Hey everybody!!!

Well its been a while so lets see if I can catch everyone up on my adventures…

My birthday was amazing! One of my best so far! And we all know that I love to celebreate my birthday! Lol The day started off with me having my last day at work! I timed that pretty well… once I got home I met up with a few friends and we made an amazing stir fry together! The perfect birthday supper on a budget! Haha I had everyone so excited and counting down to my birthday so by the time supper was over, the beer was coming out and the celebrating began! HahaWe stayed at the hostel for a few hours to drink and chat… and to my surprise I got a birthday present! Everyone had signed a tank top with all of our little says.. mainly the ones for harassing the only Canadian of the group… some says were "Canada… USA's largest state!" , "Blame Canada", and "C'mon Im Canadian!!" hahah I loved it! It was soo adorable! As well I got a chocolate cake with candles that said 23! I was pretty excited that they went through all that trouble!

Eventually we made our way to 'Cookie' a bar just around the corner… where more and more people seemed to have collected… realizing the drinks were too expensive for our backpacker taste we headed back the hostel bar where we knew for sure there would be good music and cheap drinks… As the night went on slowly people started to dwindle… one by one they would disappear up the stairs to bed hahah but not me! I was determined to be a trooper this year and NOT go home before midnight! Lol but eventually around 3am we were very tired from dancing and headed on for pizza! On my way back to the hostel I ran into some more friends and that led to me going upstairs for some more drinks hahaha While at the hostel I managed to find Mark and Sin again.. turned out Sin missed her last train home so she was waiting around for the first train of the day.. which was at 6am! Lol Apparently there were too many drunks at the hostel so everyone got kicked out of the common area.. with no where to go we decided to walk to the 24hr café and wait for Sins train to arrive… Finally we got Sin on her train and headed back to the hostel.. made it to be bed just as the clock turned 7! Ugh.. long night but it was totally worth it!

That weekend was spent partying as most of us were heading in different directions come Monday... so on Sunday a bunch of us got together to take in the Australian Open! Im not a tennis fan (or a sports fan for that matter) but it was a great time! We sat around watching various games through out the grounds.. once we got bored of one match we just walked over to the next court.. we arrived at 11am and didn't leave till 8pm! Such a great time.. and a perfect way to spend our last day together! Come Monday morning after the drinking, partying, staying up late and all the talking I couldn't speak anymore! I had pretty much lost my voice! I was a whisper!!! Hahah some found it every entertaining and peaceful without me talking a mile a minute hahaha

On Monday I left for Tasmania!! I arrived, made my way to the hostel, and started looking around for some people to hang out with and hopefully someone to travel with… Right away I met Blair.. an American girl.. we had a lot of fun touring around Hobart itself as she was only there for 3 more days.. we took in the Cascade Brewery were we spent $20 for a tour of the factory and got to try 3 different Cascade beers… I also met a German girl, Katerina… Her and I also took in some sights like mount Wellington that over looked the city of Hobart… it took us 2 hrs to hike up half the mountain! But then it started raining and we figured it was best to head home before matters got worse! Hahaha the 3 of us girls then decided to plan a day trip.. so we booked a trip to Wineglass Bay! Which was amazing!! It was totally work the hour hike up to the lookout! And it is one of the top ten beaches in the world!! We had planned to hike down the beach but then decided that was wayyy to far and spent our afternoon at Honeymoon Bay were we got to go swimming.. and it was soooooo cold! Lol not like being in the bay at Melbourne… cuz the ocean in Tasmania is just that much further South.. brrr.. lol

