Hobart 4th-5th

For my return to Hobart I tried a different backpacker place called Narrara which was according to rough guide 'Friendly and secure with an amiable live in manager and free internet access' What a load of shite. I think the amiable manager grunted when he took my money off me. The internet access was a horrible slot machine PC which gobbled money. My dorm room was a complete mess with no lockers and the door constantly ajar. I managed to bang my head getting into bed that night. Not an unusual thing as I tended to do that in bunks - except I was on the top bunk and I hit it off the ceiling! The ceiling was so low that I could reach out and touch the smoke detector from my bunk. It was a great feat of my will power not to set it off!

I decided I had to get out of this place and tried ringing the pickled frog backpackers only to be told that they had no room. In the end I went for a couple of drinks in another place mentioned in the guide, the new Sydney Hotel and decided after a couple of pints to stay there for the rest of my duration in Tasmania - so finally after 4 months travelling I had ended up sleeping above a bar. Not just any bar either - its an Irish bar! Except its not really.

Why the Sydney Hotel is not an Irish bar - A Ray Rant.

1. In the Sydney Hotel I overheard one of the barmen asking some punters not to swear. In an Irish Bar you are thrown out if you don't swear.

2. In the Sydney Hotel the number of people dwindled towards the end of the night. In an Irish Bar the number of drunks increases. Also people in Irish bars tend to order double rounds at the end of the night.

3. The Sydney Hotel has a decent selection of beers. Irish Bars have Gunniness and a poor selective of piss waters such as harp or Bud.

4. The Sydney Hotel does not sell Tayto Cheese and onion crisps - a crisp so potent that it induces an oniony burp that can clear half a room. Add it to a Guinness fart and you have nobody left standing in a 50 yard radius.

5. In the Sydney hotel guys were drinking out of half pint glasses. I am nearly sure that its written in the Irish Constitution that no man is allowed to drink out of half pint glasses. I believe it goes something like 'And Verily no Irish male shall be allowed to drinkth beer out of vessels less than 1 fluid pint. Any man found doing so shall be forever labeled a big girls blouse - so shall be the law'.
In Belfast people would just laugh at anyone who tried to start a fight with a broken half pint glass.

Still it was a nice bar.

The next day was my last day of renting the hire car and I was supposed to go down the Huon trail. I quickly moved my stuff out of the Narra Backpackers and headed out of the city. Of course this being Tasmania it bucketing down all morning and I eventually decided that enough was enough and turned round to head back to the city.

The sun came out in the afternoon just as I was unpacking into the Sydney Hotel (bloody typical!) The backpacker accommodation upstairs was ok - I had what I thought was a large room to myself. There was no real kitchen. What they had instead was a bunk room (with beds) where they had placed a fridge, a toaster, a kettle and a microwave - all that the great Raymondo, chef extraordinaire would ever need.

Once I got settled in I went for a final small drive in the car before returning it to the depot. Then I went to the library to get details about the local CVA office. I had booked myself on a CVA 'Day with the Devils' tour on the Sunday and I wanted to find out where I was to meet.

I eventually got in touch with Sarah in the main office (who was on the grampian getaway trip with me) only to be told that the tour had been cancelled due to lack of people. What was really annoying about this was that I had specifically planned the dates for this whole trip to Tasmania in order to go on this tour. The one the previous week was full up and as it happened so was the one the following week. Only my week did not have any people! I had also hoped to go on the CVA's monthly walk that they hold the first Saturday of each month - only that was full up!

So I was now stuck for anything to do over the weekend in Hobart.

