Australia Part 4 - Tasmania

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Different coloured moulds, expensive beer and boob jam.

As our flight to Tassie was an early one (god dam it) the free shuttle bus that collects you from your hostel wasn’t running at that time, so at some ungodly hour (think it was about 5am) we dragged our bags for 80 days down to the bus terminal. I nearly didn’t make it, how can a bag I’ve empty of contents three times now and sent home still weigh the same as it did when we left??? (Answers on a postcard to SODS LAW STREET). Anyway we made it to the bus station just in time and got to the airport with time to spare. Since our incident in LA we are always on time now!! With an egg mcmuffin and cuppa tea as is becoming our standard breakfast we were on the plane within minutes it seemed. I for once wasn’t at all bothered by the journey as I was really tired; I think both of us were asleep by the time we were in the sky.

We hadn’t realised we’d get breakfast on this flight so with our second breakfast finished (we sound like hobbits) I enjoyed the last hour of the flight watching the sun rise and wondering what Tasmania would be like, would everyone have two heads, as the aussies like to tell you, would it be dull or rainy or amazing and had I chosen the right stops for us to see it all? As we came into land I was aware that the plane was getting lower and there was still nothing but sea underneath us. I ignored it for a few moments and when the land still didn’t appear I couldn’t help myself and said out loud “where’s the runway?”, luckily it was coming it was just running late! With our breakfast we had been given a little bag of sealed fruit which I hadn’t eaten at the time, I figured I’d eat it later so as we were laving the plane we were made aware that you’re not allowed to take fruit into Tasmania, guns and drugs are fine but not fruit. This was a little annoying as I had brought a dozen apples with us for snacks so I had to bin all of those at the entrance. I asked the very unfriendly guard if I was allowed to bring in my sealed bag of apple the plane had dished out but apparently that wasn’t allowed either!!

We picked up our car along with every other tourist and even though we didn’t get a free upgrade like we had before and hoped for again, it was still a pretty big car. It was gonna be so nice to leave our bags in the boot and drive round rather than moving them from bus to hostel to train to hostel etc etc. as we drove into Hobart I noticed lots of road kill on the sides of the roads, which in itself isn’t an unusual thing, but it is when the road kill happens to be HUGE kangaroos!! It was quite upsetting really coz I’m used to seeing birds and small mammals but huge animals like that, Skippy I mean, poor Skippy. Anyway we headed into town which was a one way system nightmare and finally found the tourist info centre. With a choice of where to see Tasmanian Devils (as this was one of the main things I wanted to do) we headed off for the nearest place.

Just before we got there we stopped for a cuppa again and a pie, and this time here comes a little whinge from Nath. The young girls serving behind the counter were nice enough but served our hot pies on cold plates (which Nath really hates) and the tea we ordered with it arrived hours later. So a not very happy Nath was even more put out when I came back to the table with our cold doughnut served on warm plates!!! Heheheheh they might not have two heads but maybe they do everything the opposite way round? I was not looking forward to using the toilet!!

After our lunch at the place “we shall not speak of again” we headed to the animal park to immerse ourselves in native wild life. It seemed quite small when we got there, and as with all the places we’d seen so far you got handed a bag of food to dish out. We entered the kangaroo enclosure to find that there were hundreds of them but they must have all just got back form the pub as half of them were passed out, others were just laying there scratching themselves and the others were getting into fights about their local football team - no not really of course they prefer rugby here!! The bag of food I had didn’t last long; especially when I took it upon myself to make sure they all got some. Again there was something a bit scary about the bigger ones, all that muscle and I’ sure I read somewhere that they could disembowel you with their massive toe claw - if you’ve ever seen one you’ll know why!! We did a lap of the sanctuary and then joined a talk about the animals at the site, all which had been rescued and rehabilitated in some way, some never to be released because of their sad stories. The guy was really entertaining and clearly loved his job, the only thing that spoilt it, yet again was a large group of Asian tourist talking out loud all the way through. Now I don’t think they were translating I may be wrong, but it was really rude, I thought this sort of thing wouldn’t bother me after a while but it often spoils it for everyone grrrrr.