While in Hobart we got to celebrate Australia day!! Jenina and I first took in the Salamanca Market in the docklands of Hobart then carried onto the bottleshop to start our celebrating! We arrived back at my hostel with beer in hand, just in time to enjoy the free bbq! It was really good with tons of salads, hamburgers, sausages and chips… very delish! Our celebrating carried on through the night and eventually we decided to make our way to the bar.. it was me and 3 other girls and 4 guys from the hostel we went to this one place that required us to wear toe covered shoes... but 3 of us girls had flip flops on… so the one girl that had proper shoes on went in, took off her shoes gave them to one of the guys.. and he brought them out to us adn we would put them on and walk into the bar without any problems!! hahah we did this until everyone was inside hahaha it was soo much fun! we were in there for like 2 or so hours but then the door lady that had originally denied our entry with flip flops saw our feet and that we were now wearing flip flops! Hahah she was impressed and kicked all 4 of us girls out! Hahahah we came out one door walked 10 feet to the right to the other day and started chatting up the other bouncer.. he was about to let us back in because our hands were already stamped for the bar.. but then the other door lady gave him a nasty look and he thought better of it hahaha we decided we had better just try to see if we can get into another place but were turned away as well… but it was a good thing I guess cuz we realized we had been drinking for well over 12 hrs and should start heading home… after a quick stop off at the pizzeria we headed back the hostel for a good nights rest…The next morning Katerina and I were leaving to tour around Tasmania for a week! We had found a flyer on one of the poster boards at the hostel from a guy that was looking for someone to travel with by car for a week.. we called him and ended up making plans to travel with him and another guy… so we rented a car, tent, mats and a stove and headed off around the island! We first stopped at Freycinet National Park and camped for the evening and the next morning we headed onto Wineglass Bay.. it was the second time Katerina and I had been there but it was still incredibly beautiful!! And this time we had lots of time to walk to the beach itself! The water was pretty cold but Katerina and I decided that we walked 2hrs to get here and we couldn't leave without swimming at Wineglass Bay!! The waves were pretty harsh tho.. it was really hard to stand in with them hitting you hahaha we got knocked over plenty of times but had a great time haha the 2 boys decided to chicken out cuz of the cold water and sat on the beach… while we were still in the water out of no where this HUGE wave came up! And it took us out completely!!! We were upside in the water getting pushed around everywhere.. once the wave was gone we stood up and were covered in sand from head to toe!! And ended up drinking wayyy too much salt water! Yuck! We looked back at the beach to see if the guys were laughing at us and we saw them running away from the water with the bags above their heads!! Hahahah apparently the wave almost took them out too! Hahaha Later that night we hiked our way out of Wineglass Bay and took in the Little "Fairy" penguins at Bicheno! They were sooo adorable! When they heard you were near them they would just totally freeze and sit there until they couldn't hear you anymore then slowly waddle away hahahah they were so amazing to see…. The next morning we headed up farther on the East coast to the Bay of fires… along the way we found some beautiful beaches and stopped to enjoying it as much as possible…. That night we found a free camping spot and set up camp and started making supper… we only had 1 chair for the 4 of us tho! Lol so we took turns sitting in it.. fortunately Katerina and I brought a picnic blanket and had somewhere to sit… while sitting there chatting amongst us.. we heard the crack and then something feel right on top of my head!!!! It was a branch from the trees above!!!! Really whats thwe chances of seeing a branch fall out of a tree.. let alone having it fall right on some ones head!!!! Hahaha we were all laughing soo hard we were in tears.. lolFrom here we headed on to Launceston and took in the Cataract Gorge at night time.. it was really pretty as there was pathways all around the gorge with little lights.. really nice! We couldn't find any free campsites in the Launceston area so we decided to stay at a fairly cheap one… fortunately this one had a camp kitchen!! We were all soo excited and we headed to the grocery store to get some "real food!" hahah we bought some meat and veggies to put into our pasta that night… back at the campsite we got all our food out and then realized that the meat had been left behind at the grocery store!!! Hahaha so much for a fancy meal lolThe next morning we headed back the Gorge to see it by daylight.. after that we headed to the Caves! There were two options; one being a wet cave the other being a dry cave.. In the end we chose the wet cave… it was called Marakoopa cave! And it was soooo amazing!!! We got to see how the dripping effect made the formations inside of the caves… and it was only 9 degrees in there! So it was pretty cool… while in the caves we also got to see the Glow Worms! They were pretty interesting and when the lights were turned out they looked like a bunch of stars on the roof of the cave.. but they had a bit of a green glow to them… One part of the cave was called the Cathedral.. it was really large and open and had really good effects.. our tour guide was telling us how a few choir groups have come into to sing in there and that it sounded amazing! So once we were there he turned out all of the lights and said "alright Canadian sing us the national anthem!" hahahahah I was soo shocked and thrown off that I got rather embarrassed hahahah and only got out the words "O Canada" ahhahaha after he realized he embarrassed me enuf he turned the lights back on hahah but even with only saying 'O Canada' you could hear the acoustic effects really well! It was pretty interesting! We made our way north from here to see some forests and lakes…. We also got to see some Aboriginal Caves.. these caves were used years and years ago as shelters! We headed farther north to Stanely to see 'The Nut'.. just a huge hill on the edge of the water.. its kind of out of the middle of no where.. hahah doesn't look like it fits in there.. (check out the pic and you'll understand) After Stanley we headed back south to Cradle Mountain… that we arrives at 8pm just in time for katerina and I took go to the Tasmanian Devil Sanctuary!! It was sooo much fun! We got to learn all about them and then we got to go out side and watch about 25 of them… as well the lady fed them so we got to see how they interacted with each other and they made A LOT of noise! Lol it was very much like watching kittens play.. cuz they mulled each toehr and grabbed each others tails hahah very cute… That night was probably the coldest we'd been in.. we shivered through out the night!! Didn't help that we were sleeping on thin little mats and we were soo sore and tired from the whole week hahah As well when something decided to jump on the tent and land on me in the middle of the night!!! That very much scared me!!! and kept me awake for a while, even though I was hiding under my sleeping bag hahah we figure it was a Wallaby that misjudged as it was hopping along hahahaThe next morning we planned out a hike of the area that was gonna take about 6 hours.. it was across some hills.. then up the side of a mountaint o a lookout.. then downt he other side of the mountain.. then around Dove Lake.. Some of it was really easy.. but other parts were sooo hard with my short little legs!!! Lol I had to heave my leg up and pull myself up by another rock.. but it was totally worth it!! It was sooo much fun.. and the parts that were realllly steep had a chain going up the side.. so it was nice to have to pull yourself up… in the end the whole walk took us 4 hrs.. we were all super tired by the end of it hahahah After that we started driving further south to Lake St Claire where we did a few shorter walks to check out the area.. We also got to see some of the Worlds Largest trees!Our last stop was on Sunday morning in the town of Richmond.. here we got to see Australias oldest pub, general store, bridge, and church hahah After that we had to hurry onto the airport as my flight left at 2pm that day… So at the moment I am back in Melbourne.. I only have 3 nights here before I head onto Perth.. Once there im meeting up with afriend to take in the Wineries of Western Australia… Take care!! Talk soon!! Miss you all!!!Love Deanna