aggienaut | Entries tagged with my parents

Previous days of this trip in grey, you can see we've pretty thoroughly crisscrossed Gippsland!

Sunday morning we woke up to a pleasant sunny morning in our bnb in Golden Beach. First order of business was going down to the beach itself, just over the natural sand berm that is right along the coast for the whole coast in this area. On the beach side the beach stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. Golden Beach is near the southern end of "90 mile beach," the extensive straight line of beach thats on the giant sand bar separating the "Gippsland Lakes" from the sea. First order of business was what you may have gathered is one of dad's favorite things: he went for a swim in the ocean.

   We then drove about five minutes down the beach to the site of a shipwreck in 1878. The steel ribs of this ship still protrude from the sand like the giant ribcage of some enormous beast (named Traralgon??). We walked along the beach here and collected some very fine shells.

   From thence we drove down the coast to the town of Seaspray and then headed inland to where my good friend Billie and her boyfriend live (Willung on the above map). It was kind of in the middle of rural Gippsland and our route there was along minor roads with lots of turns. I kind of like having an excuse to get way off the beaten track. We just barely caught Billie's boyfriend (Justin) as he was just leaving as we arrived. Then we had lunch with Billie (with primarily the sandwich fixings we'd brought). Her left arm was in a sling because she had smashed her finger in an accident at work on Wednesday or Thursday. She had sent me a picture of the x-ray, it looked like the end of one of her fingers was literally smashed. Something about someone commencing to move a truck when she hadn't finished securing the load in back or something. She works with her boyfriend on a team that welds together giant pipes for pipelines.
   After lunch Billie gave us a tour around the 500 acre farm in her 4x4. That was fun, as I knew it would be, because she knows nearly all the plants, which my mom always likes to know about, and had many stories about animals she'd seen here or there. When it came to the cows she lovingly recounted stories about at least a dozen of them (as mom would later say, "when she offered to show us the cows I didn't realize that they were basically her children").
   Previously I think my parents had only met Billie once very briefly in like 2016 or 2017, and due to their mutual interest in plants and both being awesome I always knew she and my mom would get along really well, so I was happy to finally get them together.

   I had been trying to make plans with Billie's twin sister Lek as well, both because Lek also lives near a cool place for a walk ("the Channels") and I kinda want to sohw off her rad house (a shed which she's insulated and made nice and replaced one whole wall with glass looking out to a magnificent view), and Lek herself is of course also rad. We'd tried making plans when we passed through this area Thursday but then they fell through, and the plan even this morning was to meet with Lek and Billie and Lek's place but the plans keep changing and Billie didn't feel up to leaving her property and now by the time we finished seeing the property and hanging out with her it was almost 15:00 and there wasn't really time to see Lek. Lek was understanding though. And then we headed off.

   It was only while we were on route west that we decided to take the ferry this time instead of going back through the city. I double checked that we could catch it in time -- we could at this point arrive at 18:21, in time for the last ferry of the day (at 19:00). I booked a ticket for the ferry online lest we arrive and be unable to get on. Now we were committed!
   Buying a ticket proved very unnecessary as the ferry seemed to be at less than a quarter capacity, maybe more like 15%. It was a lovely sunny and warm evening and we spent the trip up on deck in the fresh air, it was very pleasant.

   On the other side in Queenscliff we got fish and chips at a fish-and-chips-shop that advertised itself as having won best such shop in Australia several different years. We also ordered an "asian slaw" salad in lieu of chips, but they had no forks of any kind to provide so we just had to take it home. When I tried to eat it the next day I found it very bland until I added hoisin sauce and lime juice.

   Anyway, then we continued on our way home. My housemate Trent had asked multiple times what time we expected to get home, I suspect so we wouldn't catch him in flagrante delicto with his new girlfriend (who is 19 while he's 28 or 29, not that I'm judging), but because I'm a jerk I was pointedly vague about when we'd arrive. If he'd been bold enough to state specifically why he wanted to know I'd have given him a straighter answer but he had asked "when will you be back? Just so I can get the car out of the driveway" so I'd written back "On our way. If it makes you anxious you can just move the car now if you're not going out again." Be needlessly devious about your motives, get a needlessly devious response.