Anyway the lad showed us a cute wombat baby who kept falling over and all their Tasmanian Devil’s who are currently suffering with a form of viral facial cancer. Ironically they pass the virus through facial contact, which is a natural behaviour of the devils as they use it to show dominance over each other - it’s as though they are designed and destined to die out. I thought they were really cute but apparently given the wailing they make people think they are horrible animals and leave them to die in the road if they hit them. I chatted with the guy for quite a while afterwards about what to do if we did hit anything etc and he gave us loads of information and the sanctuaries number as they are the only place on Tasmania that go out to rescue injured wildlife, which is really sad. I also didn’t realise that even if the animal is hit and clearly dead you should check its pouch for young as they often survive and get left behind to starve and freeze to death, an awful thought that stayed with me for our entire trip!!

After my animal fix we drove to the top of Mount Wellington, to see the view of Hobart and the surrounding waterways. I read about this in my trusty rough guide which although 7 years old had been pretty good so far, it didn’t however give us directions so we followed the only road that went up and luckily found the route to the mountain. By the time we got to the top, the sun had started to go in and it was getting pretty cold. Of course once at the top of the mountain it was bloody windy and even colder than in Hobart itself. I wasn’t convinced I gave that much of a crap about the view considering how cold I was but as I had suggested we go I figured I should at least get out the car for a while. There was a large mast in the car park which apparently made central locking useless and in fact could stop you locking your car altogether if you didn’t have a door key. Nath hadn’t read this though on entering the car park, so it was fun to see him panicking over the “broken” car door before I let him in on the secret.

Needless to say it was so cold that after a short look round outside I left Nath to take photos and went and hid back inside the car. We were both pretty tired and hungry by now so figured we should book into our dorm and find some food. I’d booked the only hostel that had vacancies left this close to Easter, the pickled frog, a place that somewhat resembles Azkaban and should have been named the “pickled because it was such a mess after being hit by a big car that it wasn’t worth saving” frog!!! What a hell hole, but hey we were here now and there was no other option. Tasmania was even more expensive than main land oz, which is hard to believe considering how much cash that has been drained form us already. We headed into some cobbled street with loads of wine bars, looking for the cheapest and warmest place possible. We eventually found a cheap Chinese takeaway, which was ok for the price we paid, but we felt like being so early we should treat ourselves to a beer or three. We found a pub that didn’t look like you needed a fake ID to be served, and ordered what seemed like really reasonable pints. Turns out the price of beer in oz is based on a pot, which is about half a pint, so in essence you need to double the price quoted. No wonder these Aussies think they can drink us under the table when they’re basing it on pansy measures like that. So our 2 pints ended up costing us about $18 (£11), dearer than drinking in London!!! Suitably peeved, and now armed with something else to moan about for a good few days we went back to the hell hole hostel and went to bed!!

That night, in our damp and smelly room, we were kept awake by some guys talking really loud in the hallway. I was on the top bunk which was about the only thing stopping me running outside and punching each one of them in the nuts. Luckily Nath stepped out eventually and asked them really politely to move along. They did so without argument which I wasn’t expecting (Maybe the site of Nath naked except his boxers was scary enough!), I was tired and moody and looking for fight, so all my quick one liners I’d made up in my head would have been pointless it seems. I slept all night after that luckily, but Nath was woken once by some classic drunk arguing between some welsh girls, something about “look I wont lie to you, I’m mingen and I’m not going out” - classic!!

Next morning peeling ourselves from the bed bugs we left the festering road kill toad place or what ever it was called and headed to our next stop of St Clair National Park. On leaving I enjoyed the staff squirming as some guy insisted they refund him or he was calling environmental health - dam wish I’d thought of that!!. Anyway this drive to St Clair took hours, even though the map made it took like a small distance. We drove through some gorgeous scenery, very autumnal with leaves so red I’d have thought we were in New England. We were both really concerned with hitting wildlife so took it nice and slow, but every time we passed a body in the road I wanted to jump out and check it for young, but they all passed so quickly and it was never safe to really just stop the car in the road. On our drive we did see some wildlife that was alive, which was cool, including an echidna, an animal Nath was convinced wasn’t meant to be real until we saw one at the sanctuary. After a quick tea break at some very American looking village we continued on. I was beginning to feel a little under the weather so couldn’t wait to get to this next place, which wasn’t a hostel and read as being quite nice.

