WEEK SIXTEEN

And so, having no idea where we had camped for the night, we woke up to the sound of crashing waves, and ventured outside to explore. We quickly learnt that, despite the fact we couldn’t see anything, we had picked a pretty awesome spot for the night. Will and Toni had, once again, got up before me and decided salt water would be OK for washing in, and by the time I got up the dogs we running around the dunes, and Will was taking arty shots of the red rocks. I on the other hand refrained from using the sea to wash in and just wandered across the rocks dipping my hands into the rock pools as I went – this surely counted as washing?! And then Will got a treat. As he was grooming Turnip he found a few rather nasty grass seeds imbedded in her skin, and, got the joy of sticking his finger up her bum to try and force one of them out. She actually put up with it rather well, but I think kept a safe distance for the rest of the day. Will gets all the good jobs! Ha! So, with that done, and his hands thoroughly washed we headed off again to Corinna, and ultimately ‘The Edge of the World’ which is one of the most Westerly points of Tasmania – and there is nothing West of that until you get to South America. But, we had to get there. So, setting off again we drove for a couple of hours, until we found a nice spot for a walk, for both us and the dogs, and so got out and headed to the top of a hill. It was actually a really beautiful spot, despite the huge numbers of spiders there seemed to be, the rolling hills and forest of burnt trees really made it look quite spectacular. We wandered around for a while before heading back to the car, and, as Joey runs a lot faster than we walk, she found a muddy puddle well before we saw it, and was rolling around, covered in mud and loving it when we found her. She also seemed to be unaware of the rancid smell that was coming from this water, and her, and kept rolling around once she had an audience. And so, with no clean water to wash her with, we set off, with a stinking dog in the back. And so, we continued to Corinna, where we had to catch a ferry across the river.
I’m not sure if the ferry was called the Pie Man, or the elderly gentleman who ran it, but, we paid our way across (suitably overpriced for the 100m journey!) and sat back to enjoy our 3 minute ride across the murky brown water. When we drove off the boat we arrived in the metropolis of Corinna – which turned out to consist of a car park, and a restaurant/cafe/grocery store. But, it was set in the middle of rainforest, and according to the slogan the town had adopted was ‘At home in the Wilderness’. It was actually a beautiful place to sit and have a cup of tea and relax, and that was exactly what we did. We enjoyed it so much we actually had more tea, and some bread and cookies, and then Will’s klepto side kicked in, and we ended up driving away from the place with our mugs in possession. And so we spent the next couple of hours driving along dirt roads towards the ‘Edge of the World’. It still shocks me that places in Tasmania still have dirt roads, it is a tiny little island, and I’m sure they could be done, but I’m not complaining it did add to the feeling that we were going somewhere not many people have been. Not exactly true, but it’s nice to pretend, and the dusty roads added to that. When we got to the ‘Edge of the World’ the view was fantastic, with more of the stunning red rocks and crashing waves, and me and Will went to play on the rocks. We had only been there a couple of minutes when Toni sheepishly came round the corner, and admitted that she had just dropped her new iPhone down the toilet. Sad enough when that toilet is plumbed in, and you have to fish it out, worse, when that toilet is a long-drop and you can’t even see where it is. So, we went to try and see what we could do. I’m not going to go into it all, but Will ended up toilet fishing with a hook and wire from a nearby fisherman, as I stood guard and occasionally tried to shine the torch down the toilet. As it was the only ladies loo there, when a busload of old women needed to relieve themselves I had to try and explain the situation, and encourage them to use the gents, or the disabled toilets. And so, after about an hour of ‘fishing’, with a stick also being used to try and get it out, we were successful and Toni had her phone back, which she quickly cleaned with about 10 anti-bacterial wipes, and still didn’t want to hold it. I’m not sure it helped when me and Will reminded her that she was going to be holding it against her face in the near future, but with that job done, we decided to have a last little play on the rocks before leaving. And when we tried to get back to the car-park we realised the tide had come in pretty quickly (yes, they always warn you about it!) and Will and Toni made the run for it towards their shoes, which were about to get very wet, and left me on the rock, which was fast becoming encircled in water. And so I waited for the right time so I didn’t get too wet, and ran for it, and almost made it before the water beat me, and I was soaked up to the knees. We decided it was time to leave before nothing else when wrong, and tried to find somewhere to have a drink and some dinner, which we found in Smithton, but after looking at the veggie options on the menu decided to move on after our drink and find somewhere else. Choices were rather than on the ground, and we ended up at a country club for old people, but they served food so we stayed. Good job we did too, because as we were waiting for our food a familiar looking group of elderly women came over to our table, and asked if Toni’s phone was OK. Luck had it we were in the same place as the busload of women I had explained the situation too, and they all seemed to have little chuckle as they went to find their table. After dinner we once again were playing the game of trying to pitch our tent before dark, and went to have a look at 7 mile beach to see if there was anywhere we could camp there – but after driving the full length of it, and finding nothing, we continued to try and find a campsite, which we found relatively quickly, but, once again, ended up putting the tent up in the dark. Job done, we found some firewood, and Will did his caveman thing and created fire, and we sat and toasted marshmallows until sleep finally came and I fell asleep to the sound of the sea.