   Anyway we arrived home without incident and without walking in on anything scandalous. The end!

view from the car deck as we were leaving the dock

(view on google maps)

   Saturday (this past, the 18th), we awoke in Marlo for the penultimate day of our expedition to the far eastern end of Victoria. After probably eating a simple breakfast in our nice little hotel room, we checked out and went down to the shore of the Snowy River, where people had been so frolicksom the night before. It was perhaps cooler now than then but still a comfortable temperature, and dad wanted to go swimming. Mom and I suggested swimming across but he prudently pointed out every now and then a motorboat hoons down the river probably not looking out for swimmers, and the current in the middle is an unknown factor. So he swap upstream for awhile and then came back. While he did so I explored a nearby nature path along the bank, through literal littoral rainforest and vine thickets (I was sorely tempted to just substitute literal for littoral there but people probably would have assumed I just made a dumb mistake). As usual dad declared the swim to be great.

   Then we commenced on our way. The first bit of the journey was parallel to the Snowy River, which was separated from the sea by a big brush covered sandbar for awhile. Then the road turned north and meandered through stately tall trees.

   Once we rejoined the A1 Princes Highway (again I note this is the very highway that goes past my home, if we hadn't taken all these sidequests to see other things we could have done this whole journey on just this one road) and headed east on it, the road mainly took broad swoops through forested mountainous terrain. The trees were huge. This area had badly burned in the beginning of 2020 (remember when we thought the year was starting out badly with half of Victoria on fire and some other natural disasters and that was even before Covid showed up). We also noticed after awhile a suspicious... lack of roadkill. Obviously it's sad to see roadkill, but to see a complete absence in an environment that should have plenty (high speed two lane highway through thick forest) is ominous. It makes us think the animal population of the area has not yet come close to recovering.
   Finally we got off the Princes highway, which continues from the eastern end of Victoria north all the way to Sydney (and if one were to follow it west from my house it takes an equally circuitous route to Adelaide at its other end). About twenty minutes on the smaller road to Mallacoota and... we were there! (about two hours after leaving Marlo)

   "Some believe that the name came from 'malagoutha' a local Ganay Aboriginal term of uncertain meaning." (google result from "what does Mallacoota mean" ?) but there's an interesting either potential explanation or remarkable coincidence -- Mallacoota, generally regarded as a little paradise by many, means, my Iraqi coworker informs me, "paradise" in Arabic. Could be someone who named it knew some Arabic (and hey, isn't Walhalla, where we were earlier, also a sort of paradise in a non-Australian language). Honestly in balance I think it's probably a coincidence but it's still interesting to note.
   Anyway, we discovered Mallacoota to consist of a small core of a town of houses and cafes surrounded by an extensive caravan park surrounding it on three sides and totalling 60-75% of the land area of the "town," and surrounding this a picturesque bay with many little boats moored up, a maze of reedy islands beyond. We were feeling a bit hurried because we still had a four hour drive to where we'd be staying the night. I perhaps had had a bit of "target fixation" getting us here but hey we made it. It was now around 14:00 and we figured we needed to be on the road again by 16:00.
   We looked at the cafes but none of them that were open actually appealed to us greatly. We were keen on the bakery but it turned out to be closed. Mom was suggesting we just have cheese sandwiches again but I was at the end of my rope with gosh darn cheese sandwiches. So we went to get food at what appeared to be the most popular place, a chinese restaurant. While there we observed the clientel was positively geriatric. They hobbled about feebly, barely navigating the step at the front door. We got our bowls of stir fry and took them to a picnic beach by the bay (about from where the above picture was taken), and found the food to be thoroughly thoroughly bland. I reflected back on the clientel and mused that their customer base probably likes it that way.
   Then we went on one of the shorter walks I had identified in the area. We were feeling really pressed for time but I felt like if we didn't go on a walk it would feel to much like we just came here and turned around. The walk was nice though, we heard many bird calls we hadn't heard before and at one point two smallish kangaroos (but bigger than wallabies) bounded across the trail just in front of us. There wasn't actually that much evidence that this area had burned, if it had, but there were a few blackened stumps. The big trees here seem to have survived and the smaller shrubbery thoroughly grown back.

   Then we drove to the bay entrance, where the above picture was taken, and then it was time to get back on the road! This was a four hour drive back across land we'd just covered, but it was all beautiful and interesting so at least as a passenger I didn't mind it. I'd offered to do some of the driving but dad seems content to do all the driving himself, and other than commenting that it was a lot of driving he didn't really complain. We passed a few random signs for walking tracks I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't seen the signs there, and if we were in less of a hurry it might have been nice to check at least one of them out. So for future note they are the "MacKenzie River Rainforest Walk" and "Cabbage Tree Walk"

   As is traditional for family road trips, we had some idle musingful conversations, like the subject of words that are almost the same but not, and whats the difference between them? Like I maintain there's subtle differences between "squish" and "squash," "floofy" and "fluffy" and "puttering" vs "pottering" about. I won't get into all of these (maybe a subject for their own entry?), but as to the last one, I think they both imply kind of doing various little tasks around the house, but while one might be accomplishing things while pottering about, one isn't really accomplishing anything while puttering about. And a special mention and this might literally be just a me thing, but I feel "hover" (hah-ver) and "hover" (huv-er) have subtly different meanings. Helicopters "huver," bumblebees "hahver."

