I spent last night drowning out the snoring from across the room with my iPod.
For all those people who snore loudly, don't bloody stay in a shared room, it's annoying and I need my sleep!
Meeting Cygnet's Ruling Family
Several days of sitting on my arse, waiting for something to happen, wondering what I was going to spend the next 2 months doing and then a pair of English backpackers arrived, Molly and Rosanna. Still wondering what I was going to do the girls planned to go down for a little day trip with Bobby, a Chinese born Aussie I had been talking to at the hostel, down in the region of Cygnet, a small, sparsely populated place in the south west of Tasmania. Bobby had a friend called Annie from Sydney, who was visiting her friends down in cygnet, and when Bobby called to ask if she was busy we got invited to lunch. Alan and Kay welcomed us into their home and fed us a delicious lunch that even I being one of the fussiest people on earth enjoyed thoroughly. We met their granddaughter Jessica, the 2 resident dogs and then Jessica’s sisters Mary and Adele, I did some reiki on Annie’s shoulder which had been destroyed in a skiing accident, (or perhaps several skiing accidents one after the other) and then we all went to the beach. On the way to the beach we stopped off where Annie was actually staying and picked up swimmers and Ryan (Jessica’s Cousin) and had a tour of the house and garden before heading off to the beach and getting lost on the way!
The water in Tasmania is cold, and I say that having swum in England, Wales and even Scotland. Even Annie went in as well although she didn’t swim, the rest of us swum out to a boat which Bobby proceeded to climb and jump off and I proceeded to be defeated by but that was only because I was so damn cold at that point my fingers were going numb and weren’t much use for gripping. The only person to really squeal and take forever getting into the water was Ryan, sissy! After the swim we went hunting for a certain beach, to hunt for mussels, which resulted in us getting lost and confused again which I discovered was due to cousins trying to direct each other, eventually we found the right beach though. So off we went clambering over rocks and cutting our feet on oysters all to get a bag full of mussels and I don’t even like seafood! I must admit collecting the mussels was fun though, someone even ate raw oyster, that made me feel a little queasy. The last stop was the chippy to complete the meal at which Annie treated us all to fish and chips so we returned to Alan and Kay’s for an evening feast before finally departing and heading back to Hobart.
Cradle Mountain
Friday, April 23, 2010
The last thing I really wanted to do in Tassie was to see Cradle Mountain, only I had no money, whilst I was waiting out this conundrum I was back in Hobart with Mick and a bunch of others including a cute French girl Emmanuelle who took Mandy’s place as my travel buddy. Then one day I was on Skype and chatting to an old friend of mine back in England who after hearing of my deteriorating money situation offered to help, his offer of 150 squid was exactly what I needed to keep me going although I felt quite bad not being sure when I would be able to pay him back, he insisted saying I should accept it as sponsorship, so I did. The Money from Ant meant I could go up to Launceston and see Cradle Mountain and still be ok when I came back down and was hunting for a job again.
We went for a walk when we got to Launceston and this revealed the beautiful Cataract Gorge where I climbed rocks, stuck my feet in the water and was instructed not to climb over the edge of the cliff and kill myself by Manu. The walk back was a killer, so much so that when we reached a service station I bought a spirulina smoothie! Later at the hostel we curled up and watched Enduring Love, which we borrowed from the hostel. The next day was Cradle Mountain day where we had apparently the clearest day possible, our guide informed us that the weather there was so changeable they often have anything from snow to rain or mist and its very rare to be able to spot the peak of Cradle Mountain, so for us to be able to see it clearly and have a clear sky with only a hint of cloud made us pretty lucky. What didn’t make us lucky was that the route had been shut whilst they did repairs meaning we got to walk around the lake and almost got to the route leading up the mountainside. On the way back we made up for the lack of adventure by stopping at a chocolate factory!
A bit of tassie bush
Saturday, April 17, 2010
I left the farm to explore the wider world of Van Diemen’s Land starting in Hobart, yes I had already explored it but never mind. Now I thought being in Tasmania would automatically render me friendless, seeing as no other backpackers seemed to be going there, and for the first few days in Hobart this was pretty much so. However little Mandy from the scandal back in Adelaide was about to visit, so after being in Hobart alone for a couple of days I had a friend.
Mandy, a Dutch girl named Analise, a Belgian guy called Michael and I set off on a 2-day trip of Mount Field and the Southwest national parks, we plugged in the iPod and took it in turns to complain about each other’s music choice and soon we were into the hills leaving the city behind. Our first aim to find the hostel proved a little confusing but when we did find it we felt a little silly as it was ‘bleedin obvious’ as the building with the blue roof that we were told to look out for, in hindsight we over thought it a bit. Anyway we got in and found it to be a delightful little house, which actually was the owner’s house, his kitchen etc. and he slept in the shed up the top but used the house in the daytime. After getting ourselves sorted and dumping stuff and eating lunch we finally went out and took a hike up at Mount Field.