It was a huge wooden country inn, again very American, with he bull horns over the door and furs and animal heads inside. It was a little dark and a little local but seemed clean which, was a good start. We got given our bedding to take out to our bunk room, which turned out to be a row of port cabin rooms with mismatched mattresses, a piece of old wooden furniture and a plug in heater. God were we gonna need that come the evening!! So I attempted to make the bed with our three blankets and damp bed sheet so it resembled some kind of comfy bedroom, with that mission failed we decided to sort out some lunch, but unfortunately the “hotel” had a very expensive menu, and the only other place to eat was a little café down the road, so in desperation we headed towards lake St Clair as there seemed to be more going on there. On the drive down we stopped and chuckled at two signs, the first said “no firearms of animals past this point” which gave us funny images of gun happy Rambo type cats and the second sign, looked like a kangaroo lifting up the front of a car like the incredible hulk - wow these animals are strong!!! (Think it was actually meant to be a car hitting the kangaroo).

There was one sign that pissed us off a bit and that was the one in the car park insisting that you couldn’t really spend any time at the lake unless you bought a full day national par entrance fee - what a bloody rip off, we only wanted some lunch. Luckily there was a loop hole of an hour so we rushed inside hoping to at least get some nice lunch even if it came with a side helping of indigestion!! We had overpriced fish and chips, which seems to be the only way anything is served in Australia, they were nice enough but the chips were so covered in salt we had to stop eating them, which was a shame, so we actually had a plate of fish and soggy salad, this trip is really going well so far. I was still feeling tired and a bit icky so we decided rather than force ourselves to walk the lake and pay the stupid entry fee, we would go for a long drive down the main bush road to the next town, as this was somewhere we didn’t intend on visiting when we move on.

The drive was glorious, loads of proper Aussies scenery with gum tress, flat plains and mountains skipping the horizon. Sometimes it even looked like some kind of savannah down in deepest Africa. We were very aware the whole time though of not hitting any wildlife so although it was a beautiful ride we were on edge a lot f the time. We stopped on occasion to take photos but mainly just enjoyed the sun and serenity of the open road, especially as we hardly passed anyone at all!!. We did stop eventually at some lake for Nath to take reflective shots as the sun started to turn the sky pinky purple. It was an ideal spot to camp and already had a few people in their vans setting up for dinner etc, it made us think of Elton and wonder what he was doing now (sigh). We tentatively used the loo on site keeping our eyes open for spiders and the like but luckily peed bite free!. We finally made our way to Queenstown down a steep hill that was spookily just like the drive to Queenstown from Wanaka in NZ. It was a tiny town with an old railway and a monument to the local miners that used to be the main industry for the area.

With it now getting dusk we decided we’d better head back as we didn’t really wanna be driving for too long in the dark and it was gonna take another few hours yet, as we had taken our time on the way down. We stopped at a local petrol pump that had a couple of people waiting outside of it, but it looked closed. The guy queued in front of us, said not to worry he’d called the number on the door that said to ring in an emergency and the owner was coming down to open up (I’m not quite sure this was what he had meant his number to be used for!!) But sure enough the guy turned up in a taxi shortly afterwards and let us fill up, along with 4 or 5 others who had now appeared. He was the only station for miles so I could see why he would open up if asked but surely he would have been a popular stop, being the only stop for petrol all day?? With us all filled up he mumbled to himself a little, got back in the taxi and went home to finish what ever meal I’m sure he was half way through at the time.

The drive back was even more nerve wracking as we made our way through now dark bush land with animals jumping out in front of us like those shot’em up games on the PC!! We’d have periods where there were no animals, and then all of a sudden one would just throw itself in front of us. I spent every second watching the side of the road so I could help warn Nath in the microsecond I’d have before the animal hit the bumper. Luckily we only came close once, when a huge kangaroo just hopped sideways out of nowhere, that would have made a big mess of the car!! We did enjoy our nocturnal animal spotting as we saw some of the animals that had remained elusive so far on our trip. More kangaroos, a couple of wombats and the funniest was 4 possums in a row that were walking right in the middle of the road, I think they thought that following each other in a line would protect them, no wonder you see so many dead on the side of the road. On approaching them we did what the guys at the sanctuary had said and beeped our horn to get rid of them, three ran off but one petrified little soul just crouched on the floor and kissed his arse good bye. In the end we had to flash our lights to get rid of him, poor fella, we were only trying to help and instead probably burst his ears drums and gave him a heart attack.