We woke up early on Tuesday for a couple of reasons, firstly we had many little towns to visit, and secondly we wouldn’t have to pay for the campsite. That’s just about motivation enough to get me up, so I dragged myself out the sleeping bag, and helped pack everything up. We arrived in Stanley before everywhere opened, so spent some time on the beach letting the dogs run about and flying my kite, for the first tie in years, and I forget how much fun it was! It isn’t quite powerful enough to lift me though, and it got me thinking about buying a huge one so I can jump around with it, but it was still pretty fun. We then found the cutest little place for brekkie called Moby Dicks, and had a fantastic breakfast which cost virtually nothing. A success as far as I am concerned. We had many miles to cover that day, so set off again, only stopping to take a photo of a giant crayfish, and a tiny shark on top of a shop – one more ‘big’ thing to add to my collection. Will had found a wood shop just outside Stanley, so we went there, only to find out we were still too early for it, so sat and waited for it to open (late!) and I think it was Will’s idea of heaven, with tonnes and tonnes of wood of various types, and so we spent a good couple of hours there with him picking out some gorgeous wood to make some furniture with, and I bought a slice of tree to make a lid for my well bucket, in total, he spent over 10x as much as me. And then we had to try and fit it into the car. The space for the dogs was just getting smaller and smaller, but we managed to fit all the wood in, and carried on with our journey to Burnie, and more specifically to the Craft Design Centre, which sadly was shit, and we spent about 5 minutes there before moving on to have a proper look round the town. We did get some paper made out of wombat poo for Mum – thought she’d appreciate considering her strange love of wombats. But we had a look about, mainly trying to find op shops, and found a couple – I bought a dress for the grand fortune of $5 and then on our way back to the car Toni was ID’d to buy cigarettes – and was pretty chuffed, considering, apparently, it was almost her 30^th birthday. We also found a fairy penguin lookout spot just before we got back into the car, but sadly it had no penguins, so, we thought we would do one better and go to the town called Penguin. But, not before we went to a cheese centre, with our mouths watering. And we pulled up with high expectations, and quickly made our way to the tasting plates. And, I will admit I stuffed my face like the greedy little cheese monster that I am, and regretted it within a second, as I learnt that Mersey Valley cheese is revolting – and swallowing it became an issue. It was revolting, so we quickly left, feeling slightly disheartened, with no cheese. And so, we headed to the quaint town of Penguin. And took many amusing photos of the statues of penguins they had there, and the notorious ‘Penguin Butcher’. Fantastic! We also found a sign to a chocolate shop, which turned out to be slightly stranger than first imagined, and was just a man in a tiny little room in his house, surrounded by chocolate. But, we bought some of his wares and went for a walk along the beach back to the car. And with the joys if Penguin well and truly exhausted we went off to find more op-shops. Next town on the coast was Ulverstone – not the nicest name for a town, but it turned out to be a great place for antique shops and charity shops, and so we spent the rest of the afternoon admiring stuff that other people had thrown away, and me and Toni got some pretty good junk! We also stopped off at a different cheese place, and parted with our pennies for much cheese, which we stashed away for dinner. With the sun still high in the sky we headed towards Longford campsite – nothing special, but it did have showers, which at this point in this trip really did seem like a luxury. On pulling up in the drive, Will told me to duck and chucked some coats over me so he only had to pay for 2 people – cheeky bastard, and there I stayed as the campground owner showed us to our spot. It didn’t take long for us all to give in to the idea of shower and before long we were all clean and busy eating cheese. The mean people at the campsite said we had to keep Turnip and Joey on a lead, which seemed slightly unnecessary, but they insisted, so the dogs stayed tied to the car giving us somewhat annoyed look as we munched on cheese and crackers. I spent the rest of the evening lying in the sun writing letters and postcards to people. How very relaxed, however as we weren’t allowed a fire we all went to be even earlier than normal – pretty much when it got dark.

