Tasmania: Part II

So, to continue the Tasmania adventure...

On Saturday morning we had to be up at the bright and early hour of six thirty so we could be on the road by seven thirty. However, this was made slightly better by the fact that our room was next to the kitchen so we actually got to eat breakfast in our pajamas, which made me feel like I was at home. :) The first place we visited in the morning before heading out of Bicheno was this really cool blowhole down by the beach. I've never seen one of those before but it's basically some rocks with an opening and when the waves crash onto the shore they are funneled up through the rock, creating this awesome effect. See video. It's just kind of fun to watch...haha. Then, we headed to our main attraction of the day, Freycinet National Park. This is home to some really big mountains and Wineglass Bay, which is consistently rated as one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world. After visiting there, it was incredibly easy to see why. Getting there wasn't easy, though - we had to clamber down the side of a mountain and go over all these rocks. Before we did, though, we went to a specific lookout area so we could see the whole beach, and it was so beautiful that we definitely wanted to go down the whole mountain to check it out. My camera chose this time to COMPLETELY shut down and stop opening entirely. Sigh.

Anyway, by the time we made it down to the beach, we were not looking forward to going back UP the mountain (at least w/ the glacier, we got to go up first and then come back down when we were exhausted), but the beach was MORE than worth it. Again, it would have been even better if we could actually have gone in the water, but just strolling along and lying on the sand put me in a state of bliss, for sure. The sand on the beach was so white and clean that it literally made squeaky sounds when you walked across it. And of course there was absolutely no one on the beach aside from us because it is literally impossible to access by car. I just lay there and played with the sand for as long as possible before we had to go back up. It was soooo relaxing. Now, the hike back up wasn't exactly, but
that's okay. I actually got super energized hiking up all the big boulders - I am sure that I couldn't do like five day hikes, but I really like hour or two hour ones! Everyone else was exhausted and sweating and I was tired too, but I think I was obnoxiously energetic after that because it felt so good to be exercising in the middle of this gorgeous place!

After that, we had some lunch (I got to cook burgers - flipping them over is so satisfying! Matt quickly learned about my cooking obsession and started letting me do all this cooking; more on this later), and started heading to our destination for the evening. We made a stop at Spikey Bridge, which is this cool bridge built by convicts (kind of a preview of all the convict history we ended up learning), and also at an ADORABLE place called Kate's Berry Farm that had the BEST fresh fruit jams, preserves, and ice creams. I love little side of the road stands like that so much. Then we took a shortcut by getting on this RIDICULOUS dirt road that went through deserted farmland and was sooooo bumpy. I definitely did not nap for that part of the trip! Eventually, we arrived at Port Arthur, which is on the Tasman peninsula and realllllllly far south. We had a house there too, which was even nicer than the one in Bicheno - it had a DVD player and lounge area and a nice little kitchen and dining area as well as all the rooms. Then, to my great excitement, Matt put me in charge of dinner! I even got to wear a chef's hat...so awesome. It's not like it was a complicated dinner or anything - we were just making spaghetti with sauce, but it was for 18 people and I've never cooked for that many before. So I had all these great helpers who cut
vegetables and cleaned and boiled water while I made the sauce and added the meat and spices and such. It is SO much fun to just stand over a big pot of sauce adding random things at your whim. I am so obsessed with cooking - watch out when I get home, parents. :)

So obviously that made my evening and dinner was really good, and then a bunch of us sat around playing Uno, which was entertaining. We also took a spooky walk in the forest, but my fear of random ghosts was banished per usual as soon as we got to a clearing and I got a good look at the sky - it was even better than Milford Sound, because there was no light pollution from the moon! So I just stood there for as long as possible staring at the stars and being happy before I went to bed.