To make matters worse I was no longer alone in my dorm room. The new occupant turned out to be an old retired English guy called Brian who was there for the weekend. I wouldn't have minded too much about this. He was, after all, a nice enough person who seemed to have had a very interesting life which included travelling the world in the merchant navy. However I have to say that he was incredibly boring and had one of the worst comb overs I have ever seen. I would sometimes tune out from his talking:

Brian: I was in Cape town once....
Me (thinking) Thats a really bad comb over!
Brian: I do poems you know....
Me (thinking) Why do people have them things
Brian: I love honey - do you know honey never goes off
Me (thinking) I mean why! What was that about honey?
Brian: I have even written a poem about honey
Me (thinking) Oh Jesus please don't!
Brian: I can't remember it however
Me (thinking) Thank god for that!

I quickly decided to go out for some food and spent a while walking around the town until ending up getting cheap Indian food.

When I got back to hotel the place was packed with work xmas parties and a middle of the road band was playing while drunk people danced. I had a couple of pints and was just starting to warm up to the band (ie drunk enough not to notice) when the place closed! It was only 12 on a Friday!

BEERS I HAVE DRUNK
Moo Brew Dark Ale: New Sydney Hotel - Even better than Boags Wizard
Bluetounge Ginger ale: New Sydney Hotel: Got very sickening very quickly

Strahan Dec 2nd - Dec 4th

Now that xmas is over I can finally get some time to update the blog.

So where was I - oh Yeah Tasmania and Strahan. Strahan is a small town on the west coast of Tassie which basically serves as a starting point for very expensive cruises up the gordon river - which I did not do. You can also go on the West Coast Wilderness railway to Queenstown which is also expensive and which I also did not do. You can even do sightseeing tours by seaplane which - yep - I did not do.

What I did do is walk around the wharf area of the town which took about 10 minutes and then went back to my cosy cabins bunk and had an early night.

The plan the next day was to do a day trip to Lake St Clair and do a bit of walking before coming back to Strahan. Along the way I would do small detours.

So at about 10am I got in the car and headed out along the windy roads to Queenstown. Queenstown is bloody awful looking because its basically built in a quarry. It looks like a moonscape.

Next stop was Nelson Falls which was a 5 minute walk from the carpark and was an absolute torrent probably due to the recent rains. I got soaked with spray from it while taking this picture.



It should be like this! (from information board):



After Nelson falls I drove on for another 15 odd minutes passing by the carpark for the Frenchmans Peak bushwalk which is supposed to be an even harder trek than the overland. After another 20 minutes I stopped for another small walk - this time to the Franklin river - but it was quite boring with nothing of interest.

Back into the car and more driving along windy roads. I passed another carpark for the Frenchmans Peak trail. After about another 20 minutes of windy roads I started to wonder just where the hell the Mt St Clair turn off was. I was also wondering how it was weird to have 2 carparks for the Frenchmans trek when I turned a corner and seen the carpark for Nelson Falls. I had bleeding gone back the way I had came! I pulled into the carpark and sat cursing at my stupidity for about 10 minutes. (Its not a good idea to take your frustration out on a partly open bottle of water which went all over the place). I finally decided that it would take too much time to go back to Mount St Clair and decided to head back to Strahan.

My doubling back actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as after some food I made my way to Oceans Beach for the sunset via Macuarie Head.

Rainbow and Boat at Macuarie Head

Sunset at oceans Beach

As well as a wonderful sunset I also got to witness another magical twilight animal moment. Thousands of shorttailed shearwaters (or muttonbirds as they are called) nest along the dunes of oceans beach and every night during summer they head back at dusk to feed their chicks. It was an amazing sight to see. I stood looking back at the dunes as these birds flew and squawked around me in the sky getting ever and ever closer to earth as they circled. They looked just like giant bats and some of them ended up coming very close to me as they flew about. I tried to take some photos and video but it was just too dark. Its just one of those things you have to see for yourself.

Here is some guff on a noticeboard about the birds.



The next day I left Straham and went the same route to Mount St Clair. This time I actually stopped at the Frenchmans Peak car park and myself Dm and Taz went down to this great ropebridge.


DM and Taz

Of course for Dm this was not dangerous enough so he tried walking on the siderails!