We set off early the next day to get to Cygnet by the end f the day, and on the way through Launceston decided to go to Cataract Gorge for a walk, but our plan was swiftly changed when we found out we weren’t allowed to take the dogs, so we went into the centre of the city to eat some more cheese in the park, and go and have a look at the design centre – which was considerably better than the one in Burnie and had some really awesome furniture. On our way down to Hobart we had planned to go to many many vineyards, however managed to miss the turn-off to them, so when this was realised we managed to do a quick detour to go and see some of them. We went to one which was meant to be incredibly fancy – Mona - but wasn’t due to open for another week, so when we got there it was still a construction site, and they were charging for a wine tasting, so we continued. The enxt place on our list wasn’t actually a vineyard, but instead the Cadbury’s factory to try and get a tour, but we arrived too late and there were no more tours, but the lady gave us a leaflet of their opening times and some free chocolate. Attempt number 2 – failed. Next vineyard on the list was Grandveiw, which was just about closing and the lady wouldn’t give us a tasting, so we went on again – not having the best luck. The final place on our list was Hartzview, which again, was just closing, but this time they let us have a tasting, and in return we bought some alcohol off them. They did an amazing range of liqueurs and in the end I left with a bottle of honey mead. Bloody beautiful. I have no idea what I am going to do with it, but I shall think of something worthy of it. And from there we headed back to the campsite in Cygnet which we stayed in before Falls Festival, and booked in for 2 nights – the longest we had stayed at any campsite. Chloe came down to see us and have dinner with us, and we headed to a place in Franklin which, as usual had one veggie option, and so I have ravioli. When we actually got the bill we realised that they had forgotten to add the drinks to it, so left enough cash to cover the amount they thought we owed, and swiftly left the establishment to have a drink in another pub – the only other one around was pretty dodgy, but we went anyway and had another drink before they called last orders and we decided it was time to go back to the campsite and go to sleep, as apparently, something important was happening the next day...

When we woke up it was finally Toni’s birthday – I only say ‘finally’ because she had been banging on and on about it since we got to Tassie, but, here it was – a grand 30 years of age, and time to act like a grown-up?! And so we did the present thing in the tent, and then got up to get ready for breakfast at a cafe, and then go horse-riding. I felt very civilised as we left for the cafe for brekkie – as I had clean clothes on and had actually had a shower in the morning. It’s bad when that feels like the epitome of clean, but, after far too long living in a tent it felt fantastic! And so, we set off for breakfast at the Red Velvet Lounge, and had a beautiful cooked breakfast, before we wandered about Cygnet for a little bit longer, and then went to pick up Chloe and her sister and head off to where the riding was. When we got there my nerves had started to kick in, and as I had not been on a horse for about a decade, thought that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all, but we were all in the same boat, so after getting boots and helmets that almost fitted properly we were introduced to our horses and got on. We all started off just walking along, and then after a while got to trot, and it all came back to me again. We went along 5 mile beach, which is beautiful, and then through some woodland which was really pretty, and we actually got to do loads of trotting, which is different to all the other hacks I’ve been on before where they make sure you are on a horse so lazy it won’t go faster than walking. Then my horse got in the mood for it, and every time everyone else trotted mine tried to canter – which was great fun, and I stayed on which was surprising! It really did give me the feel for horse riding again, and I will have to do more of it – preferably on beautiful beaches in warm weather! And so when we eventually got back to the car it was time tog et off the hors e- much harder than getting on, as by this time my legs had seized in a hilarious position, and almost buckled under me when I hit the floor, and so, feeling slightly battered and bruised we all walked like John Wayne back to the car and headed off to a fancy pub to have some champagne – yum. And then it was time for a lovely home-cooked meal at Chloe’s house, and we enjoyed shepherds pie and chocolate cake washed down with a selection of wine and beer. What a fantastic way to spend the day. And so, we headed back to the campsite for our final night in the tent before Will and Toni went back to Melbourne, and I went to stay on a farm for a fortnight – eek!