   Anyway the purple line in the map at hte top of this entry is the new area covered headed out West on return from Mallacoota. It was mostly forested hills and low intensity pasture land until bairnsdale (which dad mispronounced as Brains-dale and I'll never be able to say correctly again!), and more thoroughly agricultural land west of there. We arrive in the town of Sale to get groceries and were rather shocked by how empty the town was. Traralgon (pop 26,000) on a Thursday evening had been really happening, Sale (pop 16,000) on a Saturday evening around the same time was like a ghost town. Also like a god damn labyrinth, major roads seeming to dead end. We wanted to go to Coles because we're more familiar with it, but literally couldn't find a way to get to the front entrance of the store and settled instead for a Woolworths we stumbled upon.
   Then we went to get KFC for dinner since we just wanted something quick. Here we had perhaps an error of differing national standards -- I never eat at KFC so I don't know the sizes of things, but my parents felt one piece of chicken for each of them would be sufficient and two for me. We asked for two breasts and two thighs but the bemulleted adolescent who took our order apparently interpreted that as two drum sticks and two breasts for some reason. And when my parents saw the small size of the portions they had gotten themselves they were very sad (I offered one of my two pieces, even though that was also insufficient for my appetite, but they declined). But that comes later because we took the food to the airbnb to eat there.

   From the town of Sale we continued on to our airbnb down on Golden Beach, arriving there just after the sun had set. This bnb, when we had looked at hte listing, had said "sheets aren't included but can be provided for a small fee." We thought that was really odd, who travels with their own bedsheets?? But whats a small fee, $5? $10? So we booked it and sent the host an inquiry about sheets. He had responded with "no worries" and a phraseology which lead my dad to think the host understood we'd need sheets and was agreeing to provide them.. and the fact that the "small fee" was $60 a bed (!!!!!!) WTF! We could probably buy our own sheets for that much! We actually considered doing so. But despite a lot of grumbling we were committed.
   Anyway, arriving at the place we found... NO SHEETS! And also no running water. And the host somehow had 4.83 star average and "super host" status. WTF. We sent him messages politely expressing our alarm and soon he was on the phone -- he hadn't thought we'd actually requested the sheets. He seemed reluctant to admit there were sheets on hand but eventually said they were in the locked garage and if we had a screwdriver we might be able to remove the lock deadbolt ... but that turned out to be removable simply by hand.
   As to the water, the host said tehre'd probably been a power outage earlier in the day and the pump needed to be turned back on. Which required dad to open a hatch on the side of the house and crawl ten feet in the (utter darkness at this point, with flashlight), under the house to figure out the right buttons to push to turn on the pump.
   And it's AFTER all this shenanigans, that we FINALLY sat down to enjoy our dinner, at which point we found ourselves looking at these meagre meagre portions. Fortunately we still had some leftover bland bland chinese food (it was so bland even now we didn't finish it and tossed the rest) and some other leftovers.
   OTHER than all these problems the house was nice, and right on the beach (though the ocean wasn't visible due to the sand ridge running parallel to the beach). Dad did go look at hte ocean and report back to us, mom and I just appreciated the sound of waves crashing from the house. Also mom saw a possum on the fence, which, since it froze when she shined the light on it (playing possum, as it were), we were able to approach closely and have a good look at. This one had a naked tail, I think it was a ring tail possum -- the only other possum here I've had a good look at was "Sancho" in my garage, who had a floofy tail and is, I believe, a brushy tailed possum.

I still think these things are uglier than American opossums

   And then we put the sheets on the beds and went to bed. The end (until tomorrow).

   I still don't know if the host did indeed charge us the $60 or waived it in a desperate attempt not to get the less than stellar review he was clearly headed for. And for that matter I'll have to check with mom if dad did indeed give him less than five stars -- dad can be tooo nice sometimes, and I think while I could have actually forgiven the lack of water as an unforseen circumstance if the host seemed like he'd done everytihng reasonable to ensure a good stay, calling $60 a "small fee" loses my assumption of good faith.

   Legends of the Gunai People tell of a fearsome monster, like a giant man made of stone. Boomerangs and spears merely bounced off of him, and he'd prowl around at night and drag unwary travelers or children who wandered off away to its den to devour them. It sounds fearsome, though the only representation of the manxome foe google image search brings up is this decidedly dorky 1980s-eque monster.