Dm Acting the maggot

This time I actually got to Mt St Clair and was able to do a small walk near the lake. It was not as spectacular as Cradle Mountain but was still a nice wee walk.

The Great Divide - on way to Lake St Clair

Lake St Clair

After the Walk I had a long long drive back to Hobart to finish off my trip.

ANIMALS I HAVE SEEN
Wombat - Cradle Mountain 1st Dec
Potaroo - Cradle Mountain 1st Dec
Shorttailed Shearwater - Ocean Beach 3rd Dec
Green rosella - Shraham 2nd Dec

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas everyone - and a happy new year

Intermission

Hey everyone. I am still way behind with this blog - sorry but I shall try to catch up at some point.

Unfortunately I am probably going to get further behind as I am off on a 5 day camping trip with some people out of the hostel and then its christmas!

I am hoping to get a video message uploaded either before I go tomorrow or on Xmas eve when I get back and then I will try to get up to date with everything before I head off to New Zealand in the New year.

Keep popping in from time to time - I may still get something updated.

I'm away to the pub - see ya soon!

PS - even though the post says 10:27am it is not that here! Anyway so what if it - WHICH IT ISN'T!

Featured Animal - Short Beaked Echidna

For a while I thought I was never going to to see an Echidna but once I saw one they seemed to start being all over the place. They are very common all over Australia especially Tasmania where they are often seen at the side of the road.

The Echidna (also know as the spiny anteater) is a monotreme. Monotreme's are a very old order of mammals that lay eggs. The only other surviving monotreme species is the playpus. There are other species of echidna in New guinea but only the short beaked occurs in Oz.

The word Monotreme means single opening in greek. That means that their urinary, defecatory, and reproductive tracts all open into a single duct. To put it another way the female echidna takes it up the ass to reproduce. This may explain why they walk so funnily. I think the male has some sort of penis (or else he would have to turn his rectum inside out to do it!).

Here is a short video I took of one.



I am reminded off a very old childrens program I used to watch called fingerbobs which has this bearded guy called Yoffy creating animals out of his fingers. Brill show but an Echidna walks like a fingerbob especially flash the tortoise or prickly friend the hedgehog - basically like a guy has a finger up their hole.

Cradle Mountain 1st-2nd Dec

Dec 1st:
I left Launceston at 10am on Monday 1st December (the first day of summer) and headed to Cradle Mountain. The view of cradle mountain over Dove lake is probably one of the most famous views of Tasmania. I got to the YHA cosy cabins after 3 hours of driving.

I decided that I was going to try to do at least some walking that afternoon and after a quick lunch headed up to the visitors centre to get more information. I got a bit of a shock when I heard that you had to buy a 24 hour permit which cost $22 before I could do any walking. In the end I thought that because I would be needing several days passes I would stump up the extra charge of $56 for a 2 weeks pass.

Once I got my pass I drove my hire car up to Dove Lake Car park and proceeded to do the lake circuit walk. It took about 2 and half hours to do the walk which gave me mediocre views of the mountains. Mediocre because the weather was not the best and seemed to change every few minutes. One minute it would be sunny then the next raining and then cloudy and windy. I even saw a small waterspout form over the lake. Because of the wind and the rain the lake was very choppy making any photos of reflections in the water useless.

Here are some photos anyway.

Cradle Mountain

DM and Cradle Mountain

Er - surprise - Cradle Mountain

shack

When I finished my walk I headed back to the cosy cabins backpackers. By the time I got there the reception area and all other shops were closed. I had nothing to eat for dinner so I ended up going all the way to Sheffield 60km away to get some food. I bought some bread for breakfast/lunch the next day and a very healthy gravy chip for my dinner. Back at the backpackers I met some other walkers in the kitchen. Two middle aged English women, two young German guys and two Aussi girls who had all more or less done the same walk as me that day only earlier in the day. They were all going to do more demanding walks the next day.

