Tasmania!

Well, I know some of you have been anxiously awaiting this blog update. Sorry it has taken so long; I have been a slacker. I am going to do this as one massive update, divided into days.

Day 1: March 19th

The morning didn't start off too well. I got out of the house with everything I needed, on time, but took a bus that took me too far and ended up having to walk a few blocks and missed my bus by literally 10 seconds. But I was ok, because as usual, I was paranoid and left extra early, so catching the next bus 15 minutes later didn't mess me up. But I did have to stand on the street with all my baggage for 15 extra minutes of fun.
Plane rides were pretty uneventful. I did sit next to a gorgeous Aussie on my flight to Melbourne. He had long eyelashes, a perfect smile, and just the right amount of beard stubble. He was also friendly and I wanted to take him with me, but I didn't think I would be able to cram him into my carry on.
Some guy took my window seat from Melbourne to Hobart, and instead of making him switch, I just sat on the aisle. I regretted it later because it was a really clear day and he got some great pictures from his window seat of the mountains on the approach to Hobart.
I landed, took the shuttle, checked in. The girl behind the desk asked me if I was from the south, completely skipping if I was American, because I could tell from her accent that she was also American. I was surprised, as I don't really think I have a true Southern accent. I told her I was from North Carolina, and then she said she was too. My first North Carolinian I have ever encountered in Australia. She was from outside of Wilson and went to App State. She had lived a year in New Zealand and made me regret once again not working an NZ trip into my time down here. I will do it in the future, though. I did some light grocery shopping for lunch and snacks for the week, then grabbed dinner, and pretty much went to bed. I had a top bunk, and could tell the fitted mattress had not been changed because it had someone else's head hair on it. It was too late to get a change as reception had closed, and I was only here until 6am, so I deal. I sleep with my earplugs, but despite this, I am in a room with 2 violent snorers (I can hear then loudly with the earplugs!) and one of the snorers is a sleep talker/ shouter. He kept shouting in his sleep! Thank goodness I was only here one night.

Day 2: March 20th

I got up before my alarm went off because I couldn't sleep with the chorus of snores/screams. I got ready, dropped the key in the early check out box, then walked to St. David's Cathedral. I ended up waiting 30 minutes because the guy was late, but I met 3 girls from Taiwan who were also waiting for the same tour. Finally he came, we met up with another van, and we were off. Most of the day was driving; we had to go all the way up the coast. Tassie is so beautiful. I wanted to take lots of pictures from the van as we went along. Every location seemed like it could be a postcard. Our destination for the day was the Bay of Fires. It was gorgeous. We spend 2 hours there, and I took almost a million pictures. Here are a few:

It is called the Bay of Fires for 2 reasons: 1) when the white people pulled up in their ships, they saw the Aboriginal people in the area had set fire to the forest as a method of hunting kangaroos and 2) even when the forest isn't on fire, the rocks around the bay have orange lichen on them, looking like fire.
After the Bay of Fires, we went to a waterfall nearby called St. Columba Falls. It was also very cool, and the walk down to the falls was through an amazing little section of rainforest. I love the rainforests here, with the huge taller than a man ferns that make me think I am in the dinosaur era. We also saw an echidna on the way- my first monotreme in the wild. Pictures below.

We checked into a backpackers in Bicheno for the night. This place has great wooden, sturdy bunk beds and a curtain you could pull across for privacy. I loved it and slept well that night.

Day 3: March 21st

I woke at 6am, got ready, ate free breakfast provided on the tour (just cereal, toasts, spreads). We went to a "blow hole"- a cool place where the water from the ocean crashes into rocks in a way that shoots the water up into the air. Picture below:

Today was Wineglass Bay. I was excited, but it was going to be an ugly, rainy day, and I knew Wineglass Bay would be a place best observed on nice days. We had a looooong walk up to the lookout, then a loooong, uneven walk to the beach (on rocks), then a long walk up, then back down to the car park. I feel like on a nice day, the beach would be nice, but on this day, it didn't feel worth it. It rained all the way back to the car park, so the rocks were dangerous and slippery and it took longer, about an hour and a half, to get back. I wore my poncho to shield my electronics in my bag, which just made me madder, because no one looks cool in a poncho.My camera decided to be full on the way up, and my camera for some reason didn't like my other chip I was trying to use, so I deleted some of the blurrier pictures from the day before to make room for Wineglass Bay. The few nice pictures I got from today:

 This was when I had finally conquered all the uphill, slippery rocks. I was a little happy. And angry.

These wallabies were like squirrels- not afraid of humans, just chilling on the walkways and coming right up to us.

We stopped in a small town (really, just a gas station and a restaurant) for lunch, and I decided because of my soggy walk, I would get a bacon and egg sandwich for lunch instead of eating peanut butter. We then drove to Ross, population estimated to be about 3. We walked around a little, then drove to a wildlife park. We saw a Tasmanian devil be fed, and took a picture with a koala, and fed some kangaroos. Here is a few pictures:

We then drove back to Hobart and checked into the YHA near the harbour. I walked to the harbour to refresh my memory, then walked back up to a restaurant near the hostel. I saw it was happy hour, so I had a couple of beers, but they didn't serve food, so I left to find dinner. Some people from my tour invited me to eat with them. We went to a hotel that had $5 steaks with fries, and I added a side salad for $2.5. I found out later after seeing a sign on the wall that on Thursdays this meal is free if you mention the sign. That was a little upsetting, but it was a great $5 steak.

Day 4: March 22

We left the YHA and drove to Richmond, where we saw the oldest bridge in Australia, built by convicts. It makes a nice picture, especially with the ducks:

We then drove to the peninsula and a national park. He somehow tricked us again into walking in the rain, but I did get some good coastal pictures along the way:

We drove through an area called "Doo" Town because everyone has the word "Doo" in their house names, like beach houses- "Doo-gooder", "Doo-Wop", etc. I saw a less impressive blow hole, and got an amazing berry sundae at a little food stand- have to give you the picture:

We next went to Port Arthur. The tour guide for the walking tour was awful, trying to put on a show instead of giving information, but I stuck with him for more than 30 minutes before setting out on my own. The grounds are beautiful, and pretty well reserved. Port Arthur was a prison for repeat offenders, and had a reputation for being hard. It is set in the middle of no where, with a port. It is a gorgeous setting, but prisoners trying to escape would most likely die in the bush as they were miles and miles away from civilization, and many couldn't swim at the time, so the port route wouldn't be an option either. They worked the prisoners hard, but for prisons of the time, Port Arthur had one of the lowest mortality rates. They had a very nice hospital, and focused on keeping prisoners healthy, as to have more people they could put to work. Most prisoners died of respiratory illnesses like pneumonia rather than anything work related. We also got to go on a cruise around the Isle of the Dead, a tiny island in the port where they buried the dead prisoners. They told us a story of a groundskeeper that once sent smoke signals to the main land and demanded to be removed from the island because he saw demonic spirits. He didn't even return for his belongings and refused to ever set foot on the island again. Overall, I enjoyed Port Arthur. A few pictures:

We rode back to Hobart and said bye to one another. I checked back into my hostel from a few days earlier, but this time I wasn't in the room with the snorers and screamers. I really enjoyed my time in Tasmania. It is a really beautiful place, and reminds me a lot of the Appalachian mountains. I also love Hobart. I hope to see the west coast of Tassie someday.