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Cascade Brewery
Tasmanian Beer is by far the best in Australia. This was one of the most amazing trips we have ever been on. Tasmania is a crazy place with crazy people and crazy things to see. Mike, myself and our friend Xander flew into Hobart, the capital city, we only stayed there one day but that was almost enough for such a small city. We did a tour at Cascade Brewery the oldest operating brewery in Australia. We got to see how it was made and have a tasting session afterwards.
That night we took a bus ride to Eagle Hawk Neck, population 25, which is situated on the Tasman Peninsula. We stayed at eagle neck backpackers which was an absolutely hilarious, mindblowing experience. Terry and Marilyn were the owners and the were the biggest bunch of old hippies you've ever seen. They drink only rainwater collected in a water tank and eat rabbits that they catch and skin for themselves. They also have a sheep that lives in their backyard. Jenna bought an awesome hat that Marilyn's mom hand knit.
The next day we took a marathon bike ride to Port Arthur. Port Arthur holds the second oldest penal colony in Australia, but hasn't been opperating for years.
Fatty Appleton
Mike's role model in life. Fatty Appleton is a Cascade Brewery legend who was famous for being able to lift two barrels of beer at the same time. Quite a character. Mike has a lot of hard work ahead of him but someday i think he could be just as cool as Fatty himself. Part of it was destroyed by a huge bush fire a while back so it looks a lot older than it really is. Port Arthur is where it is because it was nearly impossible to escape, because they were surrounded by ocean and the only way to get off the peninsula and on to the mainland of Tasmania was to either pass through eagle hawk neck which is a thin strip of land inbetween that was heavily guarded or to swim through shark infested waters. After our 2 hour bike ride to Port Arthur, mostly uphill, we still had another 5 k to get to Remarkable Cave, but with a name like that we didn't think we could miss it. What's aparently so remarkable is that you can see the shape of Tasmania in between the sides of the collapsed cave. We snuck down into the cave and took a little dip, it was freeeeezing. It makes sense because we were only 1,200 miles away from Antarctica! We struggled back home but finally made it, only to find Terry skinning a rabbit for dinner and wallabys running around the back yard!
Even though we were exhausted we still had
Remarkable Cave
You can see the shape of Tasmania in this cave.... this is apparently what makes it so remarkable. a whole bunch of amazing things to see on the next day Devil's Kitchen, The Blowhole, and Tasman's Arch. They are all sea caves at one time that are at different stages of erosion. The blowhole is a cave that collapsed leaving a pool behind an arch. The water rushes in and spits up depending on what time of day it is. Then it was off to Tasman's Arch and the Devil's Kitchen. The devil's kitchen is a complete gultch, or a cave who's top has completely collapsed. Tasman's arch is the same thing with just an area of the top that has stayed creating an arch. We then went on a boat ride with an extremely enthusiastic skipper with a passion for albatrosses, we saw 2 different kinds and he went NUTS. We saw the coastline from the water which is the only way to see it. We got to back into sea caves with the boat. We also got the largest cliffs that made us feel an inch tall. As we rounded the bend at a little island we found 100s of seals! They were so curious to see what we were all about that they jumped off
Seals
Wild seals...you can see one as it jumps into the water. They all jumped into the water and surrounded our boat purely out of curiousity. their rocks and swam all around the boat. We also got to see a little fairy penguin swimming in the water, they are all over Tasmania if you go at the right time, which we didn't so this was a lucky sighting. The pictures don't even start to explain the amazing scenery.
We rounded out our trip with our own personally guided tour around Bruny Island... it was a nasty day and no one wanted to do the tour anymore but us. We had the opportunity to eat oysters picked off of rocks on the beach, which was wayyyy to gross for me and i talked mike out of it..haha they didn't look too healthy, inside mike is grateful even though he won't say it. We got to eat at a little restaurant called the hot house where some cheeky parrots and a peacock roamed around and pecked at our food as we ate. We also got to see a penguin rookery even though they weren't there at this time of year. We saw some beautiful scenery and got to relax a bit to round out this overwhelming and fabulous trip.
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