The next day was to be our Southwest national park day; although Mount Field has infinitely more to explore the Southwest was where we planned to do a big hike. Today was not one of my best days, the day before at mount field was beautiful, we climbed waterfalls and took funny photos and generally messed about, then at night we had a Barbie at the hostel and the owner sat with us as well, we cooked up a delicious feast and chatted about karma and the point of being vegetarian, stayed up late listening to music and feeling very peaceful. So today I wasn’t feeling too energetic, my legs had half calcified and were refusing to move properly and I was pissed off at Mandy. It turned out I must have got the wrong end of the stick; I thought she was leaving her boyfriend in Germany, but 2 months later and she still hadn’t informed him of this. So halfway up the hill at the end of the day I voiced my complaints and then we didn’t talk much, we almost made it to the summit and then we staggered down, I got some lovely photos from the day and the morning was good but the end feeling wasn’t too good, and that night when we returned to Hobart Mandy and I went separate ways.
Van Diemen's Land
Thursday, April 15, 2010
My grandparents have a friend who is related to someone who lives in Australia, and they gave me her no, she in turn gave me the no of her daughter in Tasmania and when I called up Kelly not quite sure what to expect she offered me a bed straight away. So off I went to Tassie early one morning to be picked up by Kelly and taken off to the farm to meet Leigh and the Kids, told to help myself to anything and given a room with a huge bed, Wahay the luck still stands! So for the next 2 weeks I walked around a field carrying big irrigation pipes, chased sheep, went fishing for flathead and caught a mountain of them, got fed more food than even I could cram into my black hole of a belly and got several guided tours of the surroundings courtesy of Kelly and Leigh.
I got to see a bit of Hobart, which is a small town even though it is the capital in a space almost as big as England. Hobart is quiet and pretty, the harbour is lovely with plenty of cool looking fishing vessels as well as the large sailing ships now used for making money from tourists and often there is even a massive cruise ship sitting there looking as if it could easily accommodate everyone in Hobart. The state library is about the size of most YHA hostels and there is a massive chess set in Franklin Square, the museum is filled with random stuffed animals and odd paintings and then at the back there is a whole section on Antarctica that told me all about the expeditions that I never knew set off from Tasmania, but of course that’s obvious that they would. My first impression of Hobart was of an odd little fun city and I loved it, even some of the old Georgian buildings still remain, all in all it is a lovely little place.
Richmond also still has most of its Georgian buildings and is extremely proud of its history, being very old (only by Australian standards obviously) it boasts the oldest Gaol in Australia (yes they spelled Jail like that back then) the oldest Bridge in Australia and the oldest church in Australia. It’s amusing that there are three pubs in Sydney that all claim to be the oldest, so who knows how accurate Richmond’s claims are, I certainly don’t plan to argue with them. What’s even funnier is how Australia always likes to tell everyone how old their buildings are even though they are all recent history and none of them actually count as old, Europe has towns and buildings 100 times the age of the oldest Aussie settlements. That aside Richmond is very pretty and very English for that matter, it looks just like most English country villages.
Melbourne, the Rival
Sunday, April 4, 2010
My aunt and uncle had a couple of friends who played the music for their wedding, and then moved to Australia, Nicky and Stuart were still living there when I arrived and had offered me a bed for when I got to Melbourne. When I turned up it turned out to be a double bed in a lovely house and food as well, it seemed my luck was still working. So with so much time on my hands I went ahead and discovered only a very small amount of Melbourne, as always seems to be the way; if you have a time schedule to keep to you get things done and when you have all the time in the world you somehow never get round to doing anything. Not to say that I wasted my time in Melbourne though, I enjoyed watching Andy Murray power his way through to the finals of the Australian Open, I enjoyed watching Federa smite him like a bug, I had Australia day in Melbourne and I ended up at the party next door and didn’t return till the next morning. Jesse (that I met in Sydney) was here also so I hung out with him in my spare time (not that I had anything but spare time) and we visited the zoo together seeing all kinds of odd things such as signs that said Hati-Hati, a room with a billion butterflies and giraffes, naturally Melbourne zoo had some Australian wildlife but most of it seemed to have been shipped in from the rest of the world such as the bears, lions and hyena which are clearly not native animals.
