5 Days in Tasmania Isn't Nearly Enough Even if You've Lived in Northern California
Jun 4th, 2004, 02:51 PM
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5 Days in Tasmania Isn't Nearly Enough Even if You've Lived in Northern California
Mates in Fodoritavilles far and wide,
First of all everyone who hasn?t been to Tasmania and recommended we avoid it, really should visit (first). Do you mainlanders know that Hobart is the driest state capital? ; or that the best Thai food in Australia is found in Tasmania?, or that the Emergency Room at Hobart Royal Hospital treats foreigners like royals (maybe mainlanders too)? And have you noticed that poor Tasmania is always at the end of the travel guidebooks?
But let me begin at the beginning: We spent the night before at the comfortable Ibis Hotel at Sydney Airport ($99). While I understand the airports reopen at 6AM I?m still not sure why all our flights had to leave at that hour.
Our first Qantas flight was comfortable; we even got Outback Cereal for breakfast and cute kangeroo napkins. I?m fascinated by the circle of whatever, they give you to put under your coffee cup so it doesn?t slide into your seatmate?s lap. I?ve not seen that before. President Bush always says we won?t have innovation in America without tax cuts for the rich and here the Australians steal this innovation right out from under Bill Gates? big fat nose.
It was a nice flight over green Tassie and at Hobart Airport the Budget Car Rental manager gave us an extra night free (so we could drive ourselves out for another 6 AM departure 5 days hence). Bucking early morning traffic we got to downtown Hobart in 15 minutes. Well armed with information from the Tourist Office (and a discounted night at the Lenna for our return) we explored lovely Battery Point and Salamanca Place, The Art Gallery and harbour. Hobart is similar to a small coastal northern California city in the 1970?s, calm and slow paced; strangers say, ?have a good day? to us obvious foreigners.
While the island is not very big, no one could agree on driving time to Strahan . The estimates ranged from 3 hours to 5 hours and believe me you need 6 hours unless you have a bladder as big as the Ritz. The drive out was lovely through fields (overrun by sheep) and eucalypt forests. The sky was a muted crimson thanks to a controlled burn that seemed a bit out of control. We stopped at Lake St. Clair for refreshment and immediately encountered a language barrier. I ordered a milk shake and it came without ice cream. They took the recipe literally and served shook milk. You poor Aussies are really getting the short end of the stick on that one. The Visitor Center ( as at all national parks we visited) is a wonderful modern building, very site appropriate.
The drive from the Lake to Queenstown is spectacular. The last 10 km into Queenstown is a nerve wracking descent into an eerie hellish and dramatic mined out landscape. After Queenstown the road signs began to argue amongst themselves. One claimed it was 24 km to Strahan , another was sure it was 32 and a third insisted it was 40. Well we clocked 42 (we always seemed to be driving west at sunset) until we pulled into the Strahan Wilderness Resort and collapsed into our $85 self contained cabin. We had pizza at Banjo?s Bakery. It was good, but travellers are advised to order before they leave Queenstown. .
We awoke to find ourselves perched above the harbour with the sun coming up as our wake up call. Down to the sea in ships we went, in this case out into Macquarie Harbour. This has to be one of geography?s cruelest jokes, an enormous harbor with a bandicoot?s mouth. Our tour boat could get out to the Southern Ocean, but nothing much bigger would. On the way back in we saw dolphins leaping between the hulls of a catamaran ahead of us. At this point one of our fellow sailors slipped or was pushed by his wife down a flight of stairs. We got to observe a ship to ship rescue as the victim was spirited off our boat.
We then cruised a way up the Gordon River into the beautiful and mysterious temperate rain forest, checking out giant cedars and eagles. This was definetly landscape worth rescuing from those nasty dams. A boardwalk has been constructed to let one penetrate into the edge of the forest. We cruised with a group of seniors from the Glass House Mountains who told us that Steve Irwin has bought up large tracts of Tasmania to protect it from environmental degredation.
On shore (after spotting the alleged murderess lurking) we headed back toward Richmond (only 5 hours away since we were avoiding fluids). Our cottage at Hollyhock Cottages was lovely, circa 1845 + or -; it could have slept 6 and had the advantage of laundry facilities and breakfast provisions for 6 as well (which the two of us devoured the next morning). We had a good dinner at the Richmond Arms, tried a bet on Keno, and wandered back to the cottage for a well earned rest.
First of all everyone who hasn?t been to Tasmania and recommended we avoid it, really should visit (first). Do you mainlanders know that Hobart is the driest state capital? ; or that the best Thai food in Australia is found in Tasmania?, or that the Emergency Room at Hobart Royal Hospital treats foreigners like royals (maybe mainlanders too)? And have you noticed that poor Tasmania is always at the end of the travel guidebooks?
But let me begin at the beginning: We spent the night before at the comfortable Ibis Hotel at Sydney Airport ($99). While I understand the airports reopen at 6AM I?m still not sure why all our flights had to leave at that hour.
Our first Qantas flight was comfortable; we even got Outback Cereal for breakfast and cute kangeroo napkins. I?m fascinated by the circle of whatever, they give you to put under your coffee cup so it doesn?t slide into your seatmate?s lap. I?ve not seen that before. President Bush always says we won?t have innovation in America without tax cuts for the rich and here the Australians steal this innovation right out from under Bill Gates? big fat nose.
It was a nice flight over green Tassie and at Hobart Airport the Budget Car Rental manager gave us an extra night free (so we could drive ourselves out for another 6 AM departure 5 days hence). Bucking early morning traffic we got to downtown Hobart in 15 minutes. Well armed with information from the Tourist Office (and a discounted night at the Lenna for our return) we explored lovely Battery Point and Salamanca Place, The Art Gallery and harbour. Hobart is similar to a small coastal northern California city in the 1970?s, calm and slow paced; strangers say, ?have a good day? to us obvious foreigners.
While the island is not very big, no one could agree on driving time to Strahan . The estimates ranged from 3 hours to 5 hours and believe me you need 6 hours unless you have a bladder as big as the Ritz. The drive out was lovely through fields (overrun by sheep) and eucalypt forests. The sky was a muted crimson thanks to a controlled burn that seemed a bit out of control. We stopped at Lake St. Clair for refreshment and immediately encountered a language barrier. I ordered a milk shake and it came without ice cream. They took the recipe literally and served shook milk. You poor Aussies are really getting the short end of the stick on that one. The Visitor Center ( as at all national parks we visited) is a wonderful modern building, very site appropriate.
The drive from the Lake to Queenstown is spectacular. The last 10 km into Queenstown is a nerve wracking descent into an eerie hellish and dramatic mined out landscape. After Queenstown the road signs began to argue amongst themselves. One claimed it was 24 km to Strahan , another was sure it was 32 and a third insisted it was 40. Well we clocked 42 (we always seemed to be driving west at sunset) until we pulled into the Strahan Wilderness Resort and collapsed into our $85 self contained cabin. We had pizza at Banjo?s Bakery. It was good, but travellers are advised to order before they leave Queenstown. .
We awoke to find ourselves perched above the harbour with the sun coming up as our wake up call. Down to the sea in ships we went, in this case out into Macquarie Harbour. This has to be one of geography?s cruelest jokes, an enormous harbor with a bandicoot?s mouth. Our tour boat could get out to the Southern Ocean, but nothing much bigger would. On the way back in we saw dolphins leaping between the hulls of a catamaran ahead of us. At this point one of our fellow sailors slipped or was pushed by his wife down a flight of stairs. We got to observe a ship to ship rescue as the victim was spirited off our boat.
We then cruised a way up the Gordon River into the beautiful and mysterious temperate rain forest, checking out giant cedars and eagles. This was definetly landscape worth rescuing from those nasty dams. A boardwalk has been constructed to let one penetrate into the edge of the forest. We cruised with a group of seniors from the Glass House Mountains who told us that Steve Irwin has bought up large tracts of Tasmania to protect it from environmental degredation.
On shore (after spotting the alleged murderess lurking) we headed back toward Richmond (only 5 hours away since we were avoiding fluids). Our cottage at Hollyhock Cottages was lovely, circa 1845 + or -; it could have slept 6 and had the advantage of laundry facilities and breakfast provisions for 6 as well (which the two of us devoured the next morning). We had a good dinner at the Richmond Arms, tried a bet on Keno, and wandered back to the cottage for a well earned rest.
Jun 4th, 2004, 03:53 PM
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Thanks for another highly entertaining travelogue, AD. And congratulations on discovering what may be the only establishment in Australia to serve a milkshake minus ice cream - the Dr Livingstone of Van Diemen's Land!
Now for a bit of tedious pedantry (but I know that as an accomplished linguist you'll want to know this): the plural of "mate" isn't used as a salutation in Oz. You can have a beer with your mates, you can talk about what lousy (trans., cheap) mates you have, but while you could walk into the pub and greet one mate with a "G'day, mate" you wouldn't address a gaggle (or whatever the collective noun is) of mates with "hello, mates!" Just one of those little dialectical traps we set for unwary American visitors.
Now for a bit of tedious pedantry (but I know that as an accomplished linguist you'll want to know this): the plural of "mate" isn't used as a salutation in Oz. You can have a beer with your mates, you can talk about what lousy (trans., cheap) mates you have, but while you could walk into the pub and greet one mate with a "G'day, mate" you wouldn't address a gaggle (or whatever the collective noun is) of mates with "hello, mates!" Just one of those little dialectical traps we set for unwary American visitors.
Jun 4th, 2004, 06:18 PM
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Pat and Neil,
I am greatly relieved that the lack of ice cream in my milk shake was merely a blatant act of discrimination and that the rest of you are receiveing yor ice-cream.
Neil,
According to this spiffty map I purchased Down Under ( should this be caps or lower case) Fodoritaville is located southwest of Woop Woop.
A/D
I am greatly relieved that the lack of ice cream in my milk shake was merely a blatant act of discrimination and that the rest of you are receiveing yor ice-cream.
Neil,
According to this spiffty map I purchased Down Under ( should this be caps or lower case) Fodoritaville is located southwest of Woop Woop.
A/D
Jun 4th, 2004, 09:17 PM
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As opposed to Frodo-ritaville, a.k.a New Zealand?
A/D, only recently Tasmania's anti-discrimination commissioner was assuring the rest of us that her state has the most comprehensive anti-discrimination provisions in the Commonwealth of Australia. Perhaps she's focusing on the wrong things.
I think she also expressed the usual complaint about Tasmania often being left off maps of Australia. Well, you can't think of everything.
A/D, only recently Tasmania's anti-discrimination commissioner was assuring the rest of us that her state has the most comprehensive anti-discrimination provisions in the Commonwealth of Australia. Perhaps she's focusing on the wrong things.
I think she also expressed the usual complaint about Tasmania often being left off maps of Australia. Well, you can't think of everything.
Jun 5th, 2004, 05:14 PM
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Andrew
In Hobart did you have an opportunity to have breakfast in one of their lovely bakeries? Most everyone stops by the bakeries in the morning and they have delicious meat pies and egg croissants ready to be washed down with some excellent coffee!!
Like you we thoroughly enjoyed our tasmania stay!
In Hobart did you have an opportunity to have breakfast in one of their lovely bakeries? Most everyone stops by the bakeries in the morning and they have delicious meat pies and egg croissants ready to be washed down with some excellent coffee!!
Like you we thoroughly enjoyed our tasmania stay!
Jun 5th, 2004, 08:17 PM
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Dear LN,
We did. When we weren't pigging out on eggs, bacon, sausages, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast our lite alternative was egg bacon and tomato croissants from the bakeries. We also developed a strange craving for bakery chicken salad or ham salad sandwiches for breakfast.
um um good!
A/D
We did. When we weren't pigging out on eggs, bacon, sausages, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast our lite alternative was egg bacon and tomato croissants from the bakeries. We also developed a strange craving for bakery chicken salad or ham salad sandwiches for breakfast.
um um good!
A/D
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