in one of the hut logbooks,

I love the resultant comic strip

as well as the other ones he's done on this trip, and would love to put together a book of them (with the spelling mistakes edited out).

It was rainy when we crossed the finish line,

but the weather couldn't dampen our spirits and we all celebrated with a dip in the ocean before saying good-bye, waving and throwing kisses as our bus drove away.

Back in Hobart we were glad to see Kara, Ben and Olive, but sad because it meant our time together was coming to an end. A last farewell dinner of pizza and ice cream,