I am back in Launceston now! I've decided I dislike Tasmania as well - loads of travellers I met raved about Tassie saying that it was beautiful and there's was loads of stuff to see etc etc, and it is nice, but it's not really floating my boat haha!

The day I left Hobart there was the Australian Wooden Boat Festival (HA) which is the biggest in the world apparently, so the "city" was overrun with strange boat enthusiasts. I needed to get out of there, there was nothing to do! Ended up doing a 4 day tour from Hobart to Launceston which was ok. Definitely the worst tour I have done though. There was a really good group and met a few English girls and everyone was nice, but it was very overpriced for what we got. The tour guide we had was VERY eccentric and a bit of a loon. He thought he was funny and wasn't, and he didn't do a lot of tour guiding, just telling us little stories from his experiences of Tassie and his entire life, and hadn't got a clue what was going on most of the time. Nice chap, Scottish, just a complete nut job! He gave us a lecture on the importance of trees to us, and bees (we'd all be dead without bees), and told us about how he nursed his best friend who died of cancer (but luckily he didn't catch it). Interesting anyways.

yeah and it was very over priced. $560 for 4 days, including 3 nights accomodation (each place was no more than $20 a night and they woulda got a group discount), although we did travel about 250km, we only did one thing that had an entry fee and had 4 poor quality included meals. Considering there were 21 of us on the tour, they would have covered their fuel costs a bizillion times over so I don't know why they have to charge so much.

On the first day we were picked up from Hobart (he was 45 minutes late as he had no clue where any of the hostel pick ups were!) and travelled about 4 hours to Port Arthur, at the end of the Tasman Peninsula. Was pretty interesting - it was one of the first and biggest convict settlements in Australia. We did a guided tour thing around the first bit of the town - the prisons and guard towers and all the convict built things, like the hospital, houses, chapel, etc. Then did a little (boring) boat ride around the harbour area pointing out the juvenille prison and island of the dead (where all the prisoners were burried), all very exciting. Spent about 3 hours there.

Stopped off at some little points on the way back to Hobart for the night - some nice sea views etc. And a town called Richmond, where Australia's first church was built (by convicts) and the first convict built bridge. Tasmania was one of the first places where Europeans lived (Port Arthur spread into a normal town as convicts finished serving their sentences), and Tasmanians and the towns are OBSESSED by the fact that they have the first and best of everything. The Tassies seem to give awards for every good establishment in the state, we've seen the first church, first town, first bridge, best pie shop, best everything....

Next day we drove about 4 hours to Freycinet National Park to do a walk to Wineglass Bay (the pic!). All very nice! The walk was round a mountainy area to a little secluded bay - Wineglass Bay is the 7th best beach in the world apparently. Was very nice, but we've seen so many beaches and pretty forests by now that they all look very similar! The water was crazy blue though (and very cold!) and the rocks of the cliffs were like a rust colour. Saw some dolphins whilst we were sat freezing on the beach as well. Ooooo and a wallaby on the beach! You might think I'm exagerating about the coldness down here, but it is absolutely freezing! I reckon it's colder than an English summer, the only difference is that instead of in England it might be warmish in summer it'll always be cloudy, grey and rainy, where as here in Tassie, it'll be blue skies and no clouds or anything, but colder!

That night we stayed in Bicheno on Tassie's east coast. Home of the fairy penguins! you can pay to do tours to watch the penguins come out of the water at night to sleep in the areas at the top of the beach. But crazy John the tour guide said you can see them without paying to do a tour. So we all trekked down to the beach at about 10.30pm to see the ikkle penguins come up the beach. We saw one dead one. After hanging around for about 45 minutes we did see three penguins and a baby penguin which was pretty cool, but we were all imagining there to be dozens of em!

Next day carried on up the coast to the Bay of Fires. Just another nice long stretch of beautiful white sand and clear turquoise waters, so called because wheen Captain Cook bought the first fleet over to Tassie they sailed down this east coast and all down were loads of fires started by the aborigines to keep warm. (John was fascinated at how these people had managed to start fires as it was a lot colder than Northern Aus and didn't think it was possible - surely you start fires the same where ever you are!?)

Saw a waterfall on the drive back to Launceston.

Next day we were split up (?!) and my group went to Cradle Mountain for the day. Left at 7.30am arrived at Cradle Mountain at about 12, and left there at 2.30pm to arrive back in Lonnie by 5pm. Really nice mountain walk, and stopped in a honey factory and in Sheffield haha, but another expensive day for what we actually got!

Overall tour was ok - just a rip off! We had a couple of failed attempts at going out for a few drinks as well.

First night in Hobart we headed down the main street in North Hobart supposedly where all the restaurants and bars were. There were a couple of very expensive looking bars, but we just wanted a pub. there were 3 on the main strip, one charged $15 entry! The other one was $5 and we found one for free. There was a reason it was free! There was an ancient group of 3 guys playing the guitar and singing cheesy 80's power ballards haha. The whole place looked like a town hall and was obviously some sort of workers club. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, looked like they had just stepped out of the 80's and had not left the town for their entire lives. There were lots of mullets, massive moustaches and dodgy dancing going on.

We tried to go for a few drinks in Launceston last night and decided to use the Lonely Planet, deciding on The Royal Oak Hotel (pub) as it was "the place to be in Launceston" We had 2 drinks, were the only people in there, and the place closed at 10pm. Tasmania is the most boring place ever! Haha, and Launceston is the second biggest city in Tasmania - only 80,000 people. That's only 10,000 more than Stourbridge!

On a positive note, I have a bit of a lead on the work front. Was planning on going back to Vic if my last attempt in Tas failed, but after I phoned some of Victoria's harvest numbers they pointed out that loads of people have laost their jobs because of the fires, so there are too many people in Victoria for the number of jobs. I've been phoning a working hostel in South Tasmania for the last 10 days and she hasn't had any rooms for that time. Managed to get a room there for tomorrow night, but she says that there's not a lot of work going at the moment, and she's just had 20 of her workers laid off so has to find jobs for them first. She said there's some strawberry picking going, although it doesn't sound like good pay. Figured I could go down there for a few days and suss out the situation and at least get a few cents together. It's better than nothing and at least if I'm there they'll be more chance of getting work. I got my foot in the door anyway!

So yeah, back down to Hobart tomorrow. I'm bored - hence the long long blog entry haha! I need to find work desparately and if this hostel is no good, I will be very excited to leave Tasmania! It is pretty, and I'm sure the people are lovely, but the whole island is a bit backwards. I read somewhere that it's ike it's stuck 20 years behind the mainland, and it actually is!