Under Down Under

Every time I thought the name Tasmania, I would mentally break into the theme for the cartoon. The cartoon was okay (not as good as Animaniacs, or even Tiny Toons, but still okay), but the Tasmania it showed is nothing like the one we found.

I have to say, it was one of our favorite places, and one of the first spots where we truly started to feel homesick. The trees and sky and weather was so similar to Oregon that we started to feel a few pangs.

One thing that was kind of funny for us was that whichever region we were in, people would make fun of the other region. When you get out of North Queensland you find out that they are all drug users, and the Southerners are too busy and unfriendly, and out West they are just weird, and not really Australian. (Once you get to New Zealand, the Kiwis just make fun of the Australians as drunkards, and not too bright. Maybe only people from North Queensland go to New Zealand.)

Anyway, as we were waiting for our shuttle to the airport to go to Tasmania, the desk clerk was telling us that Tasmania was really rough, and people take the law into their own hands, and everyone has big fences to keep out the Tasmanian devils, which are the size of pit bulls. However, the guy at the airport was telling us it was all great seafood and wine, which excited us terribly. No, no, yes but not because of that, and not even close to that big. (Now, our shuttle driver to the airport was pretty rude and inefficient, so that fit in with our pattern of finding transportation in Sydney to be frustrating.)

Regional pride was strong in Tasmania too though, as the north and south fight. One notable fact is that it is the only state to have two expos because they aren't willing to share. We stayed pretty much south, but we felt bad about that when we found out that near Launceston (up north) there was a Platypus House and Seahorse World. On the return trip to the airport we were telling our cabbie we felt bad to have missed the north of the island, and he told us we were not missing much (being a southerner). However, when we told him why, he admitted that he had been wanting to go there too. So regional rivalry is strong, but must still make way for seahorses.

Tasmania is actually quite different from everywhere else though. I think I would say it is more English than Australian. I don't know if I can say that, because I have never been to England, but it just seems less Oz.

We were staying a stone's throw away from Seven Mile Beach, a beautiful place where you might see whales and dolphins and platypus, although we did not. We did hear something rustling in the bushes one night, which might have been a wombat, but I don't know.

There were a lot of vacation homes in our area, as you have the beach with biking, fishing, and horseback riding, but there are regular residents too. Students do tend to wear uniforms, and they ride the public buses to school. Teenage girls still seem to get in pairs and shun one, and boys roughhouse, so I guess sharing the bus with commuters and tourists doesn't spoil their fun.

Once again it was a Worldmark resort, so we were fairly removed from things. Our first day we tried walking to the store, but it turned out to be more like two miles away than two blocks (or a block is a mile) and it started to pour before we had gotten very far. The houses actually had nice big golfing umbrellas in the closets, but we had not noticed. I guess it was funny. So many times the previous week I had been tempted to just dump my coat, and now I found myself wearing it and the gloves. We did make it to the store, but in the end we were there for four nights and we had Domino's deliver to us for three of them. The other night we actually stayed in Port Arthur, and dinner was part of the package.

I will be going over the different areas in other posts, but here is the itinerary. We arrived on a Monday, got wet trying to get to the store, so ended up watching television and ordering Domino's.

The next day we had one tour take us over to Port Arthur. They are normally a day tour, but we wanted to do the Ghost Tour at Port Arthur, so we booked a package with that and overnight accommodations (that included dinner, so no Domino's), and hooked back up with our other group on Wednesday.

That tour involved a boat tour around Eaglehawk Neck, and then we got to go to Maingon Bay, eventually landing back in Seven Mile Beach. Our tour driver courteously let us off at our resort instead of taking us into Hobart. We had taken the bus there the previous day.

Thursday we bussed back into Hobart for a tour that started with the Derwent Cadbury World, took us for a lunchtime harbor cruise, then headed over to Bonorong Wildlife Park, finishing up in the historic town of Richmond.

Friday we left the resort at 4:00 AM because our flight was at 6, but the airport was small we really could have put it off. In fact, security was not even open when we got there. From there we took off to Adelaide.

It is a beautiful island, with nice, friendly people who don't seem at all lawless. There are fences, but this seems to be to keep domestic animals in, and the devils are about cat size. They have enormously strong jaws like a pit bull, but that's about it. We really need to make it to Launceston though.

http://www.platypushouse.com.au/
http://www.seahorseworld.com.au/