Sandflies, Mountains, Rugby, and Sleeping Seals... A Few More NZ Adventures

[Oct 8-11, 2011]  Dunedin was a cute town to stay in, but we had a schedule to keep, so the next morning we continued on, but before we left town checked out Baldwin Street, the world's steepest street. It might be something of a quietly-kept secret, as none of us were previously aware that Dunedin was home to the world-record setting steep street, but it didn't disappoint. We parked at the very bottom of (the flattest part) and watched tiny, ant-like tourists climbing up what looked like one of those Hot Wheels ramps for toy cars from the '80s. We all happily admitted we were far too lazy to try walking it ourselves, but got a taste of what was probably the world's second-steepest street, later on in Queenstown (but more on that later).

Our original road trip plan had us tracing the southern coast all the way around to Te Anau, a bit inland, taking in the Catlins and Invercargill along the way. But as we'd just spent the last three days almost entirely in the car, we decided to cut quickly across the island to Te Anau and allow for an extra day to relax in Queenstown, where Stephane and Jenny visited not long before and found to be lovely. Note to anyone planning a driving exploration of New Zealand: it may look like short drives on a map, but it's best to take it slowly and allow yourself the time to enjoy the sights outside of the car! That said, the daylight hours are long, even in October, and you can easily drive well into the evening and think it's still 4pm... we still carry a bit of that Aussie night-driving fear from our many 'roo-dodging' experiences years back.

Allez Les Bleus!

An ecstatic win

Te Anau is a tiny but very touristy town in NZ's Fjordland region, built on the incredibly pretty (are we even surprised anymore?) Lake Te Anau. It's the main jumping-off spot for visiting Milford and Doubtful Sounds, two fjords many visitors explore by boat, but still a good 2.5 hour drive from Milford Sound-- an area of very remote and inaccessible wilderness. But before our trek out to the fjords, we spent the evening in The Moose, where in fact, where the entire town and all of its tourists had congregated inside to watch the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals. The game was especially important to our travelling party, as France was facing off against England in what was sure to be an exciting game. With the help of Jenny & Stephane's red, blue and white wigs and paraphernalia, we got in touch with our long-lost French roots and cheered on "Les Bleus", surprisingly, with quite an unproportionate number of passionate French supporters for the size of Te Anau. We subsequently learned the French national anthem and a few sports cheers, and when they beat England, the entire bar went crazy. It was so much fun to watch (and not really all that hard to understand) and it must have been around the time that we got really, really hooked on rugby...

But onto more adventures! That next morning we hopped in the car and set off on Milford Road, where we wound between mountains, for the first hour, higher and higher until we reached patches of snow (which we couldn't resist a frolic in), and entered into the Homer Tunnel-- a 1.2km tunnel that veers seemingly endlessly through a mountain, on a downward slope, which was a strange feeling. The tunnel is an incredible feat of engineering and construction, started as a job-creation scheme during the Great Depression, it took nearly 20 years to dig, and only recently was widened to accommodate two lanes of vehicles.

Mirror Lake

On the other side of the Homer Tunnel, the mountains appeared to go on forever to the still-hidden fjords. The highway continued to wind downwards, with plenty of great stops to check out, like Mirror Lake, until we reached Milford Sound. That's where we had our first encounter with the irritating New Zealand sandfly: here we were, innocently emerging from the car when suddenly we were ambushed! It appeared others were having the same problems, so we took a few hurried photos with the amazing (but hard to concretrate on) backdrop of Milford Sound, and dashed to the boats, where thankfully someone had thought to build a large structure made of glass, where we could enjoy the views without swatting. Luckily, thanks to the chilly temperatures we wore many layers of clothing, which the sandflies couldn't bite through, but Dayle still managed to find one persistently sucking blood out from between two of her fingers-- a bite which didn't disappear or cease itching for more than two weeks following the visit.