Something strange happened, I met Nora again, I was hanging out with Jesse at the YHA Metro and as I was leaving I saw Nora by the door, I arranged to meet her the next day and off I went back home to sleep. So the next day I wandered into town and we met up to go for lunch at a local Indian, meanwhile talking about this and that but for some reason the conversation just didn’t seem to work, everything we talked about ended up as an argument. I had noticed the night before that Nora seemed a little wary of me as if she didn’t like me as soon as she set eyes on me, but I figured I was just imagining things and ignored it. Now for some reason we just couldn’t get on, we got onto the subject of politics and then it resulted in an argument, even though I’m sure we had pretty similar views, like two people yelling at each other and when you listen they’re both saying exactly the same thing but they aren’t listening to each other so they don’t notice. Eventually she informed me I had changed and was clearly not the person she thought I was, I had become much harsher and seemed as if I was really tired and grumpy and if this had happened when we first met she would have just walked away and not bothered with me. To be honest I still haven’t a clue what happened and what I said wrong, how I met up with a friend and suddenly we became enemies, it was confusing and a little hurtful and I’m sure totally unnecessary, perhaps I just shouldn’t talk politics with anyone.
Canberra, a capital with a difference
Thursday, April 1, 2010
After all this time travelling around Australia I still hadn’t seen the capital. Now in somewhere such as Italy that would be a heinous crime, however in Oz the situation is slightly different; the capital city is boring. This is not just me being rude, everyone on the planet who has travelled Australia or lives there will agree with me. Canberra was built because Sydney and Melbourne fought for ages like spoilt children over who got to be the capital city, and eventually some genius had enough and built a city between them to settle the dispute. The only problem with this new city Canberra, is that it had been built purely for the purpose of ruling, which meant that it was boring and totally un-distracting to office workers, except if you count the confusing circles everywhere or the porn industry; the ACT is a territory and not a state meaning that while pornography is illegal to sell in all Australian states, their capital isn’t in a state and so the administrative capital is also the porn capital, another gold star for Australia!
I only stayed for 1 day in Canberra, which was enough, however that does not mean I was bored. I have a habit of wandering into the right place at the right time, this habit led me to walk to the National Portrait Gallery and open the door for a lady who immediately afterwards exclaimed at my chivalry and offered me a ticket to the French masters that was currently showing there (her daughter couldn’t make it) this then lead to me having someone to talk to about the paintings which is always nice, and then to being able to see a game of Footsall, which is indoor football with an Australian name at the local stadium just outside the city. Maree also drove me to the new parliament house to show me the line up with the memorial, Canberra was a totally planned city so the layout allows one to stand on the steps of Parliament house and look over Old Parliament house to see the War Memorial which is a cool idea, but overshadowed by a mountain right behind it. In the evening I met some amusing friends, which explain some of the odder pictures from Canberra.
Festivities
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Kate invited me to go down to Wollongong with her and so I was due to go the evening of the Sydney festival. During the day I met up with the lovely Franzi, who came out around the festival with me, unfortunately it was only for about 2 hours so we didn’t see a lot of the fest. What we did see was a man in a dinosaur suit running about scaring little kids and a man dressed as an ATM, various bands playing different easy going music and an acrobatic show where a couple of fools were fooling about on stage pretending to hit each other. I bought some sandals and a hat (finally) from Paddy’s Market, enjoyed the random festivities and then ended up at a Barbie on the roof, courtesy of Polotoni who worked at the YHA, (please forgive me Poli if I have spelled it wrong) I chatted to him in the morning and my good mood and smile got me into a Barbie and free luggage storage whilst I was checking out. I bought my new GBF along to it and we ate loads and then I found a welsh girl and spent about an hour trying to convince her to come with me to the festival which was going on without us, in the end it worked but Jesse (GBF) was scolding me like a disappointed school teacher for taking so long and not just walking away, I would have but she was cute and I wanted her to come with us, so I made sure she did.
So off we ran with Anharrad (Welsh girl) in tow and spent ages trying to find Kate who was enjoying some awesome jazz music, which I can attest to be awesome as we did find her in time to catch the end of it and had a good jive, they even played “I wanna be like you.” (Some of us might remember that song from the jungle book.) Kate showed us all up and Jesse swept me off my feet, odd to not be the lead in a Jive but then an ex girlfriend back in England was also my dance teacher so I’m not totally unused to it. We twirled and spun, got very dizzy drunk gallons of water (which we promptly sweated out again), grabbed strangers and danced with them and finally the band sung their last song and we realized we were late for our train. So off we ran, knowing full well that we wouldn’t catch our train, I also had to pick up the bags I had left in storage at the YHA, but we ran anyway, and after a little while Kate said “Give me your bag and run, go get your stuff” so I sprinted, for the first time in a long time I ran flat out, through the obstacle course of human traffic littering the street, I ran so fast that I began to ignite, then I got to the hostel and had to describe in intimate detail the contents of the bags I wanted to pick up having lost the tags for the bags, naturally I missed the train.
