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

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!

Under Down Under Tour Day 1 (26th Nov).

After my non sleeping night in Hobart I was glad to be out of the backpackers and onto my tour around the East coast of the island.

The mini bus pulled up and a middle aged aussi jumped out and introduced himself as Ian. Already in the bus were 3 girls from California. Shayna, April and Noreen. At the same stop was Ben an English guy from Sussex. On we went around Hobart picking up the rest of the passengers. Annemiek from Holland, Anthony from Canada and Kari from Perth Australia. BTW Anthony did have the obligatory maple leaf on his backpack to tell the world that he is NOT American - although he did say it was actually his friend backpack.

Off we went to our first stop Port Arthur down the east tip of the island. On the way there Ian told us a bit about the trip and places. We also did photo stops at various places along the way:


Richmond Bridge - very old - for oz that is.


Tasman's Arch - not to be confused with the singer Tasmin Archer!

Port Arthur was a big penal colony for offenders who were too bad for even mainland Australia - a sort of Alcatraz. A lot of the place still stood and once we arrived we went on a guided tour. I use the word guided tentatively because it really consisted of a rotund woman pointing to various buildings from a grassy lawn and explaining quite fast what each of them were and what used to go on there. We did move at one point about 100 yards further on but I think this more due to trees obscuring buildings rather than any sort of touring. She then explained what the hidden buildings were before saying thank you and goodbye.


Main Penal Building - looking a bit rundown

After that we went back to the main visitor centre to look at some interesting stuff about the history of the place. As part of your entrance fee each person was given a playing card which corresponded to a convict on the island. Mine was the 7 hearts which corresponded to this:


I would get the lunatic!

We then had a cruise round the bay while getting more info from a speaker system on the boat.

For those who had paid extra there was the opportunity to be go ashore on Isle of the dead (i think that's the name) which is were they buried all the convicts who did not survive. The ones that got put off had to wait until the next cruise came around in about 1/2 hour. To be honest you could walk the island in 5 mins so I was glad I did not go.


Isle of the dead

After the cruise we still had nearly 2 hours to walk around by ourselves.

Unfortunately (or probably fortunately for you) after the boat cruise my camera batteries decided to give up the ghost and my spare batteries were back in the bus so I am going to rely on the others to send me some good photos.

After Port Arthur Ian made one more stop to the remarkable cave. It was so remarkable that it was closed and we couldn't get down to it!
There were some nice views though and while we were having tea and timtams Ian and Annemiek decided to climb down a pretty steep track to the shoreline. I decided that my tea would get cold and my timtam would melt. (I was chicken in other words)


Go down there - yeah right!

We headed back to Hobart. Kari was only with us for the day excursion so we said our goodbyes to her before heading to our YHA hostel. As Ian lives in Hobart he also said goodbye to us and would see us the next morning after he picked up another passenger.

After we settled in we all went for a walk into town for some food and ended up in an Indian restaurant having their Banquet menu. Its the sort of meal where you take servings from various unknown dishes and try to work out what it is that is burning the top of your gob off.

Once the meal was finished the girls headed back to the hostel and myself, Anthony and Ben went across the road to watch a band that seemed to be from prehistoric times.


Play those bongos granda!

THINGS I HAVE LEARNT:
No matter how much of a hurry you are in it pays to read what it says on food packaging:


Read the package carefully - Ah well they were like mini cadbury buttons.

There are no Koalas on Tasmania (too cold) but apparently the mainland population is rife with Chlamydia - the dirty beasts! I just wonder how they got infected in the first place?


GLOSSARY UPDATE:
T:
Timtams: Chocolate biscuits - basically Penguins biscuits from back home.

St Kilda Penguin parade 23rd Nov

On Fri 23rd Nov I went down to St Kilda to go on a guided tour of the little penguin colony at the end of the pier. I had been put in touch with one of Prue's friends Tiana who is doing a PHD on the penguins and has open nights to show people around the colony as the penguins come into shore at dusk. I decided to go down early to have a look around St Kilda before going to the tour. So here is another pictorial tour: First stop off the tram was into a small park which had this plaque.



I wonder if it should have read: 'We knocked down the first building in St Kilda to make way for this plaque'? On through the park past the war memorial (post to follow)



On past the luna fun fair (which was closed) to the beach crowded with sun seekers and swimmers:



Er - well it should have been crowded with sun seekers and swimmers this being effectively late spring/early summer but then I am here so of course it was freezing cold, windy and there was a storm on the way.

Another beach full of babes!

On to the pier to see where I had to meet everyone. By this stage a gale was blowing and it was hard to even walk down the pier. It reminded me of walking along any seafront in Ireland. I felt right at home!



Back past this clock tower



Then I ran out of things to see and went to the esplanade hotel for some beer and food (ok I was cold and hungry and thirsty!)



I had probably the worst meal I have had so far in Australia. I ordered a burger with everything and after 15 mins was given a piece of meat that looked as if it had been zapped by a laser cannon. The bap wasn't much better and was more carbon than bread. Not a good meal at all! The place looks good for live music etc but I wouldn't recommend eating there.

I still had nearly 2 hours to kill so went down to the main street with all its tacky shops (including some sex shops with dubious Santa costumes displayed) looking for a half decent bar. I eventually found one which was good enough and supped on some pots (that's half pints to you and me) while it began pouring down outside. Eventually it was 8pm and I headed back to the pier:

lovely weather for penguins!

I think I seen this scene in Ghostbusters

I got there in good time except that after 15 mins nobody had turned up. I texted Tiana only to get a reply saying they had cancelled due to the weather. Wimps! I told her this was Balmy weather in Ireland! The rain had ceased by this stage and the wind had died down as well so it turned out to be an excellent night to view penguins so I decided to do my own wee tour. There is a section of the breakwater which is not closed off to the public where you could see some of the penguins come to shore.

There is something quite magical about watching animals at night and these penguins with their comical walks and noisy chatter were fantastic to see. There was plenty of light from lamps to see them with the naked eye and you could in some instances get really close to them. My camera was not up to the job due to no flash photography being allowed but I put it on video mode which has slightly better night vision:

This one walked right past me (if you can see it in the bad light)





There is another video here but I have not been able to upload it yet - will do so in Melbourne

Featured animal - Little (or Fairy) Penguins:

Its the smallest penguin in the world and breeds around the coast of Australia and New Zealand. Here is some info from the boards around about the area.



At the start of the pier I also seen a notice about future work being done to enhance the pier and help protect the penguins. The next day I queried the developments with Tiana who replied that she was really excited about the enhancements as it would mean they would be protected from people. Apparently all sorts of dubious people such as druggies and drunks go to the end of the pier to lark about after dark (thanks for the warning Tiana!) Penguins have been disturbed and even in some case deliberately killed by some of these assholes.

That probably explains why these people were also there when I arrived:
police divers

When I asked what they were doing one policeman told me that they were looking for evidence of a crime - a weapon which had been thrown into the water.

As I said earlier - I felt right at home :)

BEERS I HAVE DRANK:
Castlemaine XXXX Gold. Normally I wouldn't go anywhere near this beer but it did say Gold on the tap so I assumed it must have been different from the normal crap. It wasn't.

PEOPLE I HAVE MET/SEEN:
Or rather heard. On the tram down to St Kilda there was a women talking on a mobile phone who was possibly the loudest talker I have ever heard. Shouting would be more like it. The funny thing was that at the end of her (far too long) conversation she said to the person at the other end of phone. 'People say I talk very loud on the phone' Your bloody right ya do dear - my ears are still throbbing!

ANIMALS I HAVE SEEN
Rakali: Water Rat with webbed feet: As well as the penguins I was also lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one at the pier.

GLOSSARY UPDATE:
C:
Cactus: Aussi Expression: Buggered, Dead. eg "this bloody washing machine is cactus"