Last two days in Tasmania!

After a nice night in a big bed with a fan, I some how convinced Emma to go Zip Lining.  For those who don’t know Emma is a very reserved quiet country girl and makes me look like a crazy American girl!  I even got her convinced for the night zip lining but because of it being Good Friday they didn’t have anyone to run it. 

Apparently Good Friday in Australia is a big thing.  Everything closes and I mean everything, from food stores to even the information center (only closed Christmas and Good Friday!). Though as I am writing this it is Easter and apparently Easter isn’t that big of a deal like Good Friday, as we went shopping in the mall today and pretty much everything was open.  Still can’t wrap my mind around it, but it is what it is.

So since I convinced Emma to do the Zip lining we called and made our booking.  We had till mid afternoon, so we decided to go to a Platypus house and Sea Horse World, as they were open and didn’t have anything to do with history!  Thank god we went early as the place became packed with some event happening on the dock with it being Good Friday!

We decided to do the platypus house first, which included watching the feeding of platypus and echidna.  We watched a 15-minute documentary on the platypus and then off we went on the tour.  First we got to see three female’s eat worms.  Pretty interesting how they are able to find the food, as they close their eyes under water.  We then got to see the male, who has to be kept separate, eat as well.  He wasn’t as hungry as the female.  Then we got to see what I thought was the best part.

Next they took us into a room to see the Echidna’s eat, and yes I just said room.  The echidna’s just walked around as if we were nothing, it was so cool.  They definitely have done this before and knew it was feeding time.  We sat in a circle around the food bowls and got to watch them eat.  They have these long skinny tongues that they suck everything up with!  Then when they were done they just walked around.  Some of us visitors got licked, walked over, or brushed upon as they wondered around.  Something was on Emma’s purse as this one echidna kept going by it and licked it at one point. It was a little hard to leave the room!  After leaving that we headed to Sea horse world.

I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect, as the Platypus house was pretty cool and figured it would be pretty hard to top it.  We learned a little bit about the sea horses, but basically it was just watching them float around, attaching to what ever their tails attached to, looking at tank after tank after tank.  It’s all the same thing just different colors or ages.  It was pretty boring and I would not recommend anyone going there!

The dock was getting pretty crowded due to the event going on, so we decided to venture away to find something good to eat.  Our venture turned into heading back into Launceston, as there was nothing on our way.  After lunch we decided to head towards the Zip lining place, as we didn’t have much else to do.

The GPS warned us that our drive to zip lining was on a dirt road, which our car rental wasn’t suppose to be driven on.  Well we sort of had to, so I just drove super slow.  We got their an hour early even after driving super slow for 15 minutes on the dirt road and just hung out and chatted in the car.  I did learn about and see the people of the Exclusive Brethren or as Emma calls them the Hanky Heads!  This is some religion/culture that the women all dress in skirts and kind of dressy.  Once you learn who they are, they are easy to spot out in Australia!

As time got closer we headed in to check in.  I was super excited for zip lining but bummed at the same time cause I really wanted to do the night tour and not the afternoon!  I originally was number four, but based on the numbers we had, I ended up being the front on the one side and the majority of the time ended up going first! It was fun, but since I have done crazier things like skydiving and bungee jumping, zip lining isn’t as exciting or exhilarating! Though I will admit being the first was a little nerve wracking as I wanted to make sure I did what I was told and wasn’t the example of what not to do! 

One a couple of the lines you had to bring in your knees and arms as close as you could so you didn’t get stuck.  If you got stuck you had to do a move called the walrus.  I was first to go and came short of the deck, but as I was so close the tour guide was very easily able to bring me in.  Emma on the other hand made it just a little short of the back up system and had to do the walrus!  I love you Emma but it was quite entertaining to watch! Besides that, we made it through with no major issues and got these lovely certificates: 

I am pretty happy that I got Emma to do the zip lining to break her out of her shell a little. Before this trip she had never even been on a plane and was very happy that I was the one that got her to finally go on one!  And then to even to get her zip lining, I was impressed/surprised that she ended up agreeing! :)

Now remember how it was Good Friday, well we headed back to the hotel and went on the hunt for a restaurant for dinner.  We lucked out finding a place on the water.  We had to wait a little but it was fine!  Dinner was ok, my risotto was a little blah but the gelato they had totally made it up for it! 