So Kate and I caught the next train, we jumped on and sat there chatting to each other and the guards about all sorts of nonsense and she told me all about the place we were to go to, but not before a ridiculously painful walk carrying my 24 kg bag and a 10 kg carrier bag which felt heavier due to its awkward shape and crappy handles. When we did get to the house I was pretty pleased though, it was a cosy little place, very clean and Kate had set out a surprise for me that she had been hinting at on the train, we have a running joke about tea that started in Darwin and now results in even our nicknames for each other being tea related, the surprise was several ornate tea cups and pots laid out all over the house, from elegant bone china to oversized brightly, multi-coloured mugs. I was so tired it took me about half an hour to even notice it, however once I did I was suitably impressed.
So I spent a few days there, making combined meals of my spice filled cooking with Kate’s bizarre but delicious salad to make veritable feasts, arguing over everything from what to put in the food to the meaning of life to whether red is a good colour, swimming at the local beach and experimenting with metaphysics. We even ended up fighting when I bought a minuscule piece of ginger to use for the food, I maintain that I was right; although I’m sure Kate would differ. I would like to add that whilst not arguing we drank tea and got on like a house on fire, Kate and I do actually get on quite well.
Presents!!!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Ok so for the last little while I have been travelling and doing tons of random stuff, I am also now in Tasmania which for those of you that don’t know means I have a lot more time in the bush and the bush doesn’t have wi-fi. So I shall do my best to finish this story of mine and try to get up the rest of my photos etc. maybe even another bit of film footage, but don’t expect anything too regularly.
My return to Sydney was quite nice; it rounded off the trip and sort of marked it as the end of my frantic travelling. Since then I have travelled very little and instead enjoyed my time getting to know people in one area, sleeping a lot and generally just mucking about, unfortunately this does also mean less pictures. Whilst I was back in Sydney I got to see Sydney festival, hang out with Nic before she left for NZ and see Kate.
Now this would be a while after Christmas, I couldn’t get to Sydney any earlier, but there were presents waiting for me in Sydney. My mum had informed me that she had sent over a present to a friend who was visiting her son near Manly, and that I was to retrieve it from her at Christmas, something I was pretty excited about as it doesn’t really matter how old you are its always great to get a present! I met Andrea coming off the ferry, I had no idea what she looked like having met her once before in England a fair while ago and not being the best at remembering names I was looking about hoping that I might know one of the many faces around me. Eventually she found me, my facial recognition obviously isn’t quite up to scratch at the moment.
After saying hello she plonked a large bag in my arms and said merry Christmas, there was I thinking my mother had sent over perhaps a pair of socks or something else small and easily transported. It turns out that she hadn’t in fact used the postal service to sent over a small parcel but given a big bag of presents to Andrea back in England, which she then took over in her luggage and had been holding for me for about 2 months. The evening with them went like this: sit in a café and open presents (list to follow), walk over a big hill, meet Lee and have a swim, go get takeaway for dinner (cringing at this point, I’m fussy), go back to Lee’s and meet the dog, chat and eat dinner (delicious), chat to Andrea on the way home. Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet Lee’s wife Darleen or the new baby, which is a shame, but I might get to meet them on my next visit to Sydney before I catch my flight home.
New Years
Monday, March 1, 2010
New Years was a slightly sad affair as Nic would be leaving on New Years Day, upon a train that had no more seats available (naturally this was a blatant lie as Nic later informed me her carriage was nowhere near full) according to Great Southern Rail, however we made it a nice ending. Earlier in the day we went out to the market and selected some nice food: olive bread, vintage cheese, more olives, some dips and snacks and then a bottle of wine finished our picnic. We took the food out and went to the river (No alcohol zone so the wine was hidden), where most of the people had congregated but handily left a nice little spot for us with plenty of space to spread out and eat whilst we waited for the awful band to stop playing, luckily they promptly did just that and we got to sit enjoy whilst watching fireworks go off and everyone cheer for the new year. The food was fantastic, I was with my new best friend with a picnic and a bottle of wine on New Years Eve watching the moon instead of the fireworks and stuffing my face, my best new years yet and I didn’t even get a kiss.
Sadly though Nic was of course just about to leave, she promised to come and see me on my 21st when I got back home, if I managed to get on a train soon I might even get to see her in Sydney for a couple of days but either way, she was leaving. She hopped on the train and off she went, half way they discovered the tracks had been flooded, so she came back to Adelaide, then set off again, this time on a replacement bus which, just like the replacement bus service back home, took twice as long as the train would have done. I didn’t envy her trip one little bit.
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