hey and following on from part 1...

And 5 minutes later I was rudely awoken by Tom throwing stones from the Great Barrier Reef at me and when I opened my eyes there was Liam staring right at me. It was like 9am or some ridiculous time and we were forced to get up and go out for breakfast immediately so we could start to be tourists. It took us ten years via 14 cafes to find breakfast that we could afford or was actually open. We ended up in a cafe in Salamanca which was colder inside than it was outside. It was also really busy and tables were full of dirty cups etc the staff were pretty s***, we cleared our own table twice! Tom asked for ketchup and got a bottle of homemade ketchup that looked straight from the cupboards of Beamish it looked so old and disgusting and like red water so he I got a nice cup of tea there and a spinach and cheese muffin for breakfast which was lush then we were ready to start the day. We wandered round aimlessly trying to figure out what to do, we were advised to cycle to an Art Gallery called The Mona which is meant to be 3rd best in the world behind Guggenheim and Louvre and we were told you could get free bikes which was exciting news being on a massive budget! Or you could pay to hire them to go to The Mona and get a ferry back. But then we were advised the free bikes were Monday to Friday only so we decided we would do that the next day. And instead today head up to the top of Mount Wellington which is a lovely mountain in Hobart. So we booked our bus there and back from the weirdest shop in the world where there was a box of goon on the floor, freaky dolls in the corner, a dog that went mental behind the counter and a man who was so happy to discover we were all paying by card. Separately. So finally the old bus in the whole world turned up, and we got on it I walked straight past the watch your head sign and promptly almost knocked myself out by whacking my head off the overhead compartment when I sat down, that really hurt! It was a lovely drive up to the top of the mountain, the driver gave us amazing commentary on the way he sounded quite bored when he explained all about the history every street we went down he showed us a famous persons house but I can't remember who but I remember being quite impressed with it! Hopefully it will come back to me soon! He proceeded to tell us this Mount Wellington was the 2nd highest mountain and how it was basically quite average haha. He was so funny he definitely didn't realise he was a comedy genius. The views on the way were lovely it took us a good 45 mins to get to the top of Mount Wellington, When we got there the bus driver informed us we had 30 mins to explore and he would be on the bus the whole time as it was cold out there at the highest part of Hobart (I think) we all trooped out, obviously being a Geordie Backpacker I wasn't the best prepared for a trip to mountains of Tasmania, I had flip flops on and a short skirt with footless tights, so to be fair my legs were covered and I had a hoodie on! It was freeeeeeezing like. Like so cold. But also so amazingly beautiful, we had such lovely views of Hobart and we were so high up - we were officially 1270metres above sea level so we were officially pretty high. We then climbed on to some huge viewing rock that was fun and posed for some family shots. It was so cold we were struggling to breathe it might have been the altitude now we know what its like at the top of Everest... maybe anyways ha! So after freezing our arses off for 30 mins we headed back to the bus to hopefully try to warm up!

When we eventually made it back to the bottom of Hobart we decided we needed to go for tea and cake so we headed to cafe where we all ordered some hot drinks and me and Tom and Liam and Shauna shared some amazing honeycomb cheesecake it was beautiful! And Brid got herself a lovely smarties cookie. The cafe also had magazines which really excite me as I don't get magazines here as they are so expensive so we sat in amazement looking at them whilst we waited for our stuff. After over indulging in there we went in to a few museums and art exhibitions, we went into a Surf Exhibition which was wicked there was all the old style surf boards and loadsa surfing pictures up - I really want to do a surf lesson or two at some point in my trip round Oz. It just looks so fun so I def wanna do that, I had a bit play with Tommo's body board at great ocean road but didnt have a clue what to do with it although I did look highly professional strutting around the beach carrying it everywhere I went for show. We also went into a Brewery to enquire about a tour - it started at 2.30pm the next day so we were hoping to do that depending on our time scales. It turned out we didn't manage to fit that in but nevermind plenty more brewerys for me to test in the future I think!

