Tasmania Adventures!!

Goodness! I feel so behind in everything, this and school and keeping in touch. I hope you all are doing well. I’m going to make this entry all about my Tasmania trip, then hopefully in the next couple days I’ll get up the end of our Easter break trip and such so I can get myself and you all up to date! Just a little side note, recently I’ve seen a lot of change in myself and my life and it’s sort of overwhelming, but exciting maybe. I’m still not sure what’s happening, or where I’m going, but it’s definitely a change. Anyway, random I know, so now I’ll get on with the show.

Last Wednesday I left for Tasmania with 13 other international students! Nine of us were really travelling together, the other five were staying at the same hostel but doing other stuff, although we did run into them some. That day was ANZAC day, so we had the day off. For our Australia Today class, though, we got up at 4 and went to a dawn service to remember the day and the soldiers. It was in Torquay and was pretty nice. I was amazed at how many people came out, it was honestly pretty moving that so many Australians come together to remember, and there were a lot of young people as well. I don’t think us Americans really seem to come together like that to remember, especially the younger generation. There were just a couple speakers and some readings, planes flew over, and they sang a few songs. There was a short parade of some veterans as well. And we got to see the sunrise sort of, though it was very cloudy. We got free snags as well. We got back mid morning and then had to leave at 11 for the airport. So I finished packing and doing some homework before we left. The Gull took us to Tullamarine Airport, we ate some lunch, waited around, and we headed south to Tassie! It was only about an hour flight, but I was out the whole time I was so tired. We had to pick up our rental car which took us awhile. We got a Toyota Corolla hatchback, it was pretty nice, plenty roomy for 4 of us. It was Jess from Wisconsin, Jeff from Nevada, and Brandon from K-State in our car. Then Donald, a K-Stater, Lauren and Rachael from Atlanta and North Carolina, Scott from Ohio, and Marc from Ohio, were all in another car. Brandon and Jess were the drivers on our car since it cost so much to add more drivers and they’d driven before. I was kinda sad I didn’t get to drive, I still haven’t, it’s been 3 months since I’ve been behind the wheel!! But hopefully I will in New Zealand. Anyway, we drove into Hobart and found our hostel. At first sight I thought it was a really nice one, it was my first one. They had a board with out names to greet us and it seemed fairly clean and lodge-y feeling. We had a four person room so didn’t have to share with strangers, it was decent, small but a sink and enough room to sleep. The beds were actually quite comfortable. The only problem with our room was the damp, stale feel and slight smell of urine, that was a little gross. The bathrooms were horrid, however. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that gross, it was very nice to come back here and actually feel clean. We had to hold down the flusher on the toilets for at least 30 seconds for it to work. But it was a decent place to sleep and super cheap, not a big deal. We found a fish and chips place on the water for dinner and got some ice cream after. Then we all headed back to the hostel to just plan out the next day and crash.