 And so, our final day in Tasmania, and we thought that we should really try and go to the Cadbury's factory, just one more time. And this time it was open, and they were running tours, but we would have to wait for an hour, and decided we had better things to do with our time than wait. And so, we headed off to do a little bit more exploring, towards the Great Lakes. This was a much better idea. And s we spent some time admiring the lakes, and then headed off to ur final destination - 'Tazmazia and Lower Crackpot' - apparently it is the largest hedge maze in the southern hemisphere (or something like that!) so we were off, not really sure what to expect.  When we got there, there was very little to indicate what was inside, so we paid our pennies to the old lady, and set off through the back doors as instructed, and into the maze. We were faced with huge walls of hedge, and a choice f left or right. Thinking I knew some kind of trick to mazes, I decided we should all stick to the left, and we would quickly be in the centre. This was not what happened, and shortly after setting off on our journey we were faced with a dead end, but did find small signs with whimsical sayings on them. And so, we tried again, and spent the next few hours enjoying the maze, and the strange and wonderful things which were hidden in it; including an entire village of miniature houses, and the Lower Crackpot Correction Centre. Absolutely fantastic. However I did have the increasing feeling of doom that in a couple of hours I would be dropped off at a man's farm and I was to stay there for the next fortnight. And so, to celebrate the last hour we had together, we decided to have a last pint in Sheffield. It was not quite the reflective drink I had in mind, but instead, upon arrival at a pub were joined by the local drunken teenager. And so he regaled us with stories about the various 'birds' he had in different towns! And se we quickly drank, and made our excuses to leave. And so, the final drive to my new home was upon us, and as we got close to where the farm was we started inspecting all of the houses, and when we finally pulled up at the end of the track I was faced with a beautiful wooden house, surrounded by veggie patches and orchards. Maybe not so bad after all. So, I made the final pack of my bags, and my new host came ut t greet me, along with a yappy little Jack Russell called 'Lucky'. And so, with all the introductions made, I carried my belongings to my new bedroom, which was actually a separate wooden building and called 'the Octagon’. I could get used to this home, if nothing else, for the next fortnight. My first impression of my new family is that they are lovely, and also seem to be new-age hippies, complete with home-schooled kids, and inspirational quotes all over the walls. And so, with a few hours of sunlight left I was taken on a quick tour, and was given a run-down of what I was expected to help with, which all seemed easy enough. With dinner and the washing up done I then went to bed in my own little house, and was rather thankful of having a proper bed for the first time since Christmas.

And when I woke up I was in pain, not, from the lovely bed, but instead from the horse-riding 2 days previously. It really was a case of karma catching up with me as I had been boasting about how little I hurt the day before – typical. This did mean that everything from my shoulders to my calves were knackered, and the idea of doing farm-work in this condition really didn’t excite me too much, but, I went back into the main house to be greeted with a ‘green smoothie’. I had no idea what was in this concoction, but it didn’t smell too appetising, and just looked like grass mulch, and oddly enough, it also tasted of grass. I am sure if was probably the healthiest thing that has ever been offered to me, but after I took a few sips I had to politely decline the rest of my glassful. At least I tried it! And so, after having some breakfast I could actually swallow without feeling like I was going to throw up, me and the kids went to pick raspberries. It’s been ages since I did some good old fashioned fruit picking and forgot how vicious raspberry canes are, and so after filling my buckets full with berries my arms had been scratched to hell! Next time I’ll be more careful, but it just seemed like all the good ones were in the nasty places! Once the raspberry canes had been cleared we moved onto boysenberries, something I have never actually tried, or picked – turns out they are just giant brambles, and really tasty. By this point the Tasmanian sun was really starting to show us it’s force, and we all went in for lunch. My afternoon job was weeding a patch of one of his veggie gardens, and by the time I was called in for dinner I was positively growing red – damned hole in the –zone layer! The night was spent just pottering about, and not much else, but I had survived my first day, and only had 11 to go! Still not quite sure about my host, but I’m sure he’ll grow on me…

On Sunday I continued with more berry picking and more weeding, not exactly the most fun of all jobs, but it was a beautiful place to stay, so I knuckled down and got n with it. I did realise very quickly that I would have been crap if I tried to do fruit picking for 3 months solidly, it really isn’t that thrilling! When the sun picked up in the afternoon we all took advantage of it, and me, my host, his kids, and the dog all went down to swim in the dam. Not a huge dam, just the little one at the bottom of his land, but the water was warm and it was deep enough to have a proper swim. Fantastic! At dinner time I was pretty happy I am veggie, as their dinner was kangaroo mince, and mine was lovely garden grown vegetables. I know which one I preferred – I just couldn’t eat a kangaroo! The rest of the night was spent watching Lord of the Rings, and I even found enough phone reception to send a couple of emails about jobs to do once I am off the farm! And so, with one more day under my belt I went up to my little cabin and fell asleep in a big comfy bed.

