I’m greeted in Tasmania airport by a beagle sniffer dog having a good snuffle up and down my legs and bag (Obviously looking for bombs and not drugs so of course I had absolutely no reason to be nervous :S ). Then the luggage cart is driven in straight from the plane and parks up inside the building where everyone just has a free-for-all looking for their bags. No conveyer belts here then? Stepping outside, I’m clearly not prepared for Tazzy weather in just a T-shirt and the reality bites that it’s no longer warm (which is a real bummer as I was hoping that Australia would be hot everywhere – teach me to arrive in winter I suppose).
First stop is Hobart and the Pickled Frog hostel which is an old converted pub which means the bathroom resembles a pub toilet (Always a pleasure going in there to clean your teeth). A lovely bit of slang Australians have is “Map of Tazzie”, meaning a woman’s vagina (due to the shape of Tasmania on the map – check it out), so you can imagine my sheer delight and struggle to keep a straight face when the kind receptionist genuinely asked me if I wanted to see her ‘Map of Tazzie’ when I was enquiring about directions. Ho ho ho.
Tasmania is mostly a place to just soak in the landscape so that’s what I got stuck into. First up is to climb the local Mt Wellington. You get a bus to the base and walk the rest. Walking up gets progressively more difficult as the path slowly deteriorates into a load of rocks to climb up and makes you curse the booze and the fags as you choke for breath. But, after a big struggle, lots of sweating, panting and swearing you get to the pinnacle and notice there’s snow on the ground and you are no longer sweating but freezing your ass off. The walk up was predicted to take 1 hour 30 but I managed to do it in 50 minutes so maybe I just pushed it too hard. For all the pain though, it’s worth it for the rather spectacular (and not to mention sexy) views. See for yourself:
‘Me on planet Mars’
‘I don’t know where to look’
Didn’t stay up there long as I was slowly losing the feeling in my hands so started to make my way back down. Walking down the road this time, it was decided to do my first bit of hitch-hiking. And, bugger me, it worked! After only two cars as well. What you realise pretty quickly is that people in Tasmania are insanely friendly. Got a lift back pretty much to our hostel door which was a total result.
Next up, road trip (again). This time, Andy wanted to try doing some surfing (no chance for me as it’s waaaaay too cold!) and again we’re treated to the friendly locals in Tazzy when Andy went to hire a wet suit, the guy offered to give it to him for free. Rented a beaten up old station wagon which has been probably the greatest car I’ve ever hired. Lots of character, a racing steering wheel and loads of dents and scratches. The added bonus is that Tasmania has some of the greatest roads ever. Their empty, winding up and down and no speed cameras (or none that I saw). All this and absolutely stunning scenery. So we had an enjoyable two days touring the east coast in our speed demon. Here’s the brief highlights in pictorial form:
Meeting ‘Sandy’ the dog whilst Andy surfed:
‘It's pretty ruff out there’
A trip to South Arm or “S” Arm.
‘Not everyone will understand why this is funny’
The greatest photo I’ve ever taken:
‘Pierre? Non! Je vous drais Antwon’
More Welsh place name encounters:
‘Swon-zee-Ahhhh’
And even my own home town (which resulted in a “STOP THE CAR” and a screech of brakes). This version only consisted of a few farm houses though:
‘Home at last’
Andy has also introduced me to the wonders of handbrake turns. This has now become a firm favourite and it’s also very fortunate there are gravel car parks everywhere so we’d chop up the drive by pulling suddenly into these areas and doing lots of bad boy racing. Heres me in action (although the video footage is much better):
‘Don’t tell the rental company’
Returning to Hobart, car still in tact, we have a night on the lash. Drinking games in the hostel and then out to a club. Nothing spectacularly new there except the next day my hangover is one of the worst I’d ever had in my life. I hadn’t drunk a particularly large amount but for some reason I was bed ridden. Managed to get out of bed for about 1 hour and that was it. Spent the whole day in bed sleeping it off. Horrendous. Vowed never to smoke again which lasted a good 3 days.
Recovered, we decided to drive up to the next city, Lauceston (which I had no end of difficulty pronouncing ‘Law-sess-ton’). So, yet another rental car (this time a brand spanking new Hyundai from Hertz) and another nice drive. Of course this little beast got put through the paces again in any gravel park we could find. Also squeezed in another game of golf (traveling really must suck I bet you’re thinking). Still pretty hopeless and the 1st hole was cruel enough to have a lake to drive over which of course I lost 2 balls in. However there was lots of wildlife about on the course and managed to see some geese having sex which was great.:
‘Fuzzy duck? Ducky Fuzz? Fucking Ducks?
After another poor game, we check into our new hostel in Lauceston which resembles an old peoples home, it even had an old person sitting in the front room knitting. But it was warm, clean comfy and had free coffee so what more could you want. Andy had his bed stolen on the first night by some drunken local so we did the only thing that was right…..reported him to reception of course! Aha! I love a good grass.
The original intention of coming here was to hire motorbikes and tour the west coast as this was the only place in Tazzy that hired them. As I don’t have a license to ride a motorbike, don’t really know HOW to ride a motorbike, and have only ever ridden a 100cc automatic scooter badly, I wasn’t exactly feeling confident about this one. Andy rides a bike back home so he assured me it would all be fine. Luckily for me it turned out that this place was never open and we never got round to hiring them (which is probably for the best as I probably wouldn’t be sitting here writing this now). Phew! I do want to try but I think I want to have lessons first.
So no bikes, we did the only thing we could in a small Australian town. Namely, look around town hall where the Australian Ferrari members club had all congregated to park their GORGEOUS cars. Every Ferrari imaginable was here and although the cars were stunning and drule worthy, the owners were slightly less desirable. They all paraded round in Ferrari jackets and Ferrari shirts. Laying out their Ferrari toolkit with Ferrari spanners in front of their Ferrari car. Some even had Ferrari socks on for gods sake. “Yes mate, I can see you own one but you don’t have to dress up like one”. It’s a little bit pathetic really, I mean if I owned one, I wouldn’t really park it up so a load of poor people could touch it that’s for sure. I’d just drive the bloody thing. And I’d do it naked too. Maybe Marks and Spencer socks, but that’d be it. Anyway, luckily I had some golf balls in my pocket so I walked around bouncing them on the floor making them all get a bit nervous and give me some cursory glances. After that there was nothing left but to look at Japanese monkeys in the park, climb a hill (which luckily had a bowling green on it – so more bowls) and have a game of squash. Which Andy thrashed me at. Bastard. Ended the evening on a curious one. One of the girls in the hostel wanted someone to go with for a drink so I popped out with her for a Guiness. Turns out she was one of the ‘others’. An extra in my favourite hit TV show Lost. Funny the people you meet eh?
Last day and still stuck in Lauceston, the bike company failed to get back to us again (phew, again). So we did the only thing we could in a small Australian town. Drink. We had a flight at 8 in the evening so what better way to spend an afternoon than doing a pub crawl around town and playing Keno (lottery) in every pub. Needless to say, by the time we’re at the airport we’re pretty pissed and I knock over a big cleaners cone upon leaving the toilet much to the amusement of the entire check-in queue. Great. Oh well Melbourne here we come:
'THERES A BOMB ON THE PLANE! Aha, just kidding. We're drunk. Seriously though, we're all gonna die'
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