11/12/08

Checked out at 4am and walked to the bus terminal, I scoffed the rest of the potato salad on the way and ended up getting mayo right up to my elbow. Fell asleep on the plane as soon as we were allowed to put our iPods back on and woke up to a woman telling me I needed to turn my iPod off, 1 hour had passed and it literally felt like a second. Got to Hobart, Tazmania, and went to the car rental booth. Spent ages trying to figure out whose card we could put the $750 bond for the car on, eventually managed to get a card that worked. Took all our stuff out to the car, Mitsibushi Outlander, and the guy went through all the normal crap before saying 'Well...it's your standard automatic', Burns and I looked at each other and were both like 'what? Automatic?'. I tried to leave the parcel shelf at the office and when I got back all the stuff had been packed into the car. As we were leaving I asked if anyone had packed my day-sac in the car and Coops said yes. It's so weird driving an auto, theres just 2 pedals, the accelerator and a giant brake. Every time I tried to stop I would instinctivly put my left foot on the clutch, which wasn't there, just the brake, so to start with we were getting some seriously abrupt stops.

Got to the centre of Hobart and pulled up to get some brekkie and check out what places to go. As we were leaving I went to get a Taz guide out of my bag, turns out no one had packed my day-sac, with my passport, all my docs, the laptop and my last pair of sunnys in! They assured me that I'd left it in the office, but I was pretty sure I dumped it with all the other stuff behind the car when we were checking it over. Went back to the airport, and had a look around, luckily the guy had seen it on the side of the road as we pulled away and put it in the office. Decided to head off to Port Arthur stopping at the tessellated pavement to get some Gervais pose photos, and the Devils Kitchen. Saw some Superb Fairy Wrens on the way back, they were cool. Stopped at the Remarkable Cave, Pat was out for the count, Burns just sat in the car with his eyes shut. Couldn't actually see the cave so we just got more photos of rocks sticking out of sea. Drove through a town called DooTown, every house had a name with Doo in it, like She'll Do, Doo Me, Do Us, Do F#@k All, Doo-Little, got photos of all of them.

Turned up at Port Arthur, Pat was stil asleep, went in and they told us we couldn't go anywhere in the Port without buying some kind of ticket, the cheapest being $25, so we gave that one a miss. Headed on toward Nubeena and drove to Storm Bay cabins for somewhere to stop for the day. Got the nicest cabin to stay in, at a price, but we were all shattered so we thought it was neccessary. went to the shops to get some local beers and ingredients for a Sheppherds Pie. Coops cooked an awesome meal while we all lounged around listening to music and watching The Thin Blue Line, meanwhile Burns had had a turd and somehow got it wedged sideways in the U-Bend, it hadn't budged after 4 flushes so he had to fill up the kitchen bit to flush it away.

Attempted to set up a Monopoly game, Coops started to dish out the money and got it completely wrong. None of us had the same amount of money or the right number of the notes, so we spent the next 20 minutes unmixing all the money and sorting it out properly. Helen had a shocker and managed to only acquire 1 Station and the Oz equivelent of Strand the entire game, I had the browns and all the stations by the end but was no match for Pat and Coops. Coops had monopolised the entire board and ended up wining. Burns was just awful, he had nothing but money and soon ran out. Made full use of the TV, popped the iPod on and watched Iron Man, I looked round at Burns about an hour in to the film to see him passed out with a bottle of Boags in his hand with the neck pointing down on to the duvet covering Coops leg and a massive puddle on the floor. Had to give him 4 hard nudges to the ribs to wake him. All fell asleep before the end of the film.

12/12/08

Had a really good sleep. Got up and had another awesome shower. Decided to go to Orford, Burns drove so I had a day off driving for the first time in 4 days, Pat was navigating, I told him we needed to take the A3 north to get there. Passed out at some point and I think Pat took a photo of me, b******! Woke up and we were on the A3, after a while Pat said we'd missed a turning, I thought it was a bit weird because we didn't need to take any turnings and we'd end up in Orford, didn't want to question Pats navigational skills though as he'd done such a good job the past week. We took a very scenic route through the heart of the Tazy countryside that lasted quite a few hours. We had left the hostel at 1030 and arrived in Orford, 50km away at 1345. But at least we got some very pleasent views and saw a lot of road kill, mostly Wallabies and 1 young Kangaroo, we also saw a couple of Porkupines on the way. Pat and Coops got a chance to check out what it was like to drive an Automatic along the deserted roads, at least now Coops understands how I find it hard to go slowly, it literally feels like you're not moving in the car when you're traveling at 80.