We settled into our warm (We had left the heater on) but very basic “cabin” and both tried to sleep picturing that we were somewhere else; luckily we managed a fairly good night’s sleep even though at one point, for all the ignoring we could muster, we had to get out of bed to go to the toilet outside!!! Next morning we refused to pay the stupid amount for breakfast at the hotel, so went to the café down the road, it was such a nice fried breakfast we nearly inhaled it!! We decided that having come all this way we should at least try and see Lake St Clair, as all the tourist buses etc bring you here, but we refused to pay the national park entry fee for a short walk round it. So in the end we parked up, walked to its edge, took a few photos and then left - it wasn’t that impressive in the end anyway!!! Unfortunately for Nath anyway, we had decided that we would take a different route to our next stop as the more direct route happened to ironically be an unsealed road, the one type of road you cant take a hire car on, so to save having to pay for some minor chips they were bound to find, we went back along the bush road to Queenstown and beyond.

It was a long long drive to our next stop Cradle Mountain, and again much like NZ there was only ever one road in or out of the place which meant a lot of driving for Nath. Again the drive itself was really picturesque but we couldn’t really care after 5 hours!! We got to Cradle mountain national park and yet again they wanted a huge fee for you to “enjoy the walks the area had” - bugger that!!! So again we made our way to the lake edge that skirted the mountain and took the shots we wanted. It was a nice mountain and I can understand its popularity but it just wasn’t worth all the driving, especially when to get there and still had another few hours to get to the northern town of Launceston. I was far passed caring by the time we were heading north, so the few times Nath stopped to take some shots I couldn’t even be bothered to get out of the car to look. We finally made it to our next hostel in the town of Launceston and for the first time on our trip to Tasmania we were pleasantly surprised

Now Launceston isn’t the prettiest of places but the hostel was an old converted house that had huge staircases, an outside veranda and high ceilings, etc the sort of stuff you’d expect I guess from a period home. It had a nice homely feel to it and was clean which made a real difference. We settled in quickly that night and before bed decided to wind down and watch some TV. This is when I was first introduced to the “boob jam” advert, here’s how it goes: a pencil drawing of a lady in her dressing gown goes to the fridge whilst the voice over says there are three simple steps to checking your breasts whilst making toast-first go to the fridge and get your butter, jam etc (don’t forget the knife), two- put the bread in the toaster, three- now have a check of your breasts for lumps……………………..laugh my arse off!!! What great adverts they have over here, very similar to NZ with all the swearing and un PC terms, its great: I wish the same drink driving campaign was used in the UK “if you drink and drive you’re a bloody idiot” classic!!

Anyway next day after a warm and comfy sleep we headed into Launceston, to steal some time at the library, only to find it was closed, so in the end drove up to the very north of the island to visit the platypus house. I should mention that Launceston is split in the middle by a river and you can drive up either side of it; which unfortunately we did as I chose the wrong side, so although this added 40 mins to our day it did mean we got to drive over Batman’s bridge - cool!! We arrived at the platypus house which was a set of factory units along the coastal wall, and saw hundreds of oysters all over the rock line. We’d seen a news report before we came over about there being a huge mutation of oysters all along the coat, and how you cant eat them and they’re really hard to get rid of. At the time we thought, well of course they’re gonna tell you can’t eat them, otherwise the local restaurants can’t charge you a small fortune for them; however on closer inspection we decided to agree with the experts and avoid diarrhoea for the week!

The platypus house was small but kind of cool, we were shown round by a woman that seemed to be out of breath by just walking, not sure what was wrong there? But she knew her stuff and obviously knew each of the platypuses individually. This was actual a rescue and rehabilitation centre where they educated you about the habitats etc, but was also a cool way to see the weird duck weasel things swimming around. Unfortunately we didn’t get any good shots coz they can swim pretty fast and never keep still. Did you know they have such a keen sense of smell and such poor eyesight, that when they dive underwater they have to smell and feel for their dinner. Anyway this was over a little too quickly and then we were taken to the echidna room, where we got to sit with 3 echidnas whilst they were fed. Next to the platypus they must be the next weirdest animal in OZ and we had no idea they had an anteater type tongue. It was actually quite cute to see them slobbering all over their mashed up lips and arse holes meal. Nath managed to make friends with the tour guide by suggesting you could drop kick the echidna when she asked how we would remove it from the road!!