Thursday we got up early to go to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. That was pretty cool. It made me very happy being around that much chocolate, you could smell it strongly in the air. Who wouldn’t love that?! It was interesting to see how they make the chocolate and then each of their products as well. All I ever knew was Cadbury Crème Eggs, but here it’s huge like Hershey, it’s like all of Australia’s chocolate. The most amazing thing was seeing everything being wrapped, I was flabbergasted at how fast it all went! They make a lot of chocolate there! The best part was being greeted with a free sample, and being given a small box of free samples at the end of the tour. They had a shop too, we all bought lots and lots of chocolate. It was all super cheap, like factory prices, so I bought $14 worth of it in the hopes it will last me through my time here! We ate a lot of it that day, though. I still have a few blocks and much more left though. After that exciting experience that lifted our tried spirits, we were off on a drive to Port Arthur. We stopped along the way at a few places to see some pretty views and explore a little and take some nice pictures. It was a good time. We stopped at a Tasmanian Devil park but it cost too much for what it was and we didn’t really want to go in that bad anyway, so we left fast. We finally arrived at Port Arthur and ate a little lunch of pb & j before heading in to the historic site. We paid our dues and headed to the museum first. It took you through the life of a convict and how the penal colony worked and the way things were back then. It was pretty interesting. Then our guided tour started and we were led around a little ways on the grounds and told a lot of the history of the place. It was very interesting, and a little disturbing. There were some really horrible things that went on at this place, very cruel treatment of these convicts sent from England. Some of them just stole a loaf of bread or something! But they were all second offense prisoners so they had to have done something while in prison back home to be sent there. Many of the convicts went crazy because of the physical and mental abuse. So then we went off to explore a little more on our own and look at some of the buildings before we went on a cruise around the harbour. That was nice, though quite cold, I was very glad I brought my heavy coat! I guess it makes sense, Tasmania is the closest thing to Antarctica! After the cruise we did a bit more wandering around to other houses and remnants on the grounds. It was pretty interesting, lots of history. There wasn’t near as much now as there was when it was running. They had the commandant’s house and others set up like they would have been back then. The parsonage is one of the most haunted buildings in Australia apparently. That made me feel pretty nervous when I walked in there, but I didn’t experience anything crazy. There were two church’s that were pretty, one was an old stone that had burned down except the foundation walls, and the other was newer and made of wood. There was a disturbing Separate Prison where they put bad convicts to torture them pretty much, mostly mentally. They were pretty much in solitary confinement and stripped of their identity. The houses were closing so we headed back to the visitor center place to grab a bite to eat. Then we had a ghost tour!! Unfortunately, or maybe more fortunately, we didn’t see any ghosts or experience any strange happenings. It was still a little freaky to be out there at night in the dark knowing that it was supposed to be super haunted with so many souls with unfinished business being there. We heard lots of stories of the people that are supposedly ghosts now and stories of their sightings. It was cool. Plus the grounds at night just had a different feel and looked awesome with just a few lights and our lanterns. We just drove back to Hobart that night and chilled. It was a fairly long drive after a long day. It was good though, Port Arthur was really interesting with so much history behind the place.

Friday we were supposed to go to the Brewery, but we were late because we couldn’t find it. So we rescheduled for Saturday. We just headed straight up to Mount Wellington. It was a windy drive up, but pretty cool looking over the side every once and again. The top is pretty tall, I can’t remember what the measurement was though. It was absolutely freezing at the top with the wind blowing so hard. The heavy coat was a genius idea on my part! It was cloudy but we could still see the city pretty well at least when the clouds went over. There were a few moments we were in a cloud, that was weird! Looking over all of Hobart was pretty, and to see the water and everything. We spent a little time up there, wandering around, climbing around on the rocks, and taking plenty of pictures before we headed back down for another long drive. There was a huge fire along the drive with huge clouds of smoke in the sky. We had a couple hours to go before we hit our next adventure destination. This was a hot springs place. They had a hot spring pool that we thought was in a natural cave or something, but it was just a swimming pool with natural hot spring water in it. It was tepid, but not really that warm, especially for it being so chilly outside. The guys got in, but the rest of us just stuck our feet in the water. It did feel nice, it felt soft, like the water was conditioning or something as strange as that sounds. We also brought stuff and had a little barbeque there. We had hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and apples, and our chocolate of course! It was nice, a fun little stop. After awhile we hopped back in the car for another 5 minute drive to Hastings Caves. All of this was reached by dirt roads, a little strange, but that’s Tasmania for you. Many Australian’s joke they’re all in-breeds down there, but some places it really seemed like that could be true! Anyway, these caves were pretty nice. All of this was in the middle of a sort of rain forest as well so it was quite beautiful. We had a guide in the caves, but he didn’t have much to say. The cave was actually made of dolomite, not limestone like most. It was millions of years old and we walked around it by lots of stairs! They had some dramatic lighting going on in there which made for a nice effect, especially for some pictures. That was a spectacular part of nature, what naturally forms and all that stuff. I think I’m obsessed with natural processes and nature left alone to it’s own devices. It’s really awe inspiring and wonderful, and there’s lots of it everywhere in this country. I guess we have lots too though, I’ll have to go see more of it. We started the long drive home in the dark. We had to keep Brandon awake driving so we had some great conversation. He asked if anyone had good topics to discuss after we’d sort of talked about the day and such so I asked if anyone knew what they wanted to do with their life or if they’d always dreamed of something about how their life will turn out. That was a good way to get to know these people a little better and share some of myself with them as well. It was really a great discussion and led to other things sort of. I like conversing like that and getting to know people well. I didn’t know any of them all that well before the trip, now I feel fairly close to them. I needed that, investing time in others and them investing time in me, it’s a great thing. Anyway, we got back to the Frog and headed to the bottle shop to get a few drinks for the evening in at the hostel. That was a fun night just hanging out there!

