Tasmania: maybe the best week of my life

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Wow, what a crazy week in Tasmania! Can't believe how incredibly fast it went by. I am back in Melbourne now, but I almost intentionally missed my flight to stay in Tassie some more. It's really too bad I finally met some people I would love to travel with and change my plans with, but I have 2 days left in Australia 😞. Even considered changing my New Zealand plans to stick around in Tassie.

So, where to begin: I landed in Hobart (capital of Tasmania) on Saturday morning. They have a Saturday market called Salamanca, so I went to wander around and check it out. It's a cool market, they have food, crafts, souvenirs, there were some really nice wooden crafts made into clocks and animals. For lunch I ate a wallaby burrito and it was amazing! So lean and tender.

After the market I went to the MONA, which is the museum of old and new art. It's really worth looking up the history and themes of this museum. Was the most "unique" place I've ever been in my life. The museum was founded by a man who made his fortune counting cards in casinos. When I was there the themes were sex and death and the art really pushed the boundary of what is acceptable. There were some things that really shocked and offended me, but that's the whole point of what the museum is supposed to do and I knew that going in, so went in with an open mind.

My tour started on the next day. There were only 5 of us on the first day, so was a good chance to get close to people. We went to Port Arthur, which is the original place they sent all the prisoners from England. The prisoners lived a very brutal lifestyle: constantly chained, beat, worked long hours, it was pretty sad and shocking to see. They even had a boys prison where kids as young as 9 were sent. We got to dip our toes in the southern ocean and see a coast that there's nothing until Antarctica.

On the second day of the tour the full group started. About 20 of us, mostly the same age and got along really well. We basically did a clockwise loup of Tasmania, starting in the east, then the south, west, back to the east. The mountains reminded me a lot of the Rockies. We went for a lot of hikes, saw some awesome views and scenery, lots and lots of sheep and on the last day went to an animal sanctuary where we got to see and feed kangaroos, wallabies, Tasmanian devils, emus, birds, etc. It's a mix between a zoo and the wild, animals can still roam around on their own, but they still know you're coming and recognize you have food. They really aren't "wild" animals.

As I'm writing this, I keep thinking of more and more things we did so they might not be in order of days, but just coming randomly. One of the days we went to this giant sand dune and went sandboarding. Obviously incredibly fun. I tried it 3 times and on the third try I did pretty much the best run of anyone that tried it. One of the nights we went to a bar that had karaoke. To get everyone up and dancing, I sang Shania Twain's "any man of mine." It was hilarious and totally worked. That became the unofficial song of the trip and everyone was singing it the next couple days. Another night we went down to the beach and saw the penguins march up the rocks.

But yeah, might have been one of the best weeks of my life. I was really sad to leave this morning and wished I met these people earlier in my trip. On my way from the bus station to my hostel, I was pretty confident I knew the right way because I had been in Melbourne for a week already, but after walking for 10 minutes thought I was walking in the wrong direction, walked the other way for 15 minutes before realizing I was walking the right direction in the first place. Stupid Melbourne streets. So confusing. Wish I was in Tassie right now.

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