We felt a bit rushed over all although in saying that there wasn’t really much else to see, so with the rest of the day to fill before we moved on we decided to drive to some rocky cave region just beside the city and have a look round. I think by this point we were both getting to be a bit disappointed with what Tassie had on offer and the day was a grey and miserable one so we ended up just acting like children and doing stupid things all round this park region just to entertain ourselves. After walking a loop of the area, screaming out loud, making the swing bridge swing so much it made other people worry, we kind of ran out of things to do so headed off to our next destination, Bicheno. This wasn’t quite as much of a drive as the day before and the great scenery had now changed from rugged mountains and bush to green fields and English looking countryside.

I’d booked us into Bicheno as this was the nearest town to Swansea (our next stop) and was much cheaper, so I had figured it would be a sensible option. We were booked into another hostel and given our experience so far we were a little concerned, but none the less had decided with our microwave dinner and breakfast bought for the morning, we’d eat and go to bed and would be out again before the grime had started to leach into our skin. Here’s where our trip improved….as we got to the town it was dark, its getting dark about 5:30pm now after daylight savings has happened, which is weird as by the time we come home the days will be longer, weird……anyway sorry I digress. We got to the hostel eventually, as the sign posts weren’t very helpful and met the very friendly “surfer dude” at reception. He informed us he had good and bad news, I immediately thought here we go; the bad news was he had over booked the hostel so we had no room for then night, tired and hungry I got my shot gun out of my pocket it and aimed it at his head; the good news was, he said very quickly as he started to sweat, was they had therefore paid the extra for us to stay at a local motel down the road (a double bed, and ensuite with tea and coffee making facilities, you know the usual stuff)…..I put my gun back in my pocket.

We drove to this motel which was literally five mins away (the town is a beach town and thus without hotels is tiny) and parked up right outside our room. It was like bloody luxury after our accommodation experience so far, a cute little room, with big double bed and a usually disgusting floral duvet and pillows, that this time I found quaint and homely; tea and coffee making facilities as promised, a fridge and a TV with working remote!! Heaven, we even had electric blankets to keep us cosy, wow it was like I was a poor man who had won the lottery. I didn’t even care that it meant the dinner we had bought we couldn’t cook, we had complimentary shower gel for god sake!! After calming down a bit we did what we always do in these types of rooms, and made ourselves a cuppa, sat on the bed and put the telly on. Eventually we made our way back to the hostel to cook our dinner, just as a bus loads of greyhound travellers arrived to claim the remanding rooms, I was so glad they had double booked us. We took crockery back from the hostel with us to make breakfast easier the next day and settled in for the night in pure bliss.

Next morning we decided to have a look around the beach area etc as the east coast was meant to be the most stunning side of Tassie. It was however another wet and grey day and pretty dam cold too; I hadn’t been without my jumper for days now. We walked along the coast line a bit, hoping to walk out to some sand island, only to find it wasn’t the right time for the tide. So then made our way to the local attraction “the blow hole” (you get the idea how rock and role Tassie is in general don’t you) where we took some supermodel shots I like to call them; not because I look like a supermodel in any respect (more like a crash test dummy) but because we were trying to pose as the water crashed up behind us. With that wasting a good few minutes, we headed to the local aquarium which was only $3 so figured even if it was shite it was only a few dollars. Needless to say it was shite so good thing it was cheap, this guy again had another little shed along the water front with a few water buts and tanks in it with local sea life he had caught. I felt bad for the fish, they were just in these tanks without any kind of enrichment etc, like they were being sold in a shop, but on talking with the guy the tanks were all constantly pumped with the ocean water so none of his plants etc would survive the levels of salt and secondly he was only there for a few months of the year and then sold them on or put them back in the ocean - so I guess it wasn’t all bad.