PEOPLE I HAVE MET
There was also another woman in the kitchen who must have been at least 65 who I learnt the next day was doing the 'Overland' Trek by herself. This is one of the most famous bushwalks in Australia and goes from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair. The total distance is 80km but it usually takes about 6 days to do and you have to bring everything with you that you will need. She said the next morning 'I think this will probably be my last time doing this' as she heaved a rucksack as big as her on her back!

THINGS I HAVE LEARNT
Never change your camera's batteries on a bog boardwalk. That way if you do drop a battery by mistake you do not spend 20 minutes trying to retrieve it from under said boardwalk and in the end have to lie down in the mud to get it!

Dec 2:
The next day I woke to find that it was pouring down with rain. In fact it had been pouring most of the night. I was in two minds about doing any walking let alone the walk I intended to do up to Marion's lookout:

The song playing on the radio was apt for the occassion. (sorry I chopped of the 'better' from my commentry.)


I wonder why!

In the end I decided to go for it. I thought if a 65 year old grannie can walk 80km in this then I can do at least a couple of km. Also I met the German guys in the visitor centre and discovered that they were chickening out of any walking.

I am pretty sure this black currrawong (tasmanian crow) followed me and was waiting for me break my neck somewhere.

20 minutes into the walking the sun came out for a while and I thought that it was going to be good weather after all. How wrong I was! I made it up to crater lake quite easily but by the time I got there it had starting raining again. Again I made a decision to continue on to Marions lookout - after all I had come this far.

Crater lake

So on up I went

Steeper

and steeper!

And windier and windier:


Until finally I made it to Marions Lookout. Very cold and Very Wet - I don't think DM was enjoying himself:



Still I thought 'I've had worse weather than this back in Ireland. I even remember one time up in the Mourne Mountains we had to walk in horizontal hail which stung like hell'

Right on cue on the way back down it started to hail - horizontally!



I made my way back down in the still pouring rain/hail past this lake.

I think it's called Kangaroo lake.

And of course as soon as I made it down the sun came out!

oh look at the view now!

THINGS I HAVE LEARNT - TASSIE FACTS
Back at the visitor centre I made a point of reading and photographing all their info on Devils in Cradle Mountain. There is an extensive ongoing monitoring program being carried out around Cradle mountain using trapping and remote trip cameras and there appears to be good news on the disease front.

It appears that Tasmanian Devils on the west side of the island are slightly different genetically from the ones on the east side and are more resistent to the disease. Of over 105 individual devils photographed in the area only 9 had the disease which is only 10%. If this is confirmed then it really good news for the future of the animal.

In the afternoon I made the long drive to Strahan and booked myself into another YHA cosy cabin. I had a quick look around the town before retiring to bed reasonably early.

PEOPLE I HAVE MET/SEEN
After my DM video I turned round to see another hiker quickly walking away from Marions lookout. Obviously he was going to the lookout but had seen this nutjob talking to a cuddly toy and decided to legit in the opposite direction.

Oh - just to show you. This is the sort of photo I should have gotten at this time of year - from the visitor cedntre (excuse the flash)

Tamar Valley - 30th Nov

On Sunday 30th I went and hired a car out for 6 days to do the rest of the island. I still had one night left in Launcester so took the car down the tamar valley route.

Although it was a nice drive I think there were better ones I could have done for my first day.

My first stop was Tamar wetlands which is a nature reserve just outside of Launceston. I did not even know the place existed as its in no guide books. I did a nice little walk around it. The place was full of black swans and some other waterfowl.

Main viewing area and swans

Two headed swan - very rare!

Purple swamp hen


After the wetlands reserve I drove all the way down to the end of the valley, past Beauty point and right down to Greens beach where I went onto the sands, looked around for 2 minutes then went back to the car and drove back. I was going to down to Georgetown which is on the other side of the river valley but only made it across the Batman bridge before zonking out and stopping for a much needed kip.