WEEK FIFTEEN

And so we woke up as the boat was just coming into the Devonport, and it was beautiful. Cities always seem so magical when you first see them from a boat. We had all slept surprisingly well, and by the time we got up and dressed we had a few minutes to go out on deck for a look, and then could go and collect the dogs. Toni got there before us, and as me and Will were doing down the stairs to the car deck we could hear Joey, and she was going mental. When we got down there she was still in a mild state of excitement to say the least, and was bouncing all over the place - bless her. Turnip seemed mildly more annoyed at having spent the last 10 hours in a small, metal box, but she still seemed pleased to see us. And so we went to take them for a walk to try and get back in their good books, and it was then that we realised it was absolutely freakin' freezing. Turns out it was a balmy 2 degrees - what were we complaining about? Whilst wandering around Devenport we found what has to be the most fantastic hostel in the world - it is a gingerbread house, and brilliant. I think I am going to have to go there one day...maybe when I get a van? We continued on our journey south, and as we arrived at Cambeltown we all decided it was breakfast time. So, with egg rolls and coffees we let the dogs off the leads again and let them run free, kind of. We sat in the park and ate our breakfast, and then Toni had a special treat, as it was almost her birthday, she got to pull a poo out of Joey's bum. That must have been fun for her. And so, after that lovely little experience we headed off again and tried to visit the Cadbury's factory, but it was closed. Bummer. So then we continued into the centre of Hobart. We wandered about Salamanca for a while, and then went to the dock to have a drink - that sounds much seedier than it was, we found a lovely pub and I found the best drink in the world - Rekorderlig - OK, it doesn't sound cool, but it was a strawberry and lime cider. $15 a bottle, but very very nice. There was no market on when we were wandering about, so we headed up to Battery Point which looked out over the ocean, and right on top of a hill. All the roads just seemed to drop off as they were so steep, it was amazing, so we got out, and tried to go to the same bakery Will and Toni had been with Mum, and alas, again, it was closed. Dammit. So we headed off again, to Tahune Airwalk, again, Will and Toni had been there before with Mum, but we chose a different route and had a nice walk with the dogs through the forest and over a couple of bridges. The dogs seemed surprisingly at ease with the bridges, and just pottered along them. When we got to the final big airwalk it was getting a bit late and when we about half way round the ranger man came to hurry us along, but we still got to go to the lookout, and he chatted to us about the place too and was very nice about getting us to get the hell out! We continued our route south, and stopped in Franklin to have a look at the lovely little wooden boats, and couldn’t resist trying to get Joey onto one of them, and she seemed happy to oblige. Turnip wasn’t so keen. Once we had our fun with the dogs and the boats, and taken suitably enough arty photos we headed off to find a campsite in Cygnet. We found one, set up the tent, and went to the hotel across the road to have some food and a drink. We very quickly realised that this pub was slightly too much like fawlty towers, and then old man shuffled about writing stuff down for 10 minutes before taking our order, but, with that over and done with we sat and waited for our food. And waited. We ended up waiting so long by the time we had our food we had managed to have a drink with one of Toni’s friends who had come down to the pub to see us. But, once our food arrived we demolished it in record time, and set to drinking again. As Tasmanian weather was a lot colder than imagined, I fuelled myself up with hot chocolate, and then we headed back out to the campsite, to spend our first night in the tent. The first of many! 

I woke up surprisingly well rested, despite the fact three of us had shared a rather small tent, and headed up to the shower block. Feeling slightly cleaner we packed up all of our worldly belongings back into the car, and set off to the kennels where the dogs would be staying as we were working. I felt pretty bad leaving them there, but the people seemed really nice, and were used to showing Huskies, so they were well prepared. With them safely in their new home we were off to start work, and headed towards Marion Bay. When we first arrived at the turn-off to the festival it really didn’t seem like anything special, but by the time we went round the final corner into the site the whole bay came into view, with a beautiful ocean curving around the headland. As Will had to do some work type things, me and Toni set up the camp which was to be our home for the next 5 days, and then went to explore. We ended up in ‘The Village’ having a cup of tea, where lots of Toni’s friends worked, and then headed off to try and find the beach. We could see it, but just had to try and find out how to get there! Half an hour later we were walking through the sand dunes, and then the full length of white sand beach appeared over the top. It really was the kind of beach that you see in magazines, and we paddled through the water enjoying the sight of it all. People had told me that this was a pretty impressive festival site, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be quite so picturesque. Sadly we had to head back to get to the staff induction, so after sitting on the dunes and watching the sea for a bit longer we went back. Shame really because the induction was a pile of crap, and a complete waste of time! After the obligatory safety talks and introduction we got our free goodies (staff t-shirt and a water bottle!) and divided into our respective groups. Everyone else on the night crew seems nice enough, but I suppose only time will tell! We then found out that a few of us had to work that night, and I was pretty chuffed when two others volunteered – I just really wasn’t ready to start then! So, instead, me and Toni spent the evening drinking chai tea from the Hare Krishnas and playing cards in the tent by the light of a torch. My plan to try and stay up till Will finished work really was thwarted quite early, and I fell asleep at midnight  I just forgot that when you are camping you normally go to sleep once it gets dark. Midnight seemed like a decent attempt as far as I was concerned!