We then headed back to the hostel and for some food, we went back to our local The Shamrock and got us some $10 meals and we also had arranged to meet Nicola from work and her friend Fiona there too so we all sat there and ate tons of delicious home cooked food, I had bangers and mash with gravy and Veg and a nice cold pint of Strongbow which by the way is completely different here its apple and soft here not like our hardcore stuff in the UK - I was sooo happy! We then went back to Woolworths for some lovely drink some people had to replace their crappy half percentage goon and chocolate treats and also renee tablets for Liam as he forgets hes 20 sometimes and seems to think he's old enough for heartburn... so after our class trip to the shops we went back to the hostel it was so fricking cold on the way! I really hate coldness it does not make me happy at all. So we got showered and ready at the hostel, Nicola and Fiona were also in our 20 bed dorm so we were now dominating the dorm which was good! Meanwhile we discovered a hammer on the floor next to Fionas bed which was a bit scary/strange. Nicola then asked everyone around the room whose hammer it was and it turned out to be some freaky mans, he said he needed it for his car. So we basically now all instantly thought he was a murderer. We then were sitting in the hostel playing cards on the floor of our room drinking and playing games etc and this other man who was staying in the hostel in the bed next to mine came in and tried to make friends with us - such a weirdo. He was from Tasmania. Say no more. He told us he was a door to door sales person and he earned around $800 for 2 weeks of full time work which is very bad wages indeed here so we assume he is crap. Or maybe really good as I suppose door to door selling isn't exactly easy. But we asked what he sold which was 'cleaning products, chocolate and everything really' so we assumed he just went to Coles/Woolworths every morning bought some offers and did his own door to door sales selling anything he could. He was proper weird looking a bit inbred I think which is apparently legal over there... We asked what he did for kicks and he said dancing and we asked what kind and he showed us the best dance ever. Which Nicola then filmed so she has real life footage that may make her millions on YouTube! He just kinda shook his whole body for ages which was hilarious we all literally pissed our pants right in his face. I think he was a wee bit special though so nevermind I don't think he would have minded. Actually he was full on hugely special let's be honest.

So after that entertainment we had a quick chat with the normal guy on my bottom bunk and when we said we were going to go out soon (it was around 10.30pm) he like 'strewth mayte no where will be open its Sunday' So it turns out everywhere in Hobart either doesn't open on a Sunday or when they do open they shut at 6pm. Certainly no where would be open at 10.30pm! So I got frantically on my phone googling bars open in Hobart on Sunday night - not one came up! Ha! As if Hobart is their main place... Christ. So we asked a few more people when we went downstairs and no one could really help us out with the whole where to go issue. Liam remembered his friend owns a bar there and had been told to go there and we could get in for free or something so we googled that but it turned out that had shut at 6pm too haha. Good times. Meanwhile sitting downstairs in the hostel an old man started trying to chat Tom up which was so funny. But then Tom got really annoyed and kept walking away from him to different parts of the table and the man just followed eventually he had words with him it was so ridiculous, i swear this man was like 50 why on earth he was hanging round in a hostel was beyond me. I don't think he was even staying there. Eventually we were told to head to Salamanca for a night out as they were sure there would be at least 1 place open so we headed off there in the hope of some open bars obviously as we had some goon left we had to do goon takeaway and walk the streets with our goon keeping us warm as it was at least a 10 minute walk to the 'bars' so we eventually got there and discovered a light on in a bar which made us quite happy. On the way there Liam posed as a dead person next to an ambulance that was parked up and then the paramedic came back and caught him and was just like 'what the hell' because obviously as I have explained Tasmania is time warp zone so humour is also not something that has been invented there yet I don't think. By the time we got to the bar they decided it was shutting time so we weren't allowed in as they were packing the chairs up. We were so sad again - until they did tell us that the casino would be open until 2am woohoo!

So we got ourselves in some taxis, the taxi me and Nicola was in the driver was from Afghanistan and looked exactly like her flatmate Kieran (who is an Aussie not an Afghan) so Nicola was like 'oh my god Amazin let me take a photo of you can you look at me now please' when he was driving haha he was like 'no' she also said 'you don't look like you're from Afghanistan' and he was like 'what do afghan people look like?' haha it was a totally amazing comedy taxi journey. She eventually had her picture taken with him when he had stopped driving poor lad and we hit the casino! This casino was probably like what Vegas was like when it was first built...not. it was the teeny tiniest casino in the history of casinos - although to be fair Im so pleased Hobart are advanced enough to actually have one!! We were ID'd on the way in whoop so me and Brid instantly posed next to the if you look under 25 you get asked for ID poster as we are both over 25! Happy days. We got a drink and we hit the roulette. This Casino was soo small there around 5 tables it was brilliant. Nicola had a shot of Tequila and after that they would allow her to have any more alcohol for 30 minutes and because there was around 7 people apart from us in there they could actually keep tabs on the drinking situation how rude indeed. Bloody austrayans! At the Roulette Table Shauna had never played before but won a fortune!! At one point she was convinced she had won over $100 but it turned out she didnt realise her chips were $5 and not $10 so that halfed her winnings instantly. But she still won over $60 I think! I won $20 so I was happy and spent my free money/winnings on champagne (obviously) Nicola was like 'I have never met anyone that drinks as much champagne as you' haha thats something to be proud I think when an Irish Party Animal tells you that! Class bird for sure. There was a lush smoking deck at the casino where it was all enclosed and heated (remember how cold I said it was?) So i was pretty happy out there as you had lovely views of Hobart at night which was a lovely view for sure. In the Casino Tom had started chatting up the bar lady who was clearly a lesbian so he wasn't gonna get far with that one - kids eh? She did invent a nice drink for me which was champers with a drop of blueberry cordial haha fancy as heck me like. It was lovely colour but tasted no different to be honest. After we all gambled loads and repeatedly told off for having our camera/phones near the table and being watched by the security non stop and also told off for taking photographs inside the casino as me and Brid posed for photos with signs, we finally left as it was closing.

We demanded a trip to McDonalds as that is surely the standard way of ending your night out I believe. However when we arrived at the 24 hour McDonalds it was clearly another example of Hobart being closed on a Sunday as it was not open at all. How rude. So we went back to the hostel and me and Liam borrowed/stole some toast and nutella for a nice night time snack and we made some cups of tea with borrowed/stolen milk and we had a little mothers meeting before we went to bed. At some point Brid also stole/borrowed an oven glove from the kitchen so she won the most random item stolen all weekend. Shame she didnt win a prize just the knowledge that she is a good thief.

In the morning we all got up nice and early and went for breakfast in a lovely cafe we got some lovely mini quiches as a amuse bouche whilst we awaited our breakfast sandwiches. They were amazing it was a bit like greggs. I felt so at home in there! We then went on the hunt for free bicycles after walking away for the shop we were finally pointed in the correct direction and we ended up there after filling out all of the forms we were told we did not appropriate cards for the deposit we had debit not credit basically which was a shame. She said if we had a credit card they would put a hold on the amount of $950 per bike for 10 days...? erm really? As if a push bike costs $950 to buy. So after that big waste of time we went to tourist info as they hired bikes, they had bikes but could not let us take them as all the locks were not there so without a lock they could not rent the bike out to us, so Brid and the Boys went to a different bike place - that was shut even though it said it was open? and then to another bike place where also no bikes were to be rented? So 4 bike rental places and no bike - very high levels of service for the tourists haha. So we decided to just get the ferry on a return journey to The Mona. This amazingly cool army style boat came up and when we got on it had loadsa really cool graffiti on the walls and there were some sheep seats and loadsa random objects round and about. There was also a lovely(evil) bird that would not shut up. The poor woman at the bar looked so pissed off she clearly heard that all day long. Everyone was drinking champers on the boat apart from us I was a wee bit jealous. We realised after a 30 mins fast boat ride that we would have never made it on bikes anyways so it was actually a good job we couldn't get bikes!! It was MILES away.

We ran up the 99 steps to get into the Art Gallery and in we went. It was fab the toilets had films playing on the floor so you could watch while you wee'd which I thought was an excellent idea!! You get iPods/iPhones when you get in to look up the art details of each exhibition which was very clever I think. There was some mental things going on in there. We ended up seeing a video about a man with a big nose and he was sticking his arm in and out of a massive tube of s***. Urgh, it was making me feel sick but we couldn't stop watching it. There was also a freaky mummy thing where me and the girls went in together and it was so freaky like taking part in the filming for Harry Potter in a tomb. Freaky as. And you can only go in in groups of 2/3 for 3 mins each I don't think we lasted our full 3 minutes as we were being proper girls. It was freaky as hell in there I will not ever be returning to that scary assed mummy tomb. We then went and had some tea and cake to recover from the trauma of being in that freaky place which was lush. And then we went out side as they have a lovely garden area and while I took scenic shots of of the view Tom and Liam jumped on the bean bags. We got the ferry back and went to get some lovely fish and chips - they were totally lush, sitting next to the port surround by seagulls in the cold and of course it started raining so it felt just like we were back at home having fish and chips. So british we are we always take the weather with us.

We then went on route to the airport where of course our flight was delayed and basically everyone we had met in Hobart was in the airport escaping half of them were actually on our flight back to melbourne. It was so delayed to get home though we were traumatised. Going through airport security was of course very entertaining, 3 times I had to go through the scanner, first time alarm went off as I had my boots on so was sent back to take them off, 2nd time my bag was stopped by the security men as I had areosols in my bag, third time lucky! Its like I'd never been to an airport before even though I've probably spent more time in airports that most people. Nevermind. Thats me - always learning. So as it took my 10 mins to get through I was surprised to see Tom still there when I did make it through. He had been stopped for the swab test like I had been on the way, then they body patted him and found a condom in his pocket so he had to go back through security putting his condom in the tray thing instead of keeping it in his pocket haha. This made me laugh so much tears fell out. Anyways I bascially made it home after midnight then started work again at 7 so I was up at 5.30am so sleepy but nevermind it was all worth it to meet the freaky/strange/wonderful/weird people from Tasmania!! We all loved stepping back in time for sure! And that is the end of my Tasmania blog!! Speak soon lovelies xxxxxxxx