Tasmania, Australia

I got a ticket to Tasmania as a birthday present to Stina who desperately need some time away from work, and who have a good friend in Hobart we could stay at. We woke up at 3.30 am that morning to get a cab to the skybus that'd take us to Hobart that morning.  A. We got there after an hour in the flight. As soon as we walked out of the airport in stood waiting in the cold I realized that I probably did not bring enough clothes. In Melbourne the wether is just starting to get warmer. Apparently that's not for Tasmania. We got picked up by Frank, who quickly showed us around battery point and Salamanca market for a coffee, before driving us home to his. Feeling extremely jet lagged after our one hour flight within the same time zone, Stina and I hit the napping land. We didn't do much the rest of the day except strolling around the city, drinking beer and playing pool. That is after all what we're best at. 

Mona's

We hit the harbourcruice to Mona's art gallery the next morning. The $75 million Museum of old and new art is the owners own collection of his favorite art from across the world. The extraordinary installation is arrayed between three underground levels concealed inside a sheer rock face. It was all pretty impressive. It got something for everyone, even the non art fans. Rooms of paintings, wierd lights, rain that creates words, a wall full of different skulptured vaginas, pictures, stories, movies you name it.  Wegot given an iPhone each where you could track every different installation and read about it. 

Mt Wellington

We packed our leftover food from last night for today's day trip up the famous mt Wellington, just half an hour away from Hobart. It's possible to take the shuttle bus all the way to the top, and many people do this. For us, that'd be taking the elevator up kebnekaise. The feeling of beeing at the top of a montain is not only the fact that you're actually there, but that you've actually earned to be there. So we hiked! It is not a hard trek, only a few hours up and down. Comparing to my hiking experiences, and Stina's adventures up the Nepal Himalayan, this was more like gliding up a hill. 

We're prepeaed for cold weather and put on literally all our clothes. Saying that, we still wasn't dressed for trekking. While at the bus stop the driver asked us where we're going. 

'Fern hill, climbing my Wellington' 

With a worried look she scanned us up and down, then up again. We were both wearing jeans, I was in leather jacket and trainers, Stina got her regular boots. 

'You know it gets a bit cold up there, do you have any rain gear?' 

'Oh, We will be fine' we said as we took a seat. Not worried at all. 

We got off at Fern tree, where we went off in between the trees in a jungle of different tracks having no idea which one to follow. We took a change and followed one that would sure take us the right direction. Up!  

As we started walking my fears for not bringing enough clothes was long gone. I was stupidly hot, desperately regretting not bringing my shorts. As sweat ran down my face I started considering taking my jeans off to make my top into a tiny skirt. I'm glad I didn't do that. 

We found ourselves on the right track and about 2,5 hours along the zigzag track took us to the top of mount Wellington. Terribly strong wind hit us straight in the face and tried to blow us straight back down. We fought it desperately trying to run and hide, but the wind kept hunting us down.  Finally reaching the other side of the top we got into the top hut, where it wasn't necessary warmer but where we could escape the wind. We enjoyed our lunch together with beautiful scenery, before heading out facing the horribly cold again while trying to enjoy the view. We ran across the top field to keep our blood circulation going and as soon as we got down only a few meters the wind was gone. Aahh. We much rather sat enjoying the view from there than freezing to death on the top. 

Our beautiful singingvoices and several rounds of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' accompanied us all the way back down to fern tree. We enjoying a cold beer in sunshine, a few rounds of pool before heading back to Hobart. 

Eagle Hawk neck

Saturday morning we headed for the famous Salamancan market. A bit under my expectations to be honest. Similar to any other market, and pricy. We had a stroll around, enjoyed a coffe in the sunshine before catching a bus that'd take us to Eagle hawk neck. 

I knew nothing about eagle hawk neck other than what I've been told by my precious lonely planet. Tasman peninsula is connected to the mainland with only a 100 meter strip, thats eagle hawk neck. And It seemed to be a beautiful location, got a cheap hostel and with the famous history attraction 'port Arthur' close by. Feeling the need of a city getaway we simply decided to give it a shot. Jumping on a local bus we got drop off next to a tiny roadway supposedly leading to our hostel. We were basically in the middle of nowhere. Not knowing exactly where this little roadway would take us we followed it. We finally reached the hostel after about 2 km just to face the sign 'no vacancy'. Luckily they had put a number underneath referring to the dive center. Despite the fact of being in the middle of nowhere we wasn't given any phone signal.  We looked at the sign, than at eachother and laughed. What else can you do in situations like this? It was getting dark, and we hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. Having no idea where this hostel was we couldn't do else than turn around walking back the same way we came from. A police car drive by and stopped right next to us.

'Hey girls, where are you going?' 

'Well, we honestly don't really know anymore' we said, referring to the sign. 

He offered to drive us to the dive center and we got in the car. About 5km uphill took us took us to the hostel. Needless to say that we was well happy not having to walk all that way. 

We woke up to the sound of sunshine (?) and headed out for a long beach walk along 'Pirate bay'. This bay view extended to the rugged coastline beyond is truly incredible. We stopped for magnificent lookouts and precipitous coastal formations such as 'tessellated pavement', 'Blowhole' and 'Tasman Arch'.  We had better weather than south east Australia have faced in months and got sunburned for the first time since Easter. This truly improved our mood even more. On our way back we were on a supermarket mission. Beeing in the middle of nowhere this isn't easy to find. As Stina ran out of cigarettes and I ran out of tampons we considered ourselves being in a quite desperate situation. We managed to find a little kiosk up a hill who could supplie us with what we needed for the day. 

Port Arthur

Not knowing where the bus stop was, if there existed one, we decided to hitchhike to the historical site 'Port Arthur'. We had just only put our thumbs up when the man outside a house across the street started shouting at us. 

'Where're you girls going?'

'Port Arthur', we yelled back

'Might have a friend who can drive you there, he works as a bus driver. Let me just give him a quick call'  

We could see him talking with over the phone and not more than 10 minutes later an empty tourbus stopped at the road, right next to us. He was driving a group from Hobart to Port Arthur and back in the afternoon and had some spare time to kill. We thanked him lots and booked us in for the ride back to Hobart later that day. 

As Tasman peninsula is connected to the mainland with only a 100 meter strip it use to confine prisoners who had committed further crimes in the colony. From 1830 - 1877, 12500 convicts did hard brutal prison time at port Arthur. We cruised around the Harbour for a bit around the island there they used to keep prisoners as well. Then we spend the day walking around all the tiny houses, this little community. To see how people lived, read along and improve our acknowledge of the Tasmanian history. 

Back to Hobart

Our day back in Hobart before heading back to Melbourne we spend on the Hobart museum. We took it easy thought as we felt quite 'outcultured' after our adventures at Mona's and port Arthur. I did found it interesting how well you could connect that history to the one from port Arthur. How the Brittish colonies came taking over Tasmania and where some of them in the end ended up at port Arthur. 

We got into a bit of trouble with our flight back to Melbourne. As I happened to read my email earlier the same day I came across the information that our flight had been cancelled. Since I had a flight from Melbourne to Bankok the next day I was in desperate need to get into Melbourne tonight. After what felt like hours on the phone queue we finally got in contact with Jetstar who kindly enought booked us on another flight a few hours earlier. Lucky I checked my email in time. As they never sent me a confirmation mail we ended up getting ourselves to the airport hours before, just to be safe.