   Meanwhile, this past Friday (the 17th), my parents and I woke up in a surprisingly decent motel in the town of Traralgon, and decided to head out for the den of the Nargun!

   Our route east took us first on the Princes Highway (which I note here is no longer the M1 but A1), which incidentally is the same highway that passes just close enough (but not too close) to my own village much further west. Then we headed onto smaller country roads and headed up north. As you can see on the map above there's a broad plain in this area that is I think one can say the heartland of Eastern Gippsland. I'm not sure I would have known how to get around this area without the ever trusty GPS but most of the small towns we passed through and other landmarks I recognized as having previously been to with my good friend Billie. She's from the town of Maffra you can see in the middle of the area in the above map.

   At the Den of Nargun, one is driving on a country road amid private paddocks and then quite suddenly one enters state forest and comes to a parking area with picnic benches. There was only one other car there. It was already rather warm (80?) and still only early in the day. There's informational signs mentioning the traditional beliefs about the Nargun. Among the Gunai People, we learn, the Den of Nargun was a sacred place and only women could go there, and, according to the sign, to this day men of Gunai descent respect that tradition and don't visit the site. That made me feel mildly guilty but if they really objected I suppose they'd have had the site closed down, as has happened with some other sacred sites (notably the famous ~~Ayers Rock~~ Uluru). Though their wishes aren't always exactly perfectly respected. Anyway here we were.

   From the picnic area one proceeds down a trail which very shortly is making a very steep descent into a narrow canyon. Down at the base one suddenly finds oneself amid a shady forest in which everything seems to be covered in moss or ferns (picture from previous visit). This is a relatively unique ecological refuge of relict plant biology from Gondwanaland the ancient south-hemisphere supercontinent. While down there we encountered the one other visitor, a bearded man by himself who was friendly, he was just about to start heading back up the canyon side when we came down.

   It's only a short walk up the valley to where the Den is. As we were walking I heard noises across the creek on the far side of the narrow canyon and spotted what looked like a large goanna (monitor lizard), I'd say it was at least three feet long. An informational sign said there were water dragons in the area so I suppose it was that. We saw (presumably the same lizard?) on the way back again as well.

   The Den of Nargun itself is a cave under a waterfall by a large pool. The waterfall was only barely flowing but the pond was as full as ever and cool and placid. I kicked off my flip flops and waded out into it, it was nice and refreshing.

Took this picture looking back towards my parents. Here's a picture from a previous visit looking from their location towards the waterfall.

   After enjoying the cool serenity of the Nargun Den Pool for a bit, we headed back out and up to the car. We though about eating as it was getting towards lunch time but decided to continue on to our next destination on the assumption it might be cooler there, as the day was already getting a bit warm.

   As we drove from there to our next destination, the Raymond Island ferry, we noted that now the outside temperature was getting up toward the mid 90s. Fortunately the AC in the car worked fine. "This is odd," dad pointed out looking at the weather app, "it says there will be thunder tonight but '0% chance of rain'."

   Arrived at the unfortunately named town of Paynesville and found there were picnic tables right on the shoreline. So we had our lunch there (cheese sandwiches as usual) and it was nice and not too hot. Walked to the ferry and realized I've been here too before, when I went boating with Billie and her friend the chancellor we boarded the boat here just beside where the ferry comes across.
   This is a small ferry that only holds about a dozen cars, and doesn't charge pedestrians or bicyclists. It goes back and forth across a (50 meter?) channel pulled by a chain (or mabye it pulls the chain? anyway its on a chain rather than using a propeller like a normal boat).

   So we ferried across to do the famous "koala walk" on Raymond Island. Walking around just among the several blocks nearest the ferry stop, even though there's as many houses as any old suburb, there's enough trees that it feels like a forest, and we saw maybe between 6-12 koalas sleeping in trees. For me the highlight though was actually an echidna we found snuffling along someone's front lawn. The creature, like a giant hedgehog with a cute proboscus-like nose, evidentally accustomed to tourists, hid its face for about a minute when we first approached and then got over it and jsut went about its business letting us get within feet of it taking picture. Neat.

   After this we took the ferry back to Paynesville, had ice cream, and proceeded on the two hour drive to our destination for this evening, an Airbnb in the town of Marlo (which I'd never heard of) on the coast two hours drive to the east, at the mouth of the Snowy River. After we'd passed the nearby town of Bairnsdale we were for the first time in new territory to me! I'd only been further east in Victoria briefly, when we went by boat to the town of Metung on the previously mentioned boating adventure, but soon we were past that town too!
   I definitely noticed that east of Lakes Entrance on the eastern side of the Gippsