Tasmania

We arrived in Tasmania on Wednesday afternoon. We flew and then rented a car, as we were able to get cheap flights and the ferry was expensive (and 10 hours!) We landed in Hobart, without a plan or a place to sleep - against everything my father every taught me, but I'm working on being more spontaneous!

We ended up in a 12 bed dorm, as everything else was full or too expensive. It was not ideal, but provided a few good stories - 6am fire drill (my 2nd of the trip), this time caused by someone's burnt toast and someone who stole my bed - moved my sheet and bag from a lower bunk to a top bunk across the room - it was quite a surprise when we came home and i was putting things on the bed in the dark not realizing anyone was there!

The idea of not having any plan for "Tassie" lasted until that evening - we went and sat on the pier with the Lonely Planet guide book, a big map, and (of course) a few drinks, and mapped out our week.

We left from Hobart the next morning and headed west. Our first exciting stop (thanks to my cover to cover reading of the Lonely Planet) was a power station lookout - not my best choice for a stop...

We then drove to Lake St Clair and had a picnic on the beach by the lake with groceries we had bought that morning, and a lot of bees. We did a 90 minute walk to Platypus Bay, again Annika and I were disappointed to learn that platypus are nocturnal.

We then went to Franklin Gordon National Park, with Kate filling us in on all the important facts and history of the area. We stopped and did a few more short walks to lookouts and waterfalls. We stayed that night in Strahan, on the west coast of Tassie, in a nice, but very grandma's style b&b. But we watched the sunset with a picnic on the beach and couldn't complain.

I became paparazzi and was trying to get good photos of everyone in the sunset - so of course there are quite a few of me too.

We had dinner in town that night, because I read that one of the restaurants served seafood chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, which i loved in California, so we had to try it.

The next morning Kate & I took a jet boat ride on the river, it was fun, high speed with lots of turns - not far from the way Rick normally drives a boat! :)

Then we went to Cradle Mountain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_Mountain . We did a few walks around the park, but opted out of the 80km, 6 day walk.

Me on the rocks above Dove Lake

We didn't stay at Cradle Mountain that night as all of the accommodation was over priced, so instead found a really nice room on a coastal town an hour and a half further north. We had done a lot during the day, but were on our way up to Wynyard where we were to stay by 3:30, to arrive by 5. We passed a sign for a short walk to a gorge, so opted for a quick stop, which became a quick swim. All was good until we were ready to leave. We had noticed a few strange things on our way in - a guy sitting in a lawn chair right by the road, just watching the cars go by, emergency services truck, a green & white tape across the ground, and quite a few campervans. When we were ready to leave, the tape was now blocking the exit, so I went to ask if we could get out. Much to our surprise, and everyone else's entertainment, I was told that the road had been closed 15 minutes before for a motor race to come by and that best case we'd be allowed out in 2 hours, worst case 4. Since there is only one road, we had no other option but to have yet another picnic, play cards, read magazines, and plan the next leg of our trip.

And I actually watched the race - it was literally right in front of us.

The road was finally reopened 3 hours later and at 7:45 we were on our way to Wynyard. Luckily they hadn't given away our room and we had a nice evening with wine on the docks and then watching tv (another night of luxury with our own tv & bathroom!).

Saturday we had the perfect day - stopped for chocolate tasting, cheese tasting, and cherry/cherry wine tasting! We also stopped in a town called Penguin (complete with lots of fake penguins and penguin garbage cans on the street) and at a paper factory with paper sculptures.

Kate with the giant penguin in Penguin

Me with paper sculptures at the Creative Paper Factory

Another random stop - made out of bales of hay in front of the Sassafras Baptist Church

We also stopped in Launceston, the 2nd largest town in Tasmania, with 98,000 people. The gorge was beautiful and also saw a Japanese monkey enclosure in the park (as if the day hadn't included enough random things already!)

We finally arrived in St Helen's, back on the east coast by about 7pm, and were thrilled with another nice room in a hostel, apparently called a flashpackers instead of a normal backpackers. We decided we needed real food and vegetables, so took advantage of the kitchen to make a big veggie stirfry.

Sunday we went to Binalong Bay, disappointed that one day we had time to sit on the beach was actually cold and cloudy, so we just had to go for a walk instead. Then we went to Freycinet National Park. Monday we climbed up a mountain to get a view of the lovely Wine Glass Bay, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freycinet_National_Park and then down the other side to sit on the beach - yet again it was too windy to swim and even to really enjoy the beach - some may say the hike was worth it...I'm not so sure. :)

We made it back to the hostel for another sunset on the water.

Tuesday we drove down to the Tasman Peninsula to Port Arthur, stopping along the way for burgers. Unfortunately there were no normal burgers, and Annika & I had to be brave and try the "game burger", which ended up being venison and wallaby - not bad, but I think the cheese covered most of the taste!

We toured the Port Arthur Historic Site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur%2C_Tasmania and learned about all of the convicts from British Colonies sent to Australia as punishment. Port Arthur was so remote it was used as more severe punishment, and was practically impossible to escape off the peninsula.

We checked into our dorm room and were wondering if we were still in the prison...

We had decided against a private room somewhere else because it was $40 more. A 9 bed room, bunks 3 beds high. Luckily we didn't have to be on the very top. The room was pretty much nothing but the beds. Clean, but that's because it was empty, thin mattresses on boards. And showers were 20 cents for 5 minutes. Not the best place we've stayed, but we survived! We spent about 4 hours on the beach, with most of the beach to ourselves, having a picnic and reading gossip magazines.

We definitely spent the $40 we saved on the room on wine, just to avoid going back

Wednesday we got up and out of the hostel as fast as we could and stopped at a few lookouts on the way to the airport. The best stop was in Doo Town, with the houses in the town all named something starting with Doo - This'll Doo, Love Me Doo, Just Doo It, etc. And then it was back to Melbourne.

Australia Part 2

After our interesting night in Coober Pedy, we headed for Adelaide.

Annika, me, Kate

Not the most ideal birthday for Kate driving all day through a whole lot of nothing-ness, and really not very attractive nothing-ness either. We have seen lots of different landscapes as we drove, but the drive through South Australia was not very pretty. We spent one night in Adelaide, checking out the city (which I liked despite Kate's brainwashing against it!) and then the next night in the Barossa Valley, an hour or so outside the city, visiting wineries.

This was our first winery, we just happened to stop as we were driving - it was beautiful - lots of nice wine and a tasting platter of crackers, cheese, etc.

We visited a few more that afternoon, Cockatoo Ridge being the best stop - they were having a sale, we got 12 bottles for $30, and nice wine too! That night we stayed in hotel/pub in the town, but since we had our own wine, we went to the grocery store and got more crackers, veggies, and dips and had yet another picnic on the balcony.

The next morning (after tea in Zinfandel teashop), we stopped at Jacob's Creek, just because it is one I knew.

Then we were back on the move. We stopped in Mt Gambier at the Blue Lake - it was windy, but so pretty, we still wanted to go swimming (but you can't).
And made a strange stop at a sink hole, huge hole in the ground converted into gardens. We stayed in Warrnambool that night, checking out where Kate's sister goes to "uni", but it is still summer break, so she is still back at home in Melbourne.

The next day, now Friday, we (well Kate) drove along the Great Ocean Road. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ocean_Road . We made lots of photo stops, all gorgeous views of the ocean, cliffs, rocks. A windy drive, but beautiful. We had lunch in Apollo Bay, where Kate spent summers as a kid. It would have been a nice place to stay, really nice beaches, and we were lucky that it seemed to stop raining whenever we got out of the car.

Kate on the top of the lookout onto Apollo Bay.

We got into Melbourne Friday night around 6:30, after being stuck in the first traffic we had seen the whole trip. Kate's parents put on a nice birthday dinner for her, so we got to spend time with her family. I lived with her sister Jess in London for 6 months and had met her parents and other sister in London when they came to visit last year. But also got to meet her brother, sister-in-law, 2 yr old niece and 4 week old nephew - not surprisingly I held the baby as long as I could!

We spent 5 nights in Melbourne, seeing the city and also relaxing. It was so nice not to have to pack up our backpacks every morning. Saturday night we went out in the city with a few other friends from London who have moved back to Melbourne. Of course, we also found an afternoon to spend visiting the Yarra Valley wineries, before catching flights to Tasmania on Wednesday.

Australia

So I've now been in Australia for over three weeks, and if you can't tell, am having too much fun to stop and write about it. And computers have been harder to come by and more expensive than New Zealand. Oh, and I have 2 friends to drink wine on the beach with, so internet cafes seem much less appealing!

I arrived in Darwin on the 28th, spent the night at Kate's flat and spent the next day seeing a bit of Darwin with Kate & Annika before we started our road trip. Kate is my Australian ex-flatmate from London who left about a year ago, and was my partner in crime whenever it came to wanting to travel - we could have a flight booked for a weekend away in minutes. And Annika is Canadian, I met her in Fiji and invited her along. Random, yes, but has definitely been a good decision and has made the trip even more fun!

I have learned a lot in Australia about animals - lots of animals I have never seen or even heard about. And have learned that you have to be careful because they are very likely to run across the road in front of you, especially at dawn or dusk. Now there was no issues on being on the road at dawn, but we did have to be careful not to be driving at dusk. Annika & I were disappointed we didn't see more animals, but had to admit Kate was right that we didn't want to hit any kangaroos.

Our first animal encounter was in Darwin - a crocodile cruise. They were huge! And really close...
That night in Darwin was Kate's last night, so we got to meet some of her friends and witness one of the amazing sunsets I always heard about.
The next morning, the 3 of us set off heading south. Our first stop was at Litchfield National Park where we got to go swimming in a waterfall - another thing Kate talked about but I could never imagine doing. It was beautiful and refreshing and we had it to ourselves, at least in the beginning.


After seeing a few thousand termite mounds (very odd), we were back in the car. Kate was the driver, Annika in charge of the food & drinks we had in the "eskie" in the backseat, and I was in charge of the maps and master of the lonely planet book, determined to find every interesting and random thing for us to see as we went. There really is only one road, Route 1, down the middle of Australia, so the map part wasn't hard, and not a lot to see, so the stops were quite random. Anything more than a normal roadhouse was a bit interesting.


View Larger Map

We were very entertained by the signs as we went, lots of signs you don't often see in London & NYC.

The first night we stayed in Daly Waters, a fun pub/motel with a jukebox and all sorts of things hanging on the walls, and most importantly, a pool. THe next morning we were back on the road, another long-ish drive to Alice Springs. We had to make a stop at a "petrol" station that was decorated with all sorts of UFO & Alien things, as well as had an international doll collection in the back - very odd, but worth a stop really, when there is nothing else to see! I also found a mango farm with mango ice cream and mango wine, so that was probably the highlight of the day!

Annika & I at "Devil's Marbles", another stop along the way.

We spent two nights in Alice Springs, and enjoyed nice picnics on the balcony outside our hotel room both nights. Kate found a deal on the hotel room, so that was a nice splurge - our own bathroom & tv. So we made the most of it with crackers, cheese, veggies, dips, and of course wine.

Dad - I thought you would like the sign - I've taken lots! :)

Saturday we drove further south and then made the first turn off Route 1 to go to Kings Canyon. There, my new favorite accessory was put to good use.
The next thing Annika & I learned is that there are actually camels in Australia - who knew! Only one of many things Kate had to stop for as we were driving. Not many cars, but animals - cows, wild horses, huge vultures, lizards, emus, and a few kangaroos (but too far away for any photos).



Kate doing cartwheels in the road, not too much worry of another car - usually one every 10 minutes or so.

We got to Uluru in time for a sunset picnic. I had to admit that the "biggest rock in the world" is actually worth seeing. It took a lot of convincing back in September when Kate was telling me we had to go, but it is impressive. And we had our sparkling mango wine, chips & dip on a blanket watching the sunset- nothing to complain about really!


We stayed two nights near Uluru, so the next day we did a few short walks around Kata Tjuta national park and then around Uluru. Both are amazing to see and also meaningful to the Aboriginal people, so we tried to learn a bit about that too. That night I was adventurous and had a bbq dinner of crocidile skewers, kangaroo skewers, and emu sausages - interesting, but not bad.


The next day we were back on Route 1 south and crossed into South Australia finally. We drove to Coober Pedy, one of the ugliest places ever, but famous for opal mining and underground hotels. Because it is so hot, people live underground where it is cooler. We stayed in an undergroudn room, it was strange, but cool. Of course also went shopping too, and we each bought an opal ring. That night was one of the more interesting, beleive it or not, in Coober Pedy. We went to an underground bar and met a few strange locals. The next day was Kate's brithdya, so we started celebrating that night - she and Annika managed to be behind the bar serving drinks and we were given 2 free bottles of wine...maybe Coober Pedy wasn't so bad!