Glorious Milford Sound

But we suppose, if the sandfly terror was our admission fee to get down into the gorgeous natural scenery in Fjordland, well, it was worth it. We set off on our 2-hour boat cruise from the end of Milford Sound to the ocean (15 km), watching the weather change numerous times from sunny to cloudy to rainy to sunny. Seals swam alongside out boat as we shrieked with delight. The captain steered the boat underneath waterfalls plummetting down the cliffs on either side of the fjord and right up to impressive rock formations, and shared impressive facts about the area. Probably one of the highlights was Seal Rock, one of the only parts of the fjord (it was massive cliffs everywhere) accessible to seals climbing out of the water to rest, and we learned the incredible cuteness power of a mass of sleeping seals on a rock. It was a pretty great afternoon.

Waterfall fun

Following our sandfly dash back to the car (a pity we couldn't stroll more slowly through the lush fern-filled coastal rainforest), we made a dash back to Te Anau, and then onwards to Queenstown, to be done with the driving already. After a little bit of hunting, we found a sweet, sweet place to rest our feet for the next few days with fabulous views of Lake Wakatipu in the centre of town. We didn't think about the fact that the near-vertical walk down Turner Street to the heart of Queenstown also meant a horrific trudge up at the end of the night, but it was rugby time again (this time New Zealand vs. Argentina) and so finding a big screen was mandatory. It was another good game--and unexpectedly AMAZING food at the Ballarat Trading Company-- and we took it as a good omen for our trip to continue in the best of fates.

We spent the next few days doing silly tourist things in Queenstown: eating impossibly massive burgers at the legendary Fergburger, wandering around Lake Wakatipu, taking the Skyline gondola for views high above Queenstown (and having a blast riding the luge around the tracks on the peak), and playing a ridiculous but adorable mini-golf course made up of a miniature robotic town, sampling a good variety of local wines, and relaxing in our awesome two-storey townhouse (much nicer than any of the apartments any of us have lived in). It was good times for our last few days, before Stephane and Jenny left us to take in more live rugby on the North Island....

Mmmm, Fergburger for breakfast.

The Luge

Jenny putts for the win

On A Penguin and Mountain High

Hello from gorgeous and cold New Zealand! It's been a crazy couple of days already, but since we scored some free wifi, we thought we'd take advantage and write a little update. 

We arrived in Christchurch to freezing cold weather and just an hour after an aftershock (damn!) on the 4th. Met up with our friends Stephane and Jenny and we're picking up where we left off in 2008 when we parted ways in Melbourne- they're perfect travel companions. Got our car and cruised around Christchurch as Disaster Papparazzi (hey, I call it photojournalism!) -- seeing all sorts of cracked, condemned, and empty houses, shops, and streets. The city centre is fenced off, crumbled, and deserted, and there are workmen about but that's all -- Adrian said it well when he remarked it felt like something out of a zombie movie!

From there, we drove inland on a dreary and cold afternoon after a big breakfast at Denny's (yes, the American chain!!) towards Mount Cook, watching the mountains in front of us get taller and taller, and oohing and aahing and stopping the car every time we saw a snow-capped peak peeking out from the clouds. And nearly every landscape belonged to us-- there's a certain feeling around the South Island that I've experienced only in the Aussie Outback: a huge sky, a massive landscape, and a peaceful and profound emptiness-- solitude, I guess. Very hard to describe! (Has anyone else felt this sort of thing? Help!)

It cleared up just as we hit Lake Tekapo, a beautiful blue glacial lake. We kept on until we hit Mount Cook Village in the evening, a contrived little ski chalet-feeling settlement  built in a flat valley beneath towering mountains with a posh hotel, 2 hostels, and a couple of houses for the Department of Conservation - Mt Cook is NZ's highest mountain at 3700m or so, though not that tall by Canadian or European standards- but still pretty amazing. We stayed and ate in this lovely "Backpacker Lodge" with a pub decorated with deer head hunting trophies and great beer called Tui on tap -- unfortunately the "grocery stores" were basically a few items of junk food and instant noodles behind the hostel reception desk. Ugh. So much for saving money by cooking! Every room had a view of the mountains that was almost too perfect-- it felt constantly like we were looking at a painting, not a real scene!

This morning we set off for a hike to Mt Cook lookout, a really cool trail running along the valley floor through grass and lots of spiky plants. We got close to the mountains and another turquoise lake at the lookout and heard a BOOM and a rumbling sounding something like a big truck going over a bridge on a highway... this happened a few more times, minutes apart, before we saw what it was: avalanches high up in the snowy mountains! Just crazy. We hiked another trail later on to Tasman Lake, in the same area, and this time found a huge blue lake with giant ice chunks floating in it-- that didn't look that big until we saw a teeny little yellow tour boat cruising between the icebergs.... and we realized how warped our sense of perspective is.

After our mountain hikes we headed back to the coast in our car, passing rolling hills, perfectly still lakes, and many, many sheep (with which we play our very favourite country-driving game... honking at sheep and making them hop and run this way ad that.... a forgotten pleasure from our drives around Tasmania, but somehow a game Stephane and Jenny also know! Maybe it's universal?) We made it to the coastal town of Oamaru about two hours before dusk, and checked out the Blue Penguin Centre to find out about seeing the little blue penguins the town, and this part of the coast, is known for. Turns out they've turned the place into sort of a Phillip Island (Australia) style circus-- $25 to sit in the grandstand and watch the penguins swim into shore from the ocean. 147 penguins counted last night, they kept telling us! We sort of wondered if we could just spot some on our own, and then one of the ladies at the centre let it slip in hushed tones that: "If you drive to this spot on the map right now, it'll take you only about 5 minutes to get there, and if you look hard and peer into the bushes alongside this beach, you might see a yellow-eyed penguin, as they come in from the ocean around this time to their nests in the bushes, where they live and hide along this inlet". Why not? We thought.... we could always come back to the penguin circus later.

We get to the viewing area and it seemed the word was out -- there were 5 or so other cars parked there, and it actually wasn't long at all before we saw funny little shapes in the bushes on the steep incline from the beach. Penguins! More emerged from the grasses and we were totally photo happy... and even video happy, as we watched them build nests, shake their cute flipper arms, and make the weirdest bird noises ever (we'll edit the clips together and post them on the blog in the future). It was insane! They totally stole the spotlight from the adorable little seal flopping around on the beach far below, but ah well, these were really cute penguins! 

Finally the sun set and we were so full of penguin-spotting joy that we just headed to a hostel and a grocery store.... and then what do we learn from the lovely hostel manager? Well, if we just walk to the town pier, there should be plenty of the little blue penguins nesting along the rocks at night. Sure enough.... well, none of us have ever seen so many penguins in one day, but there is something about spotting rare (?) wildlife in their natural habitats that just gives you this amazing feeling of satisfaction. Euphoria, really! And so far New Zealand has been a continuous shot of pure euphoria. We can't wait to find out what comes next!

Blogging in the Clouds

Hello from Sapa, a cute little town high up in the mountains of northwest Vietnam! It's not very often we can say we're writing from the clouds-- but this is a very special place where you actually can open your hotel balcony door and they come creeping in.

A few days ago, we took the night train out of Hanoi (unbearably hot at the time) and arrived just before 5 a.m. in new world (a chilly one at that!): Lao Cai, where the train dropped us off, sits high in the mountains at the Chinese border. We deliriously hopped on a minibus (45 minutes) to Sapa, and proceeded to do the very thing we hate doing-- accept a room at the first hotel the minibus drops us off at (and makes big commissions for doing so). Usually the commission hotels are duds, but the Darling Hotel (yeah, nice name!) is actually pretty adorable in a kitsch kind of way, painted in a garish orange-and-green palette with a pine tree theme. The beds are fluffy as marshmallows and the rooms are decorated in hill-tribe textiles and photos. And then there's our tiny little balcony that looks far out into the clouds/valley, depending on the time of day. It was just too sweet too resist.

Sapa itself is still a relatively small place, and we were afraid (when booking our return trains) we wouldn't have enough to do to fill four days. Uber-touristy as it is, it's still a real trip to wander down the main street amongst a mix of modern Vietnamese people, camera-toting Western tourists, and tiny ladies from the neighbouring hill tribe villages wearing full traditional costumes.

And so we spent our first day completely enamoured with these little women, and not minding all that much that we were getting swarmed by them. Of the two main ethnicities seen around town, the Hmong women are the most dogged saleswomen. Though the Dzao ladies also sell their wares in their red pouffy headscarves and jingling ornamental coins, they don't approach tourists as much (we were told by a local kid they don't speak as much English). The Hmong ladies, however, wander in small groups, carrying big baskets on their backs and wearing indigo-dyed tunics and circular hats, their legs wrapped in something like black velvet legwarmers. Every one of them seems to have a heap of crafts to sell, and there's not really any escaping them-- even when sitting in the second floor of a cafe they'll call up to you with their sales pitches. That first day, we were followed all around town by a small group of these women, and no matter how much we ignored them or tried to lose them in a market, they kept reappearing. And strangely enough, somehow you never really feel like telling them to piss off, either-- something that would be a very different case if it was a group of motorbike drivers tailing us, anyway...

Since Sapa is pretty moody weatherwise, our second day was a bit of a write-off. Cold rains had us hiding in cafes, where we soaked up the scenery from behind glass. Today was a lot better and we hopped on a motorbike to do our usual somewhat-aimless tour of the countryside. Rivers flowing over the road evoked memories of flooded Aussie Outback highways, and as we descended further and further into the valleys, we wondered if this is what the Himalayas might feel like. Despite the erosion happening from farming the steep hills, and the occasional piles of garbage at some corners, the scenery is stunning in this part of the country-- fat water buffaloes plowing the green rice paddies, little muddy kids running around, and jagged mountain peaks barely visible through the clouds. And with our postcard-cliche levels back at full again, tomorrow evening we'll head back to Hanoi to enjoy our last two days in Vietnam.... before our Air Asia plane spits us out into the chaos of Bangkok again on Saturday night to embark on our next adventures!

Kitsch in the Mountains: Dalat

After a few weeks of sweating out the muggy days and nights in Saigon, a visit to the charming mountain town of Dalat was a refreshing change (in temperature and in pace).

As soon as we stepped off the bus ($11 AUD/$6 USD for the six-hour ride!), we felt like we'd reached another country. Surrounded by tall mountains, the "small town" of about 185,000 people is built in tiers, so looking around there are layers and layers of colourful homes everywhere. It's got a bit of a European Alps feel to it, with stone steps and old-looking buildings. Without much of a search, we found a decent guesthouse on one of the main streets for $8 USD a night with a big balcony overlooking the street-- an excellent vantage point for watching a torrential downpour the next afternoon we learned!

Dalat is a bit of a honeymoon spot and weekend getaway for Saigon residents, evident in the many dimly-lit, French-style restaurants around town. It's also a place that loves its kitsch, and in embracing the cooler climate, we even saw a few Swiss-chalet looking hotels (one complete with plastic snow and icicles hanging from the roof). We wandered around the street market in the centre of the town and found everyone milling about in thick sweaters, scarves and mittens (OK, it was cold, but not that cold!) One of the nicest parts about Dalat for us as well was that despite being a tourist town, many of the visitors were Vietnamese, and we felt like we could blend into the background more than other places without being bombarded by sales pitches from everyone we met.

Dalat is also somewhat of an artist's spot, so on our second day we took a walk to visit a real architectural wonder-- Hang Nga Crazy House. Nope, not a lunatic asylum, but a bizarre creation by a Vietnamese architect who had the cash and inspiration to build a very Alice-in-Wonderland-meets-Gaudi complex which is part hotel, part playground, and part tourist attraction. It's a tribute to the nature Madame Hang Nga loves, with the structures shaped as giant trees, with fishponds, toadstools, and giant concrete giraffes hanging out together. We spent hours exploring the many themed animal-themed hotel rooms and climbing windy bridges between the concrete "branches" of the zany artifical trees. One of the other cool things is when we asked the lady selling admission tickets what the house was made of, she replied, "I made it from concrete..." and we realized it was the architect and mastermind herself, Mrs Hang Nga, humbly hanging out in the ticket booth, answering questions and selling admissions-- amazing!

We noticed some black storm clouds coming in thick and fast and just as we arrived back at our hotel to drop off some things, the rain started. There was so much water coming down the street in front had become a series of lakes and people were madly trying to get shelter and get off their motorbikes. We witnessed a few kamikaze trucks zooming down the road, splashing all the way to the buildings (and anyone unlucky enough to be in between!). It was quite the sight... and of course, in an hour, was all over and sunshine again!

The next morning was all gorgeous blue skies and we seized the opportunity to rent a motorbike ($6 USD for an automatic) to explore the sights in the hills outside of town. There are countless motorbike riders selling personal tours of the surrounds (the Easy Riders, they call themselves) but as we like to do things our own way-- and were sick to death of their pestering-- we opted for our own wheels. It wasn't long before we were off the map and totally lost in the mountains, trying to find our way to the scenic-sounding Tiger Falls. We zoomed past the proper turnoff about four times and the villagers on either end had probably seen enough of us by the time we made it... but it was a beautiful way to take in the countryside-- Adrian as the driver and Dayle as the hand-signaller. :) We did a bit of off-roading-- Vietnam mountain roads are not as smoothly paved as Thai mountain roads, it seems!-- and eventually found our way deep into a valley to the Tiger Falls, named so apparently from a legend that there once was a mean tiger who lived there. All we found was an old man, a few cute humpy dogs, and a big concrete tiger to climb inside of (oh Dalat!), but it was good times. We finished off our cruising at the "Valley of Love", a cheeseball Disneyland-for-couples attraction that's a bit hard to visit seriously-- two-person swings, naked statues, heart-shaped painted wooden frames to take photos inside of, staff dressed up as cowboys-- well, of course we opted for the super-cheese and squeaked our way into the Valley of Love's lake on a rusty, creaking swan-shaped paddleboat...

And just when we had had our fill of cheesiness for the day and were going to make a quick escape from the "Valley"... we found ourselves with a flat front tire! Oh damn, we thought, how much will this cost us? And however will we explain this, in our feeble Vietnamese, to the hotel staff who rented us the bike ? Well, it turns out that there are motorbike mechanics everywhere, and it takes about 15 minutes and costs about $1.50 AUD to fix a flat in Vietnam. Woohoo! Now that's true love!

Hello, Tassie!

We weren't sure if it was crazy to take our already-shivering-in-Melbourne selves even closer to the South Pole for a mini-vacation-- but a visit to Australia's 7th and littlest state turned out to be a super idea and a gorgeous place to visit, even in the dead of winter.

Tasmania (or Tassie, as they call it here) is a small island off the southern coast of Victoria, with a population of about 495,000 [June 2008]. A lot of travelers here talk about going to, but as it takes a bit of effort (a lot of locals have never made the trip)--10 hours on the ferry from Melbourne or an hour's plane ride-- many backpackers skip it. Everything we read prior to going said it's a wild and pretty, but tiny island-- so we figured we could see a good part of it in 4 1/2 days-- but it's usually freezing cold and stormy in winter, another interpretation we found to be only partially true...

Another Tassie draw in this season is the cheap flights-- we paid $49 a person from Melbourne to Hobart, $29/pp back-- with only carry-on baggage for the deal. (Helpful tip: Dayle's strategy was to wear her heaviest clothing in layers, and to sneak the travel books and the hair dryer into Adrian's bag!). Jetstar's bargain flight flies at sunrise, so we had to drive up to the airport at 4am, meaning we got lost once or twice and even got on the toll highway by accident, oops! Luckily, our bags did fine for the 10kg allowance-- in fact, we actually had about 5kg each!-- and we got a gorgeous view of the sunrise as the plane reached the northern coast of Tassie.

We arrived in Hobart, and with hours to wait before we could check in to our little hotel and have a nap, it was time for some sleepy exploring. Maybe it was just the cold talking, but Hobart had a little bit of Canada in it, we thought--an air of Vancouver, with the town laid out around the mountains surrounding a bay, and a bit of a Maritimes feel with all the fishing boats and old warehouse buildings around the docks. Many of Hobart's old buildings are really well-preserved, with the former warehouses now converted into restaurants, art galleries, and bars. We didn't see many Popeye types (we're guessing they were on vacation from the cold) but we imagine the docks would be pretty lively in the summertime. On a Friday morning... not so much. We quickly grew bored of the CBD though-- it's pretty small and has that feeling of Oz country town-- so we thought we'd tackle the snow early on in our trip and make a dash up Mount Wellington, just outside of the city.

Now, on a scale of mountains, Mt Wellington's not really all that big. At 1270m, it's an anthill in the list of the world's tallest mountains, but it's still a pretty cool sight to see a snow-capped mountain looming over Hobart. We hopped in our little rental Getz and started the climb. On the way we stopped at the famous Cascade Brewery (Oz's oldest) for photos, not for beer (no matter how long we live in Australia, 11am just still seems too early to drink!). We were sad to find the road to Mt Wellington's summit was closed about halfway from the top-- guess no one has snow tires in Tasmania-- though perhaps also a blessing since they're kind of stingy with the guardrails in Tassie. We hopped out at the end of the road and decided to take a walk through the woods, and got to make snowballs and wee snowmen for the first time in a year and a half-- quite the thrill. Eventually we reached a scenic lookout (Sphinx Rock), and as we snapped photos of the snow above, and Hobart below, the weather went from sunny to rainy to a snow flurry to sunshine and a rainbow, in about 10 minutes. Bizarre! We thought we'd try another route back to the road and ended up lost hiking up a very steep and muddy/snowy pathway which seemed like it would never end... (bringing thoughts of "Into The Wild" and being stranded in Alaska to our minds) until suddenly we emerged on the deserted highway, jeans and Converse sneakers dipped in dark mud and our toes frozen. The park rangers had thoughtfully built a stone hut with a log fire inside by the parking lot, where we hung out for a while after that, thank you very much!

Later on it took a bit of motivation to leave our warm hotel room to get some dinner in the cold, but the waterfront area on Friday night was hopping (with people not wearing coats, a puzzling phenomena we see in wintry Melbourne a lot too). There were art gallery openings and packed restaurants and warm pubs and live music... not bad at all!

We had planned our trip around a Saturday morning in Hobart for the famous Salamanca Market, a huge market held weekly along the strip of old sandstone warehouses by the waterfront known as Salamanca Place. We were hoping to find some bargain brie (Tassie's the place for cheese!) but there was none to be found... though had we not had a great breakfast included at our hotel we could have eaten our way through the market- there was everything from coffee to strange jams to locally-grown tempura mushrooms (couldn't resist those). The quarantine laws are pretty strict, even for the Tassie-to-the-mainland crossing (we'd had a fruit-sniffing dog inspect our bags in the Hobart airport) so we weren't sure if we could bring any cool plants or wooden crafts back... so it was a light shopping trip.

We set off for the Tasman Peninsula and the quaint little town of Richmond, along the "convict trail" after that. [See a map of our Tasmania travels here.] At the south end of the peninsula is the former prison colony of Port Arthur, where the repeat offenders and real baddies (though sometimes for what seemed like the silliest little crimes) went between the years of 1830 and 1877. The site has gone through a major restoration over the past 30 years or so, and is now a spooky complex of crumbling sandstone buildings and cute (but maybe haunted) houses. We took a nighttime ghost tour-- under the full moon!--with group of non-believers mixed with jittery screaming girls and equally jittery guys on a bachelor party... which was quite a good time. The buildings were very creepy at night, especially when our guide had us all pile into a solitary confinement cell and stay dead silent (some of us heard a faint hammering noise, and spotted a flickering light in the empty (?) cell across the corridor, eek!). It was getting to the point where a bandicoot dashing across the road would make us jump, so it was probably for the better the tour was only 1 1/2 hours. The next day we explored the site by daylight and it didn't have the same eerieness, that's for sure-- it was pretty and green, with big leafless trees and green rosellas chirping and flying around... almost more like a park than its former gritty, awful prison. (Not to mention the rainbows that kept coming out every hour, which sort of stole the site's creepiness as well).

We hit the road that afternoon in a mad dash north-- Tassie was turning out to have way more to see than we were going to get to in 5 days-- and pretty much had the road to ourselves, aside from logging trucks and endless paddocks of grazing sheep and frolicking lambs. The towns along the way to our next destination, Freycinet National Park, were tiny and far between... but we discovered a new and exciting activity in honking at sheep. (Something we never get to do with Daisy because her horn only works sometimes!) Still no wombat or Tasmanian Devil sightings, as falsely advertised on Tassie postcards, but the scenery up the east coast was pretty nice anyway. We stopped in a little seaside resort town called Swansea, probably overpriced and crowded in summer but a total ghost town in August. We chose the pinkest, kitschiest-looking motor inn and cranked the heating.

On Monday morning, our second-last day, we took the short drive from Swansea to Freycinet National Park, home of the much-photographed aqua-blue Wineglass Bay. None of the books mentioned it would be an absolutely gruelling hike (ahem, "moderate", as the park signs called it) up the mountains to the lookout. I don't think it was just us being out of shape... we met a lot of people along the way who looked like they were going to call it quits before the top. We originally thought we'd hike down to the bay but the thought of having to come back up again kind of cancelled that ambition. Instead, we met a couple of very-friendly wallabies in the parking lot (one with a joey, the other one with a gas problem... video to come shortly!), which was about the extent of our Tasmanian wildlife-spotting.

And since we figured we wouldn't make it to anything that new and exciting before dark-- cheese factories, caves filled with glow worms, more snowy mountains and picturesque gorges, and a place called Dismal Swamp!--we left a lot of Tassie untouched and ended back in Hobart that night... that's right, back in Customs House, in the same room we had the first night (but even the manager said he thinks room #12 is the best one in there... it's one of the original rooms, all refurbished, on a corner so we had windows facing the waterfront on one side and Parliament House on the other side. Awesome!). We flew back on Dayle's birthday in an even-more ghetto airline (rattly plane which had to land at "terminal 4" in Melbourne's airport... basically a big outdoor shed, where the passengers disembark and have to walk along a 2km chainlink-fenced concrete pathway out to a remote bus stop. So that's what $29 gets you! But perhaps we needed the walk-- we were too stuffed from eating many a dessert in Tassie to go out for an official birthday dinner :) It was good times.

Just few things we really love about Tassie:
* All of the hotels we went to were really thoughtful and planted an electrical heated pad under the sheets on both sides of the bed. What a marvellous idea!
* The air is great and the roads are quiet-- the first thing we noticed when getting back on the road in Melbourne is how much people love to use their horns here (and not for sheep). Ugh!
* Tassie is the land of rainbows, at least from our brief experience! The weather was anything but stormy... it was rainy, but it would only rain for a few minutes before shutting off and turning to sunshine again- over and over. It was for the most part, quite enjoyable, and it made everything really green!