With another few minutes wasted there, we decided that a drive further north again was pointless given the huge grey cloud we could see in the distance, so gave up and made our way to Swansea - yippeeeee. Very much like Swansea back home this little town version was like the mumbles area, with a number of hotels and holiday homes and a splattering of restaurants (and that was about it). It had a sign welcoming you that also boasted how it was the “tidiest” place in Tassie hhehehehehe(the welsh among you will appreciate that as much as we did). It was also very much like Swansea in that it bloody poured with rain all day. Luckily our motel room was ready, which was a bigger but less cosy version of our freebie the night before. So with the wind and rain lashing at the windows we sat around pretty much all day watching TV and getting a bit bored all in all - we did see another great Aussie advert suggesting ways to stay warm this winter by buying things called curtains and covering these things up (pointing to an old style air grate!!). They are a little behind over here!! The motel was on the beach front and it looked like it would have been a really nice place in the summer but never mind. Without having had lunch we stopped at the cheapest place we could find, the local fish and chip shop, which sitting in the rain eating, made us miss home and Swansea in particular.

One eventful thing that happened that day (well not eventful but it happened so I may as well add it to try and make our trip sound more exotic) was after driving the streets trying to piggyback onto a wireless network without any luck, we stopped at the local YHA to try and use their system. As it was still raining we ran to the door only to find it closed and looking almost empty; soon after a woman, who we assumed owned the place, answered the door very tentatively and said no they don’t have wi fi and almost shut the door in our faces. Luckily I had my foot in the door and asked maybe about using the internet for a fee to which she suddenly perked up again but said she had no change so we’d need to go buy something from the garage next door as they don’t ever have change. Great we thought, not only have we got to pay this weirdo for the use of the internet we’ve got but something random too just to get change.

She shut the door on us whilst Nath went to get some change and I just stood there like some naughty school kid waiting for the headmaster to call me in. Finally Nath returned with change without buying something (yippee) and we knocked on the door again. It was like some weird movie where the slightly odd and eccentric owner answers the door as though you’re a new person again (and later turns out killing and eating the guests, you know the sort of films I mean). After realising it was still us that wanted to use the computer she let us in, only to then yell at us “but take your shoes of first”, wow good thing we didn’t need long online. I sat and did my business on the internet whilst Nath had the unenvious job of having to make conversation with the weird women whilst he waited. Luckily I wasn’t long and we were out of there, so glad we weren’t actually booked into the hostel to actually stay (I’d only noticed one guy in the lounge area, although his foot was hanging off the sofa so it could have just been a severed limb???).

The next day we managed to salvage our trip along the east coast by enjoying a beautiful day at Wineglass Bay. Bar Swansea this was the main reason for coming to the East coast and we had seen many pictures of it in all the brochures. Although it was sunny it wasn’t as warm as I thought it was, so still my jumper stayed on. Before getting to the bay we stopped at another smaller bay to take some shots and maybe have lunch. We followed the signs to “town centre” only to find a post office and restaurant…rriiiiight, so we ended up forfeiting lunch and headed straight to wine glass bay. Turns out this is yet another national park so had one of those extortionate fees to pay, well we had to pay it this time but boy was it worth it. The sun had now come out (yippeeee jumper off) and the walk through some mountainous footpaths and bush type jungle was beautiful, if not a little busy (it seems everyone on the island was making the most of the sun). It was tiring in parts especially the climb up to the viewing point over wine glass bay, which annoyingly was clouded over when we got there. So back down the path again we made our way to the beach.

It was beautiful and for the first time being in Tassie we can see what all the fuss was about, it was a stunning beach with clear blue water and amazing crashing waves, that seemed to crash twice which made them look like some kind of water show like the one at Vegas. We sat for quite a while filling ourselves up with biscuits and crisps to keep hunger at bay and just sat and enjoyed the silence. I say silence, the young group of Americans that had litterly talked all the way down to the beach, still seemed to have enough air in their lungs to keep going - youngsters eh!!! We eventually had to leave as we still had to drive back to Hobart for our last night, so we stopped off at the lookout again, this time lucky enough to get it lit up by the sunshine. On the way up the mountain side we also saw a killer snail (we’d been told the black and yellow ones were flesh eaters) and a random wallaby just at the edge of the beach.