Saturday we got up and went downtown by the water to the Salamanca Market. That was heaps of fun. There were tons of stalls with local shops, food vendors, souvenir places, local artists and bakeries and stuff. There were also musicians on about every corner and they were actually quite talented. I enjoyed it a lot, shopping and taking in the local feel. I bought a fair amount of treasures and enjoyed the music and atmosphere, and a delicious meat pie! Then we had to head to our Cascade Brewery tour early in the afternoon. That was fairly interesting and exciting, but it would have been better Friday because they were closed so we couldn’t see anything actually happening. I didn’t really know all the steps they had to go through to get to beer though! We did see some sitting in a huge vat brewing. Then we got to go back and get free samples, we got three that were about 300ml maybe, a little smaller than a pot. I only had one glass of the Mercury Cider they had, it was good. I hate beer, but it was alcoholic apple cider basically. I did try a few sips of their blonde beer, a lighter one, and their special First Harvest. That was the first day that one was available, it comes out for a limited time once a year and is hard to come by so it was special. They use real fresh hops in that instead of hop pellets. I could tell that if I were to enjoy beer, it was be really quality, but I just can’t stand it. I bought a few souvenirs and we were on our way so Jess and Brandon could take three of the other Deakin internationals back to the airport because they were leaving earlier than us. I just hung out at the hostel for that time, reading and trying to figure out our plans for Sunday. When they got back we all just rested for awhile. The other car kept going and went out to some old cemetery and a fountain. We all headed out to have a nice dinner together that evening. We found a good little Italian place that was very tasty. Our table got a bottle of wine to share from Victoria and it was very tasty, I actually really enjoyed it - a Chardonnay. After dinner we went back to hang out at the hostel for awhile. We sat around downstairs talking and such. We made friends with the dog, Mojo. She was cute, a little energetic for us though. Most of us went out that night to a couple different bars in Hobart, it was a good time. We finished up the night going to a bakery for a late night snack of a delicious meat pie!

Sunday was our last full day. The other car of people had rented out a house for the day and night on Bruny Island a little south, so we decided to head up north to Wineglass Bay. That is the one thing I really wanted to do down there, so I’m glad we got to. Jess and Brandon had to wake up to take the other two guys to the airport in the morning, so we all got up and around when they got back and left early. It was about a three hour drive up there. It took us longer because we made a few long stops. We had to stop once for gas. Then we stopped at this lookout point on a beach for awhile to explore and take in the view. I found a whole bunch of really awesome seashells there. Then we stopped again right before getting to Wineglass Bay, in Coles Bay I think, to eat some lunch. We had gotten some bread and pb and j for the couple days so we ate that and some chips. We had to go to the bathroom in port a potty, apparently there wasn’t a toilet in the grocery store, but whatever, we were used to being a little gross. We found a little picnic table to eat at and were right on the water, with a beautiful view of some mountains in the background, not a bad way to eat a picnic. The sea gulls were pretty interested in us, so we fed them a few pieces of bread. That was quite entertaining for us. We were on our way again for the last leg of our journey there. We stopped at the visitor center to buy a park pass and see what the hikes were. We just decided to do the shorter hike to see Wineglass Bay, not the other bays or the Hazards. So we got there and got ready. It was quite chilly so we were all bundled up and people were coming down in short sleeves and stuff, we were a little confused. When we started hiking we learned why. It got quite warm as you were walking up the mountain! I really liked the fact that you have to hike up a ways to see this bay at all, it’s hidden and protected, you can’t drive to it at all, it’s still surrounded by pure nature and nothing else to interrupt your views. The hike was difficult at times, but it felt good, invigorating. When we got to the top about 30 minutes later we got to see the amazing view! It was a truly gorgeous beach and bay and mountains around it. The water was really blue and the sand was so white. It was a pretty cloudy day, so it could have been much prettier I’m sure, but even so it was still absolutely gorgeous. Again, the fact that the whole area around there as long as you can see is untouched by man is pretty spectacular. There was another hike to actually go down to the beach, but it was pretty steep and we were all tired and didn’t want to have to hike two hours back up that, so we opted not to. It was a beautiful view form the top anyway. We stayed up there for awhile and talked with these really nice people from Sydney who took our picture. We wandered around the rocks a bit and took plenty of pictures including some pretty silly ones. It was a lot of fun. And the best part was, it was basically a free day besides gas and a few dollars each for the park pass! I love just hanging out somewhere gorgeous and taking lots of photos, it’s great. I love the feeling of being behind the camera, of holding down the shutter and capturing something so wonderful, I don’t know, it feels good. It releases a lot of the stress and whatever negativity is in me, it’s so simple and yet a bit complex. Anyway, you get the point, great views and fun at the top. We took our time heading back down as well, enjoying the views and the nature around us, and still taking a fair amount of funny pictures before all of our cameras died! The drive back was fairly long. Jess drove for most of it so I sat up front with her and let the boys sleep in the back. We talked the whole way back about just about everything. It was really great to get to know her better and have some girl talk and share so much good conversation. Before we knew it we were back in Hobart and just crashed for our last night there, we were all exhausted! I actually had to do some homework and send it back to my group. We got to sleep that night, we went to bed earlier and got up later the next morning so that helped us a lot.