After a rather crap night’s sleep where we all realised that the ‘slight’ slope we had pitched our tent on was more than we thought, and spent the whole night sliding down the hill and ending up in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the tent. Not exactly the best, and so we added gaffa tape, which fixed the situation as we gaffed our roll mattresses to the bottom of the tent. Unsure about whether or not it would do the trick we hoped for the best. Most of the day was just spent wandering around the site, there was no music on at all that day, but the place soon started filling up with 6,000 people arriving early, ready to go. Me and Will spent the afternoon going down to the beach as he hadn’t seen it, and I fancied going for another look. It had already somewhat changed from it’s tranquillity the day before, and it seemed that many other people had the same idea to head to the beach. I had every intention on going into the sea, as the sun had broken through the Tasmanian cloud and it actually seemed reasonably warm. However, when I got there I had changed my mind and instead decided that, once again, paddling was as far as I would go. And s after wandering along the shore for a while we headed back to the campsite and had some dinner, and then a nap before starting work. When I woke up I realised that Tasmanian nights are pretty damned cold, and after convincing myself to get out of the tent I layered up ready for the next 8 hours. My first shift was spent mainly in a little box watching a gate, and asking for passes, which surprisingly enough, got pretty boring after a few minutes, and I was grateful of my many layers of clothes as the human traffic slowed, and I ended up just watching a gate. And then the police arrived to deal with a punter. This made it much more interesting, and so I got to watch various people pleading innocence for a while, until one of them was carted away in the back of the police car, and I was grateful of the entertainment. The rest of the night was spent in a box – need I say more. Actually, I will note now, that the first night’s meal was actually really good, and made even better when we got free halava from the Hare Krishnas. And so, once we had all paid our penance, and done the 8 hours we headed back over the field to our tent, and it was a pleasant change going to sleep when it was warm, and only wearing normal PJs and not 3 t-shirts, 2 pairs of bottoms, socks, and legwarmers.

And we I slept until about 1pm, not bad considering I went to bed at half eight in the morning, however my body decided I needed more sleep than that, and after a rather pitiful attempt at getting up I conceded and fell asleep again until 3pm. Much better. When I awoke again at 3 I felt much better, and decided it was time to go and check out the showers – apparently they were free and had hot water. This rumour turned out to be true, and feeling much cleaner, I spent the afternoon just wandering about the market stalls and admiring lots of lovely clothes, but not buying any of them. I also developed a rather strong addiction to the Chai tea from the Krishnas, so during the day spent most of my pennies on that, and rather tasty Dutch donuts – completely different to ours, but very tasty all the same. And then I headed back to the tent to have a little nap before work again. And, once again it was rather harder than it should have been to get out of my sleeping bag when it was time to get ready for work, but I dragged myself there, and treated myself to a coffee and a brownie when I started work. I was allowed out of the box during my shift, and me and Toni wandered about the site, listening for loud people, or some other kind of excitement. And there was very little. Everyone seemed to be in bed by a reasonable time, but we did our laps around our section for a few hours, until it was eventually time to finish. Again, not the most thrilling of all jobs, but I just had to remain thankful I wasn’t on the ‘Loo Crew’ whose job was to sort and clean the toilets. At least I wasn’t dealing with poo! And so 8am came and it was time for knock-off drinks. I’m sure most people who saw us thought we were starting especially early, but we traipsed back to the tent and had a beer or two and fell sound asleep in a warm tent again. Bliss.

I had actually set an alarm for the next day, as I didn’t want to miss Washington, but when it went off I couldn’t bring myself to get up, so lay in the tent listening to it, and drifting in and out of sleep. What a perfect way to wake up. When I actually got up I made it as far as just outside the tent, and once again made myself comfy and dozed in the sun with the sound of music drifting over me. That afternoon we all went down to watch Angus & Julia Stone, and sit in the sun. It really was the weather for a beer but all of us resisted – not really sure why to be honest, but we were all good for the whole afternoon. What a tame festival! I was slightly gutted that I couldn’t just get drunk in the beautiful weather, and laze around in the sun – it was New Years Eve after all, but my night was to get so much more conservative! Oooh, I did get a Falls Festival beanie though – I was going to buy one, but then Will got given a goody bag with all sorts of merchandise, and I inherited the hat. After we had all wasted the rest of the afternoon lying in the sun and listening to music it was nap-time again for me and Toni and we went to sleep with an alarm set to give us enough time to pack up the tent and all our rubbish, and move the car so we could get a quick getaway in the morning. Safe to say Toni woke up before me, and I only crawled out of the tent when Toni started disassembling it around me. This meant we had just enough time to get everything done, move the car, and get to work in time (with a quick detour to get some more chai). It was officially Hogmanay and the weather had been kind, it wasn’t quite as bitterly 

cold as it had been the previous nights, and after an hour of work, Toni came to visit me in my box, and we celebrated the start of the New Year the most sober I have been in about a decade – with a cup of tea. And with the complete anti-climax over and done with we still had 8 hours of work to go, so just carried on. We did get a new job a about 3am though, and were given the task to give out free breath tests before people set off home. Actually a surprisingly fun job, and we ended up trying to get the highest reading. The winner of the night was someone who was 4x over the limit, and very chuffed about it. I don’t think we were meant to be congratulating them on their high scores, but they were must more fun than the people who were stone cold sober and just wanted a test ‘to be on the safe side’ – boring! And so, with no sleep we enjoyed our knock-off drinks and after saying our goodbyes to the little team we had been part of for the last three nights, we left Marion Bay.

 

After snaking our way along the track in the convoy of vehicles leaving we headed off to Hobart to look around Salamanca Market – I think this sight was wasted on all of us, as Toni went to get a coffee and me and Will just wandered about. I’m sure there were quite a few cool things there, but I was just like a zombie walking about, and seemed to be very easily irritated by the crowds of people there, so after a quick lap of the place we headed off to get the dogs, and I swiftly fell asleep in the car. I was woken up by Joey leaping over the back seat of the car in excitement, and giving me a friendly lick on my face. Lovely! But I think we were all glad to have them back, and so we drove to try and find them somewhere good to swim and have a run. We headed down a dirt road which had signposts to water, but sadly, when we got there we found out it was part of a hydro plant, and there were some pretty strong currents, so we continued, and found a great little place for us to have a walk and the dogs to have a run, and a swim. With all of us tired and grumpy we decided we should try and find somewhere to sleep for the night, and headed to Wayatinah campsite, which turned out to have a great swimming pool, but also was full of bogans, who all seemed to live there permanently. It seemed like too much of a step down from our spot on a field with a view of the ocean, so continued on to the next place which looked interesting – Tarraleah, which turned out to be a fake town, and just be holiday villas and nothing else. So, after a quick chat with the lady in the information centre/grocery store we headed off again to Dermont Bridge. When we got there we realised that there was nothing more to this town than a pub, and a shop. We went for a look in the pub (not that we had much choice, the shop was closed!) and got some directions to places we could camp for the night. And Toni bought a bottle of wine in desperation and when we were back in the car started swigging it from the bottle. The guy in the pub also told us we were only a few minutes drive from Lake St. Claire National Park, but would probably be closed by now. Strangely enough, this was a good sign, and meant we could drive straight in with the dogs in the back of the car without anyone telling us off. And so we wandered about and took some pretty pictures of the lake with Cradle Mountain in the background. As it was getting close to dark we found somewhere to camp next to a river, and it was actually a really beautiful spot, and went for dinner in the pub. And, with the choice of the whole menu we all went for soup and shared a giant cheese platter. And, well fed, and well watered we went back to our little campsite and sat by the fire before eventually giving in to sleep and curling up in the tent.

 

When I woke up Will and Toni were already up and washing in the river. Although the idea of being clean really did appeal to me at thins point, I got as far as my knees and decided that splashing myself with water was the same as washing, and very quickly got out. And after packing everything up back into the car we headed off in the vague direction of Queenstown. At this point I was grumpy for food, and Toni was grumpy for coffee, but still we stopped off at a bridge to let the dogs have a swim and a run around, but after about 10 minutes swiftly gave up on the idea and continued driving to find somewhere that served food and coffee, and much to our luck, around the next corner was a café. And it was great – the dogs got to run around with the resident dog, and through the trees, and we all got to eat and drink coffee. It was run by a 

lovely couple who just seemed lovely and chatty, and apologised for the fact my baked beans would come from a can – I assured them that I was OK with this, and we sat down to plan our next move, and watch the dogs running around, occasionally passing the window. As Will had been hankering after a 4x4 track to test the car I scanned the leaflets we had for one, and found one, roughly on our route. Perfect. We also read the description Lonely Planet had written for Queenstown – where we were heading – and safe to say it didn’t fill me with joy, but, I’m not sure if it was meant to encourage you to go there “                  “. It was only after we had laughed at it for a while I realised I fitted the description pretty well, apart from the BMX bike ,but I have one in Melbourne, so all of a sudden the description seemed less amusing, but instead, a describing a picture of me. But, with breakfast done we continued our journey towards Queenstown, and stopped off at a beautiful scenic treat – an Iron Ore hole left from mining, and let the dogs have a run again. Will also saw this as an opportunity to pilfer the road sign which pointed to the hole, so with this added to our collection of crap in the back of the car, we got back in.  When we got to Queenstown it seemed that the Lonely Planet could not be further form the truth, and it seemed like a very cute town in the hills, with a gorgeous old railway station. And we pottered about, and filled up on food and drink again for our next few days, and took far too many photos of the quaint little place. And left to try and get to Strahan and set up our tent before it got dark. We got there in plenty of time, and saw the other end of the railway, which started in Queenstown and the fantastic old train that shuttled between the two places. And we explored Strahan, and found a British Lolly Shop (they’re bloody sweets – lollies have sticks, but anyway!) and I found the cutest little red caravan which was adorable, and just big enough for one. One day! The little town was also home to the smallest theatre I have seen, which was just outside the info centre, and probably held about 100 people in total. Awww, bless! 

And so, with bags of sweets we went off to find the 4x4 track, with enough time to do that and get to our campsite before dark. And so, with a little trepidation, started along the track, which didn’t seem so bad at the start, it did get slightly trickier, but Will kept his nerve (mainly because there was no where to turn around, I’m sure) until it got slightly worse again, and it continued to get worse until we got to a water crossing, which meant we had to go down a steep slope, snaking past the bigger rocks, and then get up the other side, and, holding onto the door (god knows why the door) I genuinely thought we were going to topple, but the little car held it’s own, and on the second attempt, made it up the other side. This hari-raising experience continued for another half an hour or so, with an even dodgier water crossing, and we got to a fork in the road. One sign pointing to Mataranka Falls (our destination) and the other pointing to a different track, on which someone had scratched ‘hard’ into the wood. We took this advice and continued to our original destination. When we reached the little car park at the top (after a couple of pee breaks and cigarette breaks!) we parked up and started to relax, slightly, but as we still had a the journey back again it seemed to early to celebrate just yet! But, we got the dogs out the car, much to their delight, as they had spent the last hour or so with stuff falling on top of them, we all went to find the walkway to the waterfalls. It was at this point we heard another car engine, and 2 whopped out 4x4’s came charging up the track, full to the brim with bogans. So, the whole group of us travelled along the walkway and got to the suspension bridge. Joey and Turnip really weren’t sure about this one, despite being on others before and being fine, it seemed as though our journey there had slightly traumatised them, so, we let the bogans go first, and to my amusement, their dog also didn’t want to go over, despite almost being carried across. In the end we tied the dogs up and went across ourselves to the bottom of the waterfall, and it really was worth it. I’m not sure if Will thought it was worth the trouble, but it was pretty, and apparently the highest waterfall in Tasmania, or something along those lines! And so, with darkness on its way we hastily mae it back to the car for our return journey – much to Will’s disappointment it was not a looped track, so we went back the way we came, hoping we didn’t come across another car on the way – going forward was tricky enough on most of the route, going backwards would be ridiculous! And, in what seemed like a much shorter, and less terrifying journey we eventually made it back to the start and onto the freeway. Tarmac seemed smooth after a few hours bumping around! And so, once again failing in our mission to pitch the tent before it got dark, we pulled up to our camping spot and started the routine of getting everything ready for the evening, and spent the rest of the time before bedtime toasting marshmallows on sticks in front of the fire and listening to the sea.

And so, after never really giving Tasmania a second thought, I have fallen in love with it.