We didn’t make it very far down the east coast before we needed some food, so paid for an expensive organic type pizza at some beach front restaurant because it was the only place around and I wasn’t prepared to murder someone and go to jail because we had to find somewhere cheaper. Luckily it was a really nice pizza and we managed to share one to save costs. We got to Hobart again as it was getting dark and navigated the one way streets again looking for our hostel. There was no way we were going back to the paraplegic frog, so I’d booked somewhere that read much nicer (by Hobart standards anyway). Tired and grotty we eventually found it but had to park miles away as it was on the main high street. It looked really promising to begin with; an old style hotel with adjoining pub that looked like in its day it was quite the establishment. So there was something quite sad about it being fairly empty of life and decoration as we entered, but hey it was better than the frog. We headed straight to our room, knowing we had to get to bed ASAP as our flight was some stupid hour of the morning, so we wouldn’t even get a whole nights sleep anyway.

Our room was something quite different to the hallway that greats you when you come in. I’d even booked a double to make sure we got some sleep so I dread to think what the dorms looked like. I must have been really tired, or just used to the quality of hostels in Tassie as it didn’t bother me too much even though I was aware it was manky. Nath opened the fridge we got with the room, which seemed like a good thing, but then turned to me and said “don’t look in there what ever you do”; I didn’t and glad I didn’t as Nath later describe the pizza appearance of green, yellow and orange mould that was growing in it. I needed a shower anyway so decided to get this done and then get into bed, but this in itself freaked me out too, not because of the level of sanitation but the style of the bathrooms hadn’t been changed since turn of the century so it was like walking into the bathroom in psycho or the shining. I half expected as I showered to see blood coming from the walls or hear voices - I’ve never showered so quickly in my life.

Back in bed now, on my wonky mattress which was inches away from the old pants they seemed to be using for curtains, I was finally ready to sleep and say good bye to Tasmania. Nath however had gone for a beer; finally one we could afford and found that they had free bloody wifi - the one time we need to go to bed and its bloody free. I couldn’t believe it and also couldn’t leave the opportunity to check emails etc so even though we both should have gone to bed, I had a quick look. Finally we did manage to get to sleep only to get a few hours between us before we were up and out again in the darkness of 4am to catch our flight back to Melbourne.

Now not long to go before this blog finishes, so don’t worry, but I do just have to describe the icing on the cake of our trip to Tassie. As I said it was 4am and we were tired, so we checked our bags in and decided to wait airside, have a cuppa and maybe get an hours rest in the waiting room. We went through the usual checks of our bags etc and walked through the metal detectors and then on to the food court area. However as I left the metal detectors with my bag a guy waiting opposite took me to one said and started to explain he was just gonna swab me for explosive residue. I was half asleep and didn’t really hear what he said so just repeated the words (I think he must have thought I was on day release or something). I laughed when he confirmed what he was doing (he passed a cotton bud over my clothes and bags and I was almost expecting him to shove one up my arse). This made me a bit nervous, which is silly as I obviously hadn’t made bombs in a while, so this obviously came a across a little. But the icing was his next comment; on seeing me tried and not really with it, he said to me that my eyes were very red, and was I ok? Now I don’t know about you but my eye lids are always a bit red if I haven’t slept well etc which makes them look sore sometimes, so when he said this to me, I just looked at him, then slowly looked down at my watch, pointed to it and said its bloody 4am in the morning, I’m tired!!!! He didn’t ask anything else after this and sent me on my way.


Overall Tasmania was very much like NZ but a little less impressive and having not long left NZ I think we could have skipped Tasmania without missing much. We did drive through some gorgeous and changing landscapes, but the level of accommodation for the price and the small amount of stuff to do even in the bigger towns, means I wouldn’t go again and I’d probably only recommend it to someone else if you like mould and see catching disease as some kind of hobby!!!

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Photos

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Mandy makes a mess! surprise surprise!!!

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Evil hamster looking thing

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Mandy trying to feed every kangaroo the same amount

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Perhas giving him those liquors wasnt a good idea?

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WHAT!!!!

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Our first Tassie Devil

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Nath just cant leave the birds alone

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Ahhh little baby wombat

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Silly baby wombat

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They're cuter than they look

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Nath and his mate

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Mandy hiding from the cold

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Our standard shot indoors this time coz it was bloody cold

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Overlooking Hobart

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Mandy hiding in the car from the cold

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The most expensive beers ever!!!!

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You'd think we were in New England

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“Warning don’t make the kangaroos angry, you won’t like them when they are angry!!" or "Kangaroos will tow any illegally parked cars"