Monday morning we got up just in time to check out of the dirty hostel by 10. We drove downtown to get a bite for breakfast and walk around down there a bit. Jess and I did some shopping and explored the stores and town a little. That was a lot of fun and I got some great stuff. Then we all met back up, and drove over to that meat pie shop we liked so much for a quick lunch. It was time to go to the airport! We had to return the car by 1:30 and our flight was around 3. The flight was a little late so we had to sit and wait awhile but it was alright. The other car of people were a little late because they missed their ferry back to the main land from their island, but they made it so that was good. The flight was short, but again I was out for most all of it!! We had to wait for the Gull bus back in Melbourne for about an hour. Then it was another hour and half back to Geelong. Since there were so many of us they were nice and took us all the way back to Deakin rather than dropping us off at their office in town. I got back and finished my homework for today, loaded my pictured to my computer and called it a night.

This morning we were supposed to have our group presentation in Business Communication but one of our group members got into a car accident! She was fine but couldn’t make it so we have to do it next week instead. That was frustrating since I got up early to get ready and to work on it with them and then we didn’t have to. Today is sort of my long day in class, I have like 4 hours straight basically, that’s a lot for down here! I’m going to be in trouble when I get home! Anyway, I have tons of homework and studying to do between now and the end of school now. It’s getting close! We only have like 5 weeks left, it’s crazy!! I got my exam schedule. We have study week the first week of June, then two weeks of exams. All three of mine are that first week, Tues thru Thursday. So that’s really nice, that frees up a whole other week for me to go somewhere or do something! I’ll have to come up with something, that excited me! Anyway, now it’s getting late and I’m tired. I have a long week ahead with all my work! Hope you all are enjoying your weeks. I miss you lots and look forward to coming home and getting hugs from everyone, although I’m still not ready to come home quite yet! This trip to Tasmania was something I really needed and it was wonderful for me. Oh, I only saw dead Tasmanian devils as road kill everywhere, no live ones wandering around. Leave me comments on how you’re going and I’ll bring you another update from the past soon. I’ll leave you with my current favorite song lyrics, we listened to this song on repeat on our trip, it was perfect and we all related to it somehow, really great!!

“Opportunity”

And so it goes another lonely day
Your savin time but your miles away
Your fly was drownin in some bitter tea
For seeing lost opportunity

Find your mirror go and look inside
And see the talent you always hide
Don't go kid yourself well not today
Satisfaction's not too far away

Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see

Soon you'll see

Your coffee's warm but your milk is sour
Life is short but your here to flower
Dream yourself along another day
Never miss opportunity

Don't be scared of what you cannot see
Your only fear is possibility
Never wonder what the hell went wrong
Your second chance may never come along

Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see

Soon you'll see

Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see

Soon you'll see [x5]
~Pete Murray


Love always, Liss