Bushwalking-Tas-tic

Having closely scrutinised the map of Tassie, (ahem) we headed straight for the inviting depths of the bush. More specifically the Overland Track - a 7 day bush walk through the beautiful Cradle Mountain, Lake St Clair National Park.

Loaded up with a heavy tent, a fondue pot and 7-days worth of heavy supplies, we heavily went where thousands of others had heavily gone before. In a state where it rains 50% of the time, we beat the odds to enjoy 7 consecutive days of glorious sweat-inducing sunshine. The clement weather brought out a whole host of local wildlife intent on killing us or eating our supplies. Tiger snakes, possums, wombats, wallabies, pademelons (it's a marsupial not an Irish fruit!) to name but a few. Here's a few holiday snaps:

The bush conquered, we launched a brief sortee (from Hobart to Launceston) up the east coast - free camping at some beautiful spots, exploring some stunning coastlines, eating some tasty local cheeses and embarking on some (a lot of) fruitless platypus-spotting expeditions.

The Bloody Red Hot Centre

..featuring special guest star... The Hunter.

The Hunter is notoriously camera-shy so pictures of her are rare. Here's one of a lizard instead..

Onto the famous and much-lauded Red Centre. Well, it was bloody hot, there were shit loads of bloody annoying flies, we saw a few bloody huge lumps of rock and did I mention it was bloody hot and there were shit-loads of bloody flies?

Perhaps over familiarity with Uluru (Ayers Rock) as an Australian icon led to us having overly high expectations. We may have been impressed had the rock sang, danced and shared a few clever, witty anecdotes as well as changing colour; but standing at dusk (sweating and swatting flies) in a big carpark, fighting for our space with bearded German tourists to watch a big lump of rock change from red to off-red was hardly a life-changing (or even mildly interesting) experience. The dawn showing was an even worse mass-produced tourist misadventure. Here's a picture of my (medium-sized) rock:
More impressive (and slightly more unexpected) was Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) - a strange looking collection of smaller more rounded bloody huge rocks. Here we had a stroll through the Valley of the Winds - an experience something akin to walking into a bloody large, bloody hot hairdryer.

Another interesting aspect of our trip to the Bloody Red Hot Fly-Infested Centre was our first real chance to learn something about Aboriginal history (real historic history as opposed to white Australia's 200 odd year-old version) and culture. We spent an interesting and informative couple of hours (sheltering from the bloody unrelenting heat and the bloody flies) in the Aboriginal Centre learning about the anangu people and their complex systems of laws and beliefs known as tjukurpa.

What with the bloody heat and the swarms of bloody flies it was a bit of a relief to escape to Melbourne after 5-days. We had fun though, and it was good to have someone else to talk to for a few days - not that Jools' chat is becoming tiresome or anything - completely the opposite in fact.

Cribbage Update: The bloody heat saps all your energy making comlpicated games like cribbage nigh on impossible. The bloody flies don't help much either.

A Fair(l)y (silly)Tale

Once upon a time in a land far, far away there lived a man, a women, their one-eyed dog and a turtle. Uncle Dick, Auntie Navel, Sporky and Taz lived in the picture-perfect town of Port Abraham on the Eerie Peninsula. They lived a happy, simple life in a big, big house at the top of a big, big hill overlooking the big, big sea.

One fine and sunny February day, as the sunbeams glinted prettily off the metal rooftops, Dick and Navel had 2 very special friends come to visit - the ever so slightly odd and grubby travelling twosome, Jeff and Kools.

Marvellous fun-filled, carefree days were spent gaily fishing, squidding, sand-boarding, boogie-boarding, climbing trees, gambolling with lambs and generally having a right jolly spiffing good lark. Once the adventures were over for the day they would run eagerly to the pantry where Auntie Navel - ample bosoms heaving - would be waiting to hand out thick slabs of fresh baked bread, spread with lashings and lashings of homemade fruity condiments and washed down with big bottles of fizzy pop.




Every night as the sun slowly slipped beneath the sea, they would all gather eagerly round the glowing embers on the barby, and Uncle Dick would recount magical tales of local heroes and their great feats of strength and bravery in the much heralded tuna throwing contests.




One very special day, Auntie Navel packed everybodys knapsacks with delicious hampers and led the brave adventurers to a very special place. Along a secret road, around a secret bend, over a secret hill, down some secret stairs, through a secret tunnel lay the most secret of all secret coves. They arrived just in the nick of time to don their superhero outfits and rescue a stricken baby seal from the clutches of an evil mastermind hellbent on world destruction. Having saved the day, Dick, Navel, Jeff, Kools and the happy seals frolicked gaily within the cosy interior of Willy Cove. Simply marvellous!








Well, here's where the plot starts to run a bit thin (was there ever a plot?). But they did all live happily ever after - apart from the poor old fish who was totally gutted.