I decided to drive again from Orford to Wineglass Bay, its much more comfortable up front than in the middle seat, you don't get thrown from side to side on each and every corner you go round. Got to Coles Bay and found out that the entire place is a National Park that you must pay to get in and need a whole day to walk to the beach at Wineglass Bay. As we didn't have long enough we had to move on to Bicheno. Got there and started looking for accomodation, every time the girls come out of a place that they like they skip along the road smiles from ear to ear looking well chuffed with themselves. We stayed at Bicheno backpackers hostel and cooked 'Banners' and mash. Drove around to find somewhere to book a Penguin tour, Coops got out of the car to ask in a shop, I pulled away to park further up the road, as she came out of the shop she started walking the wrong way so I tooted the horn, she turned around and ran to another car, opened the door and started getting in!

Left the hostel at 9 to catch the tour to see the Fairy Penguins. It was pissing it down, but totally woorth it, we saw hundreds of tiny fairy penguins, at one point they were waddling between peoples legs. Got completely soaked in the rain and had an early night.

13/12/08

Woke up at 5.30 to Burns shuffling around after having a shower, Pat and I got up and had showers and we were back on the road by 6am in high hopes of reaching Cradle Mountain well before midday. Drove past St. Mary's and took the direct route to Launceston, the road soon turned really windy with rocks all over the road, and fog set in so we were trundling along quite slowly. Felt sorry for Helen stuck in the middle seat again, it has got to be the worst seat ever, the seatbelt is awful, every corner we went round she would slip across to one side and have to shuffle back again. Finally made it out of the fog and got to Perth just south of Launceston at about 8. We needed more petrol again so we pulled in to fill up.

As we'd finished filling up Pat said 'right we've got some bad news...we've got a flat'. The back left tyre was flat as a pancake so we spent the next 45 minutes putting on the spare. Got the spare on and decided to drive to Launceston Airport where we believed the RentForLess office was. Pat and Burns took what seemed like an eternity on the phone to figure out that the office was in the centre of town, so off we went again. Got there at about 11, the guys there were really helpfull. They had a quick look at the tyre and soon showed us the problem, there was a giant nail sticking out of the tyre, so they told us where to get it fixed for $20. It took another 45 minutes to get the tyre chemically repaired and the spare back under the car. We went to the local Coles, I think it's the Oz equivelent of Asda, to get bread, lettuce and ham for sandwiches later on down the road, I couldn't resist buying a snickers and a massive block of Dairy Milk chocolate as a treat after a disasterous morning.

Got back in the car and drove to Railton where we stopped to make sandwiches and have a 'picnic' in the car because it was still hammering it down outside. Disaster! The worst thing to happen of the entire trip so far. We'd lost the Ham, had a good look around the car, got all the bags out and searched under all the seats, but it was no where to be found. Pat and I were in hysterics at how bad the day had gone, we simply couldn't believe we could lose ham, what a retarded thing to do! We managed to find a shop to buy some ham and set back off for Cradle Mountain. Finally arrived at about 2:30 and found a place to stay. Finally got to explore the mountain at about 4pm after faffing around with tickets into the National Park and getting food for the evening. The only food in the shop down the road was spag bol or frozen pizza, the pizzas were $10 each so we went for spag bol again.

Went for a walk in the countryside, dressed in a T, Fleece, Hoody, Pack-a-Mac, 2 pair of trousers and shoes with socks. Headed towards Wombat Pool overlooking Lake Lilla. Was a long walk but nothing compared to Taman Negara, it was also much colder, mine and Helens noses were running quite a lot. On the way there we saw a Platypus and Wallaby sitting by a tree about 20 feet away. On the way back we saw loasd of Wombats munching on the grass, one of them came right up close, within touching distance, and used the walkway as a Backscratcher! It didn't take long for the BackScratcher chants to set in, I attempted to get a vid of it, but didn't quite get it in shot because of my s*** camera. Walked back to the cabin we were staying at and de-clothed. Coops cooked us another awesome Spag Bol, and then we sat around playing cards at the table, before going to bed in beds with no sheets or duvets.

14/12/08

Another very interrupted night. Kept waking up to Burns shuffling around on the bunk above me, he was literally shifting around for 5 minutes at a time. Woke up freezin cold and had to stop using my towel as a pillow and wrap it round myself. Finally got up and packed all our stuff. As we were about to leave we saw a mother Pademelon with a baby right outside the window. Spent about 20 minutes checking it out hopping in and out of its mothers pouch. Best wildlife spot so far. Left the cabin at exactly 10am and walked round Dove Lake, got some photos of us dancing outside the Ballroom Forest. Took about 2 hours to walk around the whole lake, I set off in 2 pair of trousers again, but had to take a pair off towards the end. Drove off to the nearest internet spot so Pat could email his Godparents, found a bowl of sugar sachets and each slyly took a massive handfull. Headed off to the Tasmanian Devil wildlife reserve park and learned lots of useless info about Taz Devils, mostly to do with the inbreeding problem causing cancer of the face. Stopped at Wilmott on the way to Devonport to fill up because the sign said it was 59.9 cents a litre, found out that a drunkard had fidled with the sign and it was actually 139.9. Coops and Burns stocked up on chocolate. Got to Devonport and found a shop that had Junior Shopper trolleys, they were tiny! Couldn't decide what to have in our sandwiches beacuse ham was too expensive, ended up having Tuna. Played a bit of frisbee on a field while the girls read in the car, some fat Taz chavs came a sat right in the middle of where we were playing. Drove around all the backpacker hostels to find somewhere to stay, loads of them were full, ended up staying in Devonport Backpackers in a 5 bed doorm. It was our turn to cook so we thought wed treat the girls to a curry. Went to Coles and spent ages deciding on what sauce and meat to use, Pat seemed dead against any kind of veg going into his curry other than what came in the tin of sauce. Settled on a beef massaman in the end.

