Van Diemen's Land

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a map of tassie with our travel route in thick pink. there's the spirit of tassie in bass strait!

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the exams out of the way, it was time to show g around australia a bit more, and see it for myself too. where better to immerse ourselves in nature's beauty than the capital of consanguinity: our southern friend tasmania? have you ever caught the spirit of tasmania? it's like a massive floating pokies machine, filled with single hairy men driving trucks, and families whose conjoined pets simply cannot be left behind. the ship is enormous, so we thought it would be unaffected by any waves or currents - we were wrong. as soon as we left shallow port phillip bay, the boat started lurching from side to side, with loud smashing noises with every heave. i was convinced that i had forgotten to put the handbrake on and that the smashing noises were the car ploughing into the truck infront, with each subsequent smash the sound of the car ploughing into the volvo behind. i actually had to grip the sides of the bed to stop myself from moving (or was that the beer?). in any case, we didn't sleep a wink!

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g having a snooze in our cabin

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the following morning, car intact, we sped out of devonport to cradle mountain. just before entering the park, we stopped at an information board but passed out from fatigue in the front seats and woke up an hour later feeling right as rain. and just as well - it rained non-stop for the first 2.5 days. there were so many different types of rain on that island - i'm sure the tasmanian aboriginal languages contain as many words for rain as the inuit languages famously do for snow. for our walk around the gorgeous dove lake, we experienced 'it's drizzling down and you are wet but not cold for some reason despite gale-force winds and incidentally you can't see anything' rain. the rain gave the whole area added dimension, and was simply stunning.

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wet boys

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this is dove lake, with cradle mountain hidden in the mist behind

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that night we parked behind some gigantic sand dunes on the west coast and had a restless night with 'gravity is pulling the fat drops of water towards the ground, but somehow they are doing 90 degree turns and coming in through the 1mm crack in the window like heat-seeking missiles' rain. we scaled the dunes the following morning, but were caught in a fresh onslaught of water and wind, which whipped the sand up to paint-stripper speed and soaked us to our undies before we could even say 'i can't feel my legs'. when we had regained consciousness, we found that we had indeed been sandblasted, but the wrinkles remained.

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our camping/sleeping in the back of a car area

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the sandstorm hits

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the horror...the horror...30 years after the cessation of mining, the mountains around queenstown in the west of tassie are still barren and eroded - nature destroyed

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we crossed the state to my auntie and her partner's little holiday house on the shores of the huon river 50km south of hobart. a little heated bunker a few metres away from a wide river surrounded by mountains and vineyards - it was a paradise! we ended up staying three nights.

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the little brick cottage in the foreground was where we stayed - right on the banks of this gorgeous river!

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the first night (a friday) we tried to go out in hobart, but the only thing we could find was a cave-like drag club in which they refused to close the door despite the fact that it was snowing around town and everyone was dressed like they had just come off a ski-lift. the freeze lessened my appreciation for the crass dragqueens which made comments so offensive i thought i would end up with both of my eyes in the same socket. we fled.

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the following morning we returned to hole-bart - now surrounded by snow-capped peaks - for the salamanca markets. it's the only time in my life where i have experiened 'i can see with my own eyes that the only clouds in the sky are over that mountain in the distance there and yet for some reason we are still getting wet' rain. a tasmanian specialty perhaps. the highlight was a trip to the museum/art gallery where we saw patricia piccinini's exhibit 'evolution'. we'd seen some of here work somewhere else - was it at the bienalle last year? but this exhibit just blew our minds. don't miss patricia if she comes to you!

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here's g at salamanca market, with a close-up of the snow-covered hills around hobart!

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as if we were all moving along the same pink-tinged celestial orbit (or perhaps just tourist trail), the same cattle-call of cute boys at whom we had been perving at the salamanca markets all turned up to port arthur the following day for some kulcha.

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your boys in shackles. woof.

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the site was beautiful, the guides were passionate, and the intelligent introductory set-up was such that you were drawn in to follow the story of a single convict, helping you understand the site rather than be overwhelmed by it. australian history had never been so interesting! in particular the separate prison for naughty convicts was quite shocking, where prisoners were taken and subjected to complete sensory deprivation for days or even weeks on end in order to crush whatever was human out of them.

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the church crafted by children

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the penitentiary from across the harbour.

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g looking too cute among the ruins

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port arthur with a touch of abu ghraib...sexy convict men had to wear masks in jail in order to prevent any contact whatsoever with other human beings. guards wore slippers so that their footsteps would not be heard...

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i cannot mention port arthur without a word about that awful day in 1996 that we all remember when 35 people were murdered at or around the site. i think we all felt personally affected by it. it was quite emotional to go to the shell of the cafe where much of it occurred, which has now been converted into a powerful open-air memorial site.

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a few views

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we stopped at a few clifftops and sea-side-sights on the way back to holebart where we packed in some oysters before rushing home to watch eurovision! russia should have won again! what are your thoughts? i hated norway's entry until i realised that i had become addicted and now i've downloaded it and am playing it on repeat. i'm so in love with a fairytale!

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the second last day was the crowning highlight in our wonderful holiday. everything from the home made pies for breakfast to the oysters and beer we consumed while watching sunset from freycinet national park at night were winners :)

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we did the hike (the shit strapped out of my ankle) from coles bay to wineglass bay under a cloudless, ceramic blue sky, to find ourselves undisappointed by all the hype surrounding that famous white-sanded beach. the views were great, the water was crystal blue, and the animals were ridiculously tame. gerard had a love-in with a wallaby on the beach, but expressed disappointment that so many of his brothers were so lazily sleeping on the roads into and out of the park. what can you do?

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an animal indentured to pose in photographs with tourists.

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wineglass bay in the background

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your boys on a funky wooden bench high in the freycinet mountains :)

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after the aforementioned straight-out-of-a-romance-novel oysters and beer at sunset experience, we parked on the 'friendly beaches' for our final night in the apple isle. perfect everything. further wallabies even came to play the following morning.

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the friendly beaches - where initial interaction between aborigines and europeans was friendly. later, the europeans hunted down and murdered the aborigines as if they were animals.

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a friendly wallaby comes to visit at the friendly beaches

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sexy

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our final day took us through launceston which was a bit of a non-event, and though the nearby gorge was still as nice as was as the last time i visited with mum, the only real attraction was the somewhat dubiously rio-tinto sponsored science exhibit at the local museum, where i felt like a child in a candy store - or perhaps myself in a candy store, as i still love lollies. on the way there we passed the 150 year customs house and gerard pointed out that the french on their renovated crest over the main entrance was misspelt. i felt it to be a national disgrace, so we entered the building to inform the authorities. the staff there thanked us with the biggest fuck-you expressions on their faces you could imagine as we slid off our high horses and crawled back out the door. when we looked up the phrase on the internet later it turns out the sign was actually correct. damn french boyfriend can't even speak his own language.

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i almost disloated my shoulder ensuring the hand-brake was on for the trip home. we slept like babies as we sailed home to marvelous melbourne over smooth seas :)

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returning to melbs - dawn over port melbourne.
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see you next time in canberra!

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