Sunday morning, we got to "sleep in" till the hour of like 7, and were on the road by 8 to go see Maignon Bay, which is where some of the biggest surf in the world exists. I wish I could have seen actual surfers there so we could get a sense of just how big the waves are - apparently they reach like 4 meters regularly! We went down this path and got to explore Remarkable Cave, which, true to its namesake, is definitely one of the most remarkable things I have seen in Australia and one of my favorite sights on this trip. It was this HUGE cave that you could run into and explore, but as soon as you heard the surf crashing, you had to run back out as fast as you could to avoid getting totally soaked. The interior of the cave was massive and apparently all these interesting geological facts about it exist, like it is an unusual combination of sandstone and something. (Yeah, I am more interested in geology than I have ever been, but I can't remember EVERYTHING. haha.) By this point, I was making Jess and Dana take all these photos for me (not as if they wouldn't have
anyway) so I fortunately have pictures of all these places that I got from them. Yay!

After that, we went into Port Arthur, which is actually Tasmania's biggest tourist attraction. A really horrendous tragedy happened there 11 years ago - a gunman went into one of the cafes there and murdered 35 people, and it remains the single biggest massacre of people by a single gunman in history. So our tour guide told us that first and suddenly I was a lot less keen on going there…but it was really peaceful and quiet the whole time, which made it almost eerie. Especially considering the fact that this was where the worst, most hardened convicts in Australia were sent in the mid 1800s - it was the ultimate penal colony. Walking around, I was reminded of Williamsburg, but as I learned about the history of the place, everything took on a distinctly darker feel, even though it was sunny and all the buildings looked quaint and pretty. I couldn’t help but think about what a horrible, grim place it must have been just a mere 150 years ago. Like I said, history is SO much cooler when you are in the actual places!

So that was an informative and somewhat sobering morning, and then we went back to the house for lunch and headed out of the peninsula. We stopped at Eaglehawk Neck and Pirate’s Bay, which is the narrowest isthmus part of Tasmania - just 70 meters or so across! And since that would be the way that convicts would try to escape, they actually had a line of vicious dogs there at one point to prevent that. Scary. We went down to the beach then and had a look at this crazy natural phenomenon called “tessellated pavement” - it basically looks like all these blocks and man-made things, but it is all completely natural. Hard to describe, so you can look at the pictures.

We made one final stop in Dunalley (the “gateway” to the peninsula), which is (surprise surprise) another tiny town that had this crazy fresh seafood store. Their prices on oysters were ridiculously cheap so I decided to try some, but unfortunately I was not extremely keen on the taste. Kind of slimy. But see how different I am now? I will try pretty much anything at least once. :) Then we drove into Hobart, and it was kind of frustrating, because Matt was telling us all the great things we could do the next day, but we were leaving really early in the morning. Our hostel was pretty cute; it was called The Pickled Frog and there was a really fat amusing dog there. Unfortunately, because it was Sunday, literally EVERYTHING was closing by the time we got into the city to try and look around. We managed to spend an hour scavenging around the various shops that were open, though, and most of them had AWESOME chocolates and cool baking accessories and various awesome foods and teas, so I had the best time looking at absolutely everything. The other really cool part about Hobart was its floating fish stores - there were little stands literally floating around the harbour area that sold fish and it obviously had been caught that day, if not a couple hours before. I love fresh seafood! Of course we had to go to a seafood restaurant for dinner, and it had amaaaaazing seafood chowder and I tried a special Tasmanian fish called “trevally” that almost tasted like chicken. Weird.

Anyway, the next morning, our flight left at the HEINOUS hour of 7:15 in the morning, so we were up before six! And Tasmania went to daylight savings time over the weekend, which meant it was an hour ahead of NSW, so it really felt like it was before five. We were kind of dead asleep on the flight back. Of course, the purpose of the flight being so early was that we could go to CLASS right when we got back. Joyous. But for some reason I actually felt energized by the time I had to go to space engineering (for the first time in like three weeks, haha), and as I walked down King Street listening to “Life is Wonderful” by Jason Mraz, I couldn’t help but feel totally and completely on top of the world. I mean, how cool is it that I woke up in Hobart, Tasmania, and then went to a day of classes in Sydney?

My good mood ended today, though, because Tuesdays are the worst days of class for me and now that I only have 13 days of class left (yes, I am counting down), I have like three major projects and a quiz in Materials tomorrow that I have just spent ages studying for. So hard to work when all I want to do is travel…

Next up: An intensive surf camp at Seven Mile Beach (a couple hours away from Sydney) this weekend - I am so excited!

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Videos from "Tasmania: Part II":

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