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.
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