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It's raining, it's not raining, it's sunny, now it's raining again. It makes leaving the house nearly impossible! I went up to Cradle Mountain to do some hiking on Monday. It would go from completely pouring, to so hot I had to take my jacket off, to pouring again all within 20 minutes. I got soaked to the bone on the 2 hour hike around Dove Lake, but it was so beautiful to be up there with the mist coming off the mountains and the raindrops creating ringlets on the lake. I made a deal with Mother Nature that if I saw any wombats in the wild then they might replace koalas as my favorite animal. Right as I was about to give up on Her, I saw three of them! So freakin cute. Don't know if they took over koalas, but they certainly are tied. At one point during the sunshine a rainbow appeared off in the distance. I was going to go in search of the leprechaun with a pot of gold, but I realized I am in Tasmania and it would probably just be a koala with a bag of eucalyptus leaves.

I stopped by the lodge at the end of the day to grab a pint and dry off by the fire a little bit. I noticed a brochure for a Tasmanian Devil feeding tour and of course had to jump on the chance! It was at the breeding complex which was right up the road. Devils have started dying off in massive amounts from a contagious cancer (yes, contagious) and should be on the endangered list by how low their numbers are, but the government here refuses to put them on it. But luckily a bunch of people have come together to run these breeding centers to try and up the population. I got to pet two 10 month old devils! They were very cute. Even if they do make scary noises, these guys have a bum reputation. I got a ride to the bottom of my road by a nice family that was also on the tour, since we didn't get out until 9:45 that night. I walked up the hill to my solo cabin in the woods, thankful Camp has taught me to always carry a flashlight. I was thinking how funny it was that if I was walking through similar woods at home at that time of night, I would have to be very careful about bears. But not here! Possums are my biggest worry, and any crazy psychos that might be lurking in the dark (just kidding Alicia!). I did have to fight with a couple of pakemelons to get into my cabin. They were in front of my door and I didn't want to mess with them since they look like mini kangaroos and make California possums look like cuddly kittens. The next morning I awoke to SUNSHINE (insert Godly music here) and got to spend half a day doing some shorter walks to the waterfalls and enjoying Cradle Mountain on a whole different level. By the time I was boarding my bus at 1pm, the rainclouds were already rolling in. Told you, moody!

I caught the bus back to Launceston and immediately got on another one to head out to the East Coast of the island. The driver dropped me at some random turnout to catch another, smaller bus and I sat on the side of the road with all my stuff for a few minutes hoping for the best. My other bus showed up on schedule and took me to Bicheno, which is an adorable little beachside town. That night I headed out to grab some dinner at the Beachfront Tavern and ended up being invited to join the owners and a couple of the beer reps for drinks. A very interesting night ensued. (Story for the grownups can be shared with appropriate people at a later date)
I do love that I woke up in the snowcapped mountains and went to bed in a beachside town :)

Yesterday morning I headed out to Freycinet (it is French, so it is pronounced as such) National Park, home to Wineglass Bay, which Tassie is famous for. On the way there I was the only passenger and I chatted with the lovely driver who has lived here her whole life. At one point she asked if I wanted to see a Tasmanian Tiger Snake. Umm...YES! So she pulled over to where one was dead on the side of the road, apparently they shrink after they die so normally they are much bigger. All of the snakes in Tassie and on the main land are poisonous (10 of the 12 most poisonous snakes in the world live here!) and the Tiger Snake happens to be Tassie's most poisonous one. She told me if I came across one to make some noise and it would scuttle off, but the chances of that were very small. So what do I come across while I am hiking? Of course a freakin TIGER SNAKE! It was HUGE (at least 4 feet long, maybe even 5) and black so I didn't see it until I was almost on top of it. I clapped my hands and whistled (like the lady said) to scare it off, but that did nothing. The snake continued to inch towards me. Luckily a Tassie woman was heading the other direction and let me know that Tiger snakes are deaf, so you have to stomp and make vibrations, which we did and he scuttled off into the bush. I hastened by and decided to grab a stick to drag along the ground to warn any further along snakes of my approaching so I didn’t accidentally startle them. Less than 2 minutes later I came across the HUGEST lizard I have ever seen. He was about a foot long, as thick as a baseball bat and golden (I learned later they have blue tongues). I stomped and scrapped me stick on the ground, all to no avail. I couldn't turn around and I couldn't step over him, so while I paused for a moment trying to figure out what to do, I mumbled "dammit" under my breath and he quickly scurried off. Apparently swear words offend them. Needless to say the remaining 2 hours of my 6 hour hike were somewhat tense. Lots of tree roots looked like snakes and my nerves were somewhat shot, but I finished up and was so eager to tell my driver what I had seen. Apart from my reptile run-ins, the scenery was stunning and a great mix of beachside walks, cliff climbing and bush wacking. Both Wineglass Bay and Hazards beach were beautiful and the weather was hot and clear. Again, I took a million pictures :)

Every night in Bicheno hundreds of Fairy penguins come on shore to sleep in the brush. They are the smallest penguins and also the oldest (they have been around for 40 million years!). And if you stand on the beach very still, they will come swarm around you! My hostel-mates and I headed out last night to check out this phenomenon and it was incredible. Fiona from Holland kept commenting that humans are funny creatures cus why do we think penguins are so cute?! She agreed that they were, but couldn't explain why.

OH! And I forgot to say! When I was on my wine tour up on the Tamar River I got to try real kangaroo! Well, it was kangaroo sausage, so it tasted like...well...sausage, but I still got to try it!
Tasmanianly yours,
Sanje


# of times I have had to say I was engaged to ward off unwanted advances: 2. Apparently claiming you have a boyfriend isn't enough cus the guy either tries to convince you it wouldn't be cheating cus it is "Just a boyfriend" or tries to convince you to break up with said boyfriend to be with them.

# of marriage proposals: 1. Tassie boys have the CUTEST accents!

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