Went out to the heritage centre while it was still light, there wasn't much wind and there was a massive flat beach, so the frisbee came out again. The girls found a Carols by Candlelight and were well up for it, so they went over there while we played some seriously good frisbee for a couple of hours. We left the girls at the carols while we went back to cook the massaman. Pat took charge of the rice and Burns seemed to be there for moral support and I did pretty much everything else. After 5 minutes they were both bored and were asking how anyone could enjoy cooking. It was all going well until the the end when we realised we hadn't cooked enough rice and we had far too much sauce. As I left to pick up the girls Pat was frantically boiling water and shoving loads more rice in the pan and Burns was trying to boil the excess sauce away.

Picked the girls up and learned that they had now decided all of Tasmania is inbred and all the kids look ugly. Drove back nice and slowly hoping that the new batch of rice would be ready by the time we got back. Walked in the door and the smell of tinned curry hit you in the face. The rice had just finished cooking and the spuds were in with the massaman making it look much nicer. I think it was the best meal we've cooked so far. Went up to the room and necked 2 Sols and 2 Changs while watching an episode of Coupling then went to bed.

15/12/08

Woke up freezing again. Struggled getting out of bed, when I finally did I couldn't find my flip-flops anywhere and my feet were getting really cold. Rammed my stuff back in my bag and then Helen came stroling in the room in my flops. Ate bread and milk for breakfast, everyone seemed really grossed out at the thought of dunking bread in milk, it tastes awesome. Left the hostel and headed towards Latrobe, on the way we saw a Chocolate Factory so I thought I'd better pull in and check it out. JACKPOT!! They had loads of free samples of different choclates, so we stayed there for a good half hour moving between the different rooms eating as much chocolate as possible without looking like we were taking the piss. The dark and the milk chocolates were by far the best.

When we got to Latrobe we stopped at a shop that someone had recommended called Reliquaire. It is the most insane shop I have ever seen, when we walked in the door we were greeted by a woman in a fairy outfit and handed a map of the shop. The place was massive, it had about 20 different rooms all filled with random stuff. They had things like travel soap sitting on a table next to a fridge full of cheese, I don't know how they organise it or do a stock check but it must be hell. Left the shop and drove to the Trout and Platypus Experience, when we got there Helen needed the loo but wouldn't go in the ladies because they were like a festival toilet and there were loads of flies hanging about, she ended up using the gents. Shortly after that a guy working on a hut nearby came up to tell us that they had spotted quite a few Tiger Snakes around the area so we thougt we'd better move on. Didn't get to see and Trout or Platypi.

Left Latrobe and headed down the A1 towards Launceston. 30Km down the road we spotted a cheese factory. Another quality find, there was a circular table in the middle of the shop with free samples again. Coops, Rich and I did 1 circuit tasting about 20 different cheeses, they were all really nice except the wasabi one and the one that tasted like vomit. Stayed in the cheese place for about an hour sneakily eating as much cheese as possible, I think I managed about 5/6 rotations of the table by the time we left. Took some photos of a load of plastic cows that were dotted around the gardens like the ele's in Norwich. Left the factory and a few minutes down the road found a Raspberry factory. Highly dissapointing, only 3 different jams to sample.

Got to Launceston and went to Cataract Gorge. Took the worlds longest single span chair lift to the top and then walked back down. Spent the afternoon playing barefoot football and frisbee in the park near the gorge that was covered in seagull s***. Some random guy put a pink dress on and came up to me and started thrusting his bits around in front of my face, don't know why he did it, if I had something that small I wouldn't be waving it around in public. Drove to the airport and cleaned the car up the best we could before the guys came to pick it up. Got the 7:50 flight back to Melbourne, we were only in the air for about 40 minutes. In that time I managed to freak out the woman sat next to me, I think she was really worried about flying and I was fiddling with all the nobs and buttons I could find, I started ripping the velcro covers off the back of the seat in front and she asked if I did that on every flight, I just said I couldn't help it and she stood up and moved as far away as possible. Helen and I finished off the donuts that someone thought would be a good idea to get for lunch, then we got a taxi back to the centre of Melbourne to All Nations Backpackers. Got a good fix of internet the moment we'd checked in as none of us had used it in around a week.