We headed back to our lovely hotel to sleep our last night in Tasmania!  Since we had our flight around 2:00pm, we decided to hang at the hotel until check out time and then venture to the number one thing to do in Launceston, The Cataract Gorge. Its apparently number one as it’s the main reason for Launceston existence.

The Gorge had a nice chairlift ride up and down, which we took as well as some nice walks around.  It had very nice views as well a huge population of peacocks!  You were able to walk pretty close to the peacocks, which was pretty cool.  I also got to see a wild wallaby and get pretty close as well! I will admit this for being the number one attraction, wasn’t that exciting just basically awesome natural surroundings!  Once we were done, we headed to find lunch and then the airport!  Just a note Emma did almost leave her Ipad in Tasmania, but luckily noticed while at airport and the thankfully it was in the rental car still! Pretty sure she will be buying a bright colored case very soon!

It was a little sad to leave Tasmania, as there was a lot more we could have done, but pretty sure we did most of the touristy things in the areas that we did visit! It was very nice to play the trip by ear and just do what we wanted.  Of course like any vacation like that it gets a little pricey and I am pretty sure I won’t be eating fast food for a while as I definitely had my fill!

Love always, aloterella :)

Day 3 & 4 in Tassie!

Day 3:

We got up our normal early time and were out the door by 9:30ish!  We checked out of our hostel and headed straight to a Penitentiary Chapel.  As I mentioned in previous posts, the government was pretty good at destroying their history, as they didn’t want people knowing about the jails.  So once again, this was only the remains of what was left, which basically was part of church, turned into a courtrooms.  Luckily they still had a portion of the church, which had the original jail cells that were under the church seats.  They also still had the original Gallows, which was cool but freaky at the same time!  After the 75-minute tour we headed to the Mono Art Gallery.

The Mona was all right, I honestly think at this point Emma and I were just don’t with Hobart and ready to move onto a new city, and art might not really be our thing.  The museum was located on a winery and I wish we had more time as I probably would have enjoyed the winery more than the museum.  We did make sure we saw everything, but probably rushed through it!

At this point we had pretty done everything we wanted to do in Hobart so off we went to Port Arthur.  It was a lovely drive, though the up and down hill got annoying with not having cruise control!  Once we got back to the coastline, we kept stopping to see the water and for me to put my feet in the water.  There were also various tourist spots, so I kept stopping at each one.  We didn’t have anything planned for that afternoon and I thought it was a good way to spend it! Though I am pretty sure Emma wanted to kill me at some point, as I would see things last minute and quick turn/stop!

So after all the stopping we finally arrived at the cottage, which to begin with was on a dirt road.   The cottage was small and cute.  It had a small kitchen, big bathroom, living room with bunk beds and a bedroom that had a double size bed.  We had bought food the night before to make our dinner, which was good we did, as there wasn’t anything around us.

Emma took a shower, as we had a ghost tour scheduled and I decided to make dinner.  Well to start there was no stove, it was basically a heat plate that used ceramic pots.  I was totally unsure if it would even work but it worked amazingly.  Thankfully I was only cooking pasta as it was only one heat plate!  We ate our simple dinner and headed to the ghost tour. 

The ghost tour was interesting but of course nothing cool happened.  In the one room, I did get this green dot throughout the pictures, but not sure if it was something or just dust, but the photos were taken without the flash and it was in different parts of the room.  I even cleaned the camera as I thought it was something on my camera, but still kept capturing it!  The buildings looked cool at night and the stories were awesome, but I was very curious how the place actually looked in the daylight.

Day 4:  

Now for those who noticed before, the cottage had bunk beds and a double bed.  Guess were both of us slept?... The bunk beds.  Not sure how old the bed was, but it was so hard, it would have been like sleeping on the floor! I also forgot to mention above that our water for the cottage came from a tank outside that collected rainwater!  As I said, we were in the middle of nowhere!  To make sure we made most of Port Arthur, we were out of the cottage at 9:15am. 

Port Arthur had three different levels you could choose from, so we choose the middle one.  If you ever go (just choose the basic)! The middle level included: introductory tour, access in, lunch, a harbor cruise, tour of the boy’s prison and the guided tour speakers.   We did and used everything, but still wasn’t worth the full money.  We toured a little on our own, and then did the introductory tour.  After that we continued to tour the grounds ourselves.  Part of the problem probably was that Emma and I had had our share of history.  Tour after tour there is only so much one can take in, and I am really not that into history! What we didn’t know was that, we wanted to see the boys prisons, however, there are no remains of the buildings so its literally just woods.  All the tour was a tour guide telling us where things were, and if we had known this we wouldn’t have wanted to do it, lesson learned I suppose. 

Our goal was to leave by 4:00pm, and I am pretty sure we left at 3:00ish and headed to Launceston, our final destination as this is where we would be flying out of.   This drive was through the mid land, so beaches to stop at, just farm after farm after farm!  What made this trip interesting was I got breathalyzed two times with in a half hour in two towns.  Now mind you, I have never been breathalyzed, so I wasn’t sure what to do.  I am pretty sure the first cop thought I was drunk as it took three tries blowing into the machine to read that I was clean as I wasn’t blowing hard enough! We passed a few more on our drive, but were only on the other side of the road.

The interesting part was it only 5:00pm on a Thursday when all of this happened.  In the USA its usually only at night on weekends, but according to Emma they make enough money that they do them a lot throughout the day!   Even after our unplanned stops we made it to Launceston, which was the emptiest city I had ever seen. 

After staying and roughing it out in the cottage, Emma and I had booked a hotel room, as the decent looking hostels were booked.  Also the hotel wasn’t that much more than the hostels, and Emma and I deserved it!  It was so nice to have a big bed, and an actual shower that wasn’t small with people using the toilets or sinks and constantly changing your water temp.  Also to have an actual normal American shower and not some small box that gives you no space! I know.. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

Ps. I would put pictures with post, but the free wifi is a little slow!  I will put all my pictures up forever to see when I can! 

Love always, Aloterella :)

Day 2 in Tassie & Driving!

Found some free wifi in airport.. so heres a quick post!!

The driving!

So the day had finally arrived that it was my turn to drive.  I knew there would be no way of getting out of it as Emma does not like driving in the city and we were still in Hobart! We got in the car, I adjust mirrors and seat, telling myself stay to the left (over and over again) and off we went to the Cadbury Factory!

For those who don’t know, in Australia they drive on the opposite side of car and road.  This means the gears are in the middle and the wipers and blinkers on opposite side as well! I learned that when I needed the blinkers in a panic that’s when the wipers would go.. Opps! I think I did a pretty awesome job for most of the day.  It was until later in the day when I didn’t realize there was a garbage truck behind me and I was trying to figure out which way to go and kind of stopped.  It came a little close but no accident.  And it wasn’t until the second day when I kept waiting to turn, one direction was clear and the other wasn’t so I waited until it was clear and went (forgetting to check the other side).  Some guy honked at me, but had plenty of time to stop and there was no need to honk at me.

I will admit I do miss my car.  We have a GPS but I don’t know kilometers or meters, and I understand my GPS better when a turn or something is coming up.  I made a couple too soon turns, but the GPS fixed it. 

I also miss cruise control.  I didn’t realize how much I use it and how helpful it is to have, until you don’t have it.  Also, not having a back up camera sucks!  FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS! :)

Day 2:

We started the day with the plan of going to the Cadbury Factory first for a tour and then adventure to Mt. Wellington.  We got to Cadbury to learn that they were having community day, so it only costs us a gold coin ($1 or $2) to get in!  (woot woot).  However, we didn’t find out until in the “tour session” that you actually don’t get a tour of the factory.  You basically get told by an employee how the chocolate is made and watch a video.. I know BORING!   The only good thing was you got to buy discounted chocolate, but I didn’t want to buy any with the chance it would melt.

After a little bit of disappointment off we ventured to see what Mt. Wellington was about.  For those who have been to Mt. Washington, it’s pretty much the same thing, windy roads to get the top that’s very windy.  Lets just say I was very thankful for our very small car.  We drove all the way up and got to see some awesome views.  It was however VERY windy and cold but still so breathe taking! As we ventured down I stopped a few times to just take more of the view in! By the time we got to the bottom, which felt way faster than going up we decided to go this garden thing that was in the GPS.

The GPS takes off and we follow the directions to learn that apparently this garden place doesn’t exist.  We drove up and down the road twice, and nothing.. No signs probably would have been the first hint as in Australia everything is labeled! So we headed back to the hostel to find some lunch.  We were going to stop in this little town, I however can’t Parallel park in the USA let alone in Australia and we ended up at the Hostel!

I pulled out my handy dandy tour guidebook of Tasmania trying to find a responsible place to eat and found a place right down the street called, Pigeon Hole Café.  We choose this place, as Emma has never had a Panini! We ended up eating a Panini with beef, olive tapenade and mozz cheese.  It was good, just a little salty!  Since being in a café I wanted to an Ice Coffee, as it was a pretty warm day. I asked if they made iced coffee and was told no, they make cold coffee, as they don’t have ice cream to put in the coffee.  I don’t know what ice cream has to do with iced coffee but I ordered a cold coffee.  Since it was only like 1:00pm, we tried to figure what else we could do.

I wanted to go the Female Factory (Female Prison), to see what it was all about.  We were able to get the last tour of the day.  Australia was pretty good at destroying their convict/prison history because they thought who would want to know about this.  We were able to see what was left and imagine what would have been.  It was pretty cool to hear the history and hear the stories that were known, but sad at the same time knowing that this place had been destroyed.  Since

We ended up going to the Botanical Gardens.  When we got there it also happened to only be a gold coin donation, one could start to get use to this!  We took a map, knowing we didn’t have much time until it closed and thought we wouldn’t be able to do it.  Well it just so happens that they make the park out to be so much bigger than it was and we were able to do it all before it closed! I don’t know what it is with flowers but I love taking photos of them.  I took so many but spared my friends and only put a few on facebook!

We left the gardens and headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner as we decided to go the Blue Skies on the water as I thought the night before it would be super expensive when it was actually pretty responsible for a Australia restaurant.  Dad would have loved this place as they two size entrees, small or large.  I ordered a small potato gnocchi (which they say totally different down here).   I was a little nervous ordering the small but it turned out perfect, as I was perfectly full by the last bite. I will admit could have used a piece of bread or two but wasn’t paying extra for that.  The little things you miss, when you come so accustom to them! 

Travel to Tasmania & First Day!

Now I am use to max having an hour drive into the airport well that’s not the case in Australia.  Emma and I had to leave the house by 7:00am, to drive 2 & ½ hours to Ballarat to catch a 1 & ½ hour shuttle to the airport.  I pretty much slept  the entire way on the shuttle, as I felt I needed to stay awake for the first half since Emma was driving!

We checked in, got our ticket and luggage tag and then had to drop off our bags.  When we got to the counter the guy asked if we wanted to be upgraded at no charge to an exit row.  In my head I thought, yeah sure but will that scare Emma at all since it was her first flight.  She agreed to it and we got upgraded!  WOOT WOOT!!

Now we go through security, Emma follows me as she knows I know what I am doing being a world traveler and all.  However, apparently in Australia you don’t need to show ID and boarding pass and you don’t have to take your shoes off.  Opps!  Sorry Emma, I thought you everything you need to know for the USA! I of course set the thing off with my Alex and Ani bracelets, but the lady held them while I walked though again. Now I know why there weren’t any lines at the security!

We got some fast food that I had been craving and then headed to the gate.  Instead of calling row by row, we all lined up and just got on the plane.  As the guy scanned my ticket, he started to double check that I would agree to help in case of emergency being in an exit row and then he was like wait a second how old are you.  I said, 24 as I am use to it in the US.  He then says oh ok, you like your 12 and that’s when I gave him a dirty look.  Now I know I don’t look 24, but do I really like 12??  Annoyed we walked on to the tar mat, up the stairs and on to the plane. 

Usually when one thinks exit row, its like 5 inches more space, well no it was more like 2 or 3 rows of seats space, which was awesome!  Emma had the middle and I had the Isle.  Some guy sat down next to Emma and started to chat her up.  He tried to scare her a little as she admitted it was her first plane ride, but she ignored him.  (I will admit, I didn’t know he was super hot until the end of the flight when we took off his hat.  If I had known this sooner, I would have switched seats with Emma, as clearly she had no interest in him!)

We got up in the air, they offered beverages and snacks for a fee and then we landed.  SHORTEST PLANE RIDE EVER!  We landed safely into probably the smallest commercial airport I had ever been to.  It had ONE carousel.  We checked in and got our lovely red car and headed into the city.

Mind you, Emma is a great safe driver but from the country and not the city. I offered to drive but she insisted on driving.  Lets just say it was adventure.  At one point, which Emma didn’t notice thank god, we were on a massive bridge and with no divider.  The only thing telling you which of the five lanes to be in were the lights above with green or red marks.  And it had cars coming at you from the other direction WITH NO DIVIDER!  A little scary but Emma got through no problem!  We found the hostel and parked the car a street until we checked in and to see if they had a car park.  Unfortunately they didn’t so we decided to move the car for the time being onto the street we were actually staying on.  This is what turned into the adventure.

Thinking we could just go around the block was a joke as Hobart is filled with one-way streets.  At one point, Emma thought we needed to go to straight and I thought we needed to turn right, well since Emma was driving we went straight.  All of a sudden we were on narrow streets with options to stay righ tor left.  I kept telling her to go right, as the ones to the left tended to go down the hill and we needed to stay on the hill.  Well I was right and once we turned the GPS back on we found the hostel and were good.

Now for those who don’t know, Emma and I booked plane tickets, a car and a hostel for two nights and that’s it.  For those who know me, this isn’t like me but everyone kept telling me its what I needed to do.  Well lets just say its been amazing.  We do what we want and if we have more time we figure it out as we go.  I also found this handy little free book on Hobart and its been my best friend.

Once we settled into the hotel and I was looking through the book they had a free walking through of Hobart, so off we went.  I figured it would help us know what was around.  It was a lot of walking but so worth it and it was so nice to enjoy the weather.  I did notice while out that apparently my bright jumper attracts attention, as I felt like I would get stares from people and one little girl at the park kept yelling pink. I love my pink jumper, it may be bright but its comfy and you can’t miss me!

After exploring our free walking tour, which should I mention Hobart needs to paint a line for this walking tour like Boston has.  Well anyways, we got back, changed and went on the hunt for a supermarket and dinner.  We found dinner and eventually found a supermarket with the help of the people running the hostel and walking around a massive block.  At dinner, I had a seafood pasta dish with interesting things.  It was suppose to have scallops, mussels and prawns, but it also had fish and some interesting things… Does anyone know what this is? 

I didn’t know and neither did Emma so I didn’t eat it!  The rest of the dish was awesome so that’s all that matters! We walked back to the hostel very exhausted and passed right out, well at least I did! … To be continued!

Ps. Wedding post will come, this was on my mind and much easier to write!

Love always, Aloterella