On the way back to Launceston I did one more detour to a small reserve called Notley Fern Gorge. I did a small walk down through all the trees and ferns to Bradys tree which turned out to be a rather disappointing burnt out tree. Still it was a nice old forest.


Allegedly Notorious Bushranger (Aussi for highwayman) Matthew Brady and his gang hid in this tree - what were they - midgets!

Back at Launceston after some food I decided to go out for a couple of drinks. Luke, Connor and Samy had to work the next day so stayed in and went to bed early. The french girls had left for the mainland (I have that effect on women!) so I just did the johnnynomates thing and went out by myself. I ended up going to the Irish pub in town which had a band on that night.

It was an interesting place which was pretty fullup but I managed to get a chair at the corner of the bar with a reasonable view of the band. The band were quite good and were doing slightly middle of the road rock oldies.

It might have been the copious amount of alcohol or perhaps sniffing too many fern spores while in Notley Gorge but I began trying to view the place as a forest full of different plants.

For example what looked like a very large walking tree trunk decided to obscure my view of the band for half the night. The band's lead singer started reminding me of a tree fern as she had a weird sticky out hairstyle. Quite a lot of the other trees (sorry people) were that drunk that they seemed to be swaying like they were in a force 8 gale. One began swaying so much that he had to be 'chopped down' and removed by the bouncers.

Then at the end of the night this young thing came over and started chatting to me. (I was shocked too!) I soon found out that rather than being a succulent cherry tree she turned out to be a parasitic mistletoe out to steal as much sap as she could.
Before I could stop her she had ordered two shots of tequila which I had to fork out for. She was about to order more shots saying 'Last one to finish pays for the shots' when I managed to stop her by telling her I had no more money left. She soon left and got her tendrils into another guy. When I was leaving 10 minutes later she was attached to yet another guy.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNT
Bring more money to the pub!

ANIMALS I HAVE SEEN
Whiteheaded Heron
Great egret
Purple swamphen
Australian shelduck

Radio show

I am just back from doing the radio show - I doubt if anyone stayed up to watch it but I was told I did ok with the interview. I am just glad it is over. I will place a proper post about it once I am fully up to date.

Launceston 29th Nov

Launceston (or Launy as the aussi's call it) is a nice small city near the top end of Tasmania. When I booked into my hostel the girl at reception told me I was being placed in a room with 3 long term residents and to excuse the mess. I sked if their names were Luke, Connor and Samy. "Yes" she said quite surprised. "Yeah I know them gowgers from Melbourne!". I went up and said hi to the lads who were working in Tassie in order to get their second working visa.

For my first full day at Launy I was going to have a walk up cataract gorge which is only 15 minutes away from the city centre.

On the way through the town I managed to stumble upon another parade - only this time there were no dykes although there were some weird people dressed up in strange outfits:



My first Christmas parade - yippee! There were lots of floats and a couple of pipe bands (Scottish theme again!) and after it had finished passing I walked on up the middle shopping arcade only to stumble on the bleeding parade coming back the other way!

I wonder what they might be have been saying:
What do you mean God knocked you up!

Jeepers my kanckers are freezing!

Its still better than Melbourne's Tree!

Are you doing a poo Jonny!

Before going to the gorge I decided to take a quick detour to the park as they have a monkey enclosure. I was dreading the monkeys might be vervet as it would bring back memories of Mitchs vicious vervets in Africa. I still have a scar from the bite Guyus gave me! Thankfully the monkeys turned out to be Japanese Macaques!

Did you just lick my ass!

On to the actual gorge.

I spent most of the afternoon walking right up to the top of the trail. On past the gorge up to duck reach power station.


Cataract Gorge



A wooden hut - except that the 'wooden' posts were made of concrete!


I think the peahen off to the side was saying "To hell with that - let's see your cock!"


A nice view spoilt by the bloody big swimming pool!

I finally made it up to duck reach pwer station and the suspension bridge over the river.


I would have gotten there quicker except I was slowed down by these two:


Hurry up!


Underneath the bridge


View back up river


Back down at the swimming pool and cable ride


Another arty flower pic

And after a long walk back to the town I sat down for possibly the best view of the day!



Later that night myself and the lads headed out to one of the local pubs. Samy who is French and is learning English on his travels had met 3 French girls who came out with us. I asked one of the French girls what her name was. "Fannie" she said. OK I said. So I asked the other French girl what her name was. "I am called Fannie too" I don't remember what the third french girl was called but none of them spoke English too well and they were helping me with my French SO...

I HAVE TO SAY IT - IT JUST HAS TO BE SAID.

SO... that night I was getting French lessons from two fannies!!!

There I said it! Groan away if you must!!!


BEERS I HAVE DRANK:
Bluetounge Pilsner - after the walk. Very refreshing

ANIMALS I HAVE SEEN:
On my way up to Duck reach I scared a wallaby and I am nearly certain a Bandicoot! It was small and had a long nose so I am going to say it was a Bandicoot!
Green Rosella (a very common parrot in Tassie)
Blackfaced Cockoo Shrike

Glossary:
G
Gowger: Irish term: Asshole, Drunkard

Radio Ray or Rain man

A quick post:

I am trying to get up to date ASAP with everything I have done in Tassie so bear with me - still a lot to do.

In the mean time 2 pieces of information.

1. I am going to be on the radio on Sunday talking about my travels - Its a local community radio show called Travelling the Airwaves on 3WBC 94.1 FM - its on at 3pm local time but it has a web stream if you really want to listen:

3WBC 94.1FM

2. I am definitely beginning to think I should be called Rain Man instead of Raymond.

In Tassie it rained off and on the whole time I was there. This time last year it was sunny and 40degree!

Here in Melbourne its raining - AGAIN! Its supposed to be roasting and sunny at this time of the year! I have to either go around in a rain coat or a fleece!

Brisbane has experienced some of the worst floods in its history and a girl out of the hostel has just come back from Uluru (Ayers rock) where it poured down and the local aboriginals used the rock as a water slide!

I actually don't mind - its still warmer (just about) than back home!

Under Down Under Day 3 (28th Nov)

The final day of our guided tour would take us from Bicheno to Launceston via the bay of fires. According to Lonely Planet 2009 the bay of fires is the 'hottest' travel destination in the world. It was a fantastic place - and the wheather was perfect for clambering over rocks and beaches. I'll just post some pics to try to show what it was like:


Rocks and sand and sea




Our guide Ian surveying his domain.




Its me, DM and our new friend Tas!


Annemiek helping DM out of the water


DM sunbathing


Femke resting


Back to the bus I'm afraid

After the bay of fires and some much needed lunch we went up into the mountains to a place called St Columba falls. It was a nice wee walk down through a fern forest to the falls:


Fern forest


Columba Falls


DM and Taz

And on the way back we just happened to stumble on this!:

A tiger snake - very poisonous.

On our way to Launceston we made a couple of other small stops for views and forest walks. We also stopped at an excellent set of war memorials in Ringaroona which are carved out of redwood trees:

Here are photos of just two of them.





Finally we arrived in Lauceston where Ian was to leave us before heading back to hobart. Me and Ben were staying in a different hostel from the others but we met up for one last time in the Cock and Bull pub.

A very good trip although I think I was lucky with both the people on it and the guide because I bumped into another tour group from the same company in Straham who looked a very sorry boring bunch indeed!

ANIMALS I HAVE SEEN:
Tiger snake: Took a small video of it as well:

Pink robin: Not to be confused with pink Elephant which I seen later that night.

GLOASSRY UPDATE:
S
Sticky Beak: Aussi expression. A nosey person or to have a nose around. The 3 californian girls had a lonely planet book which said you should have a stick beak at some hotel in Hobart. They thought it meant some sort of special confectionary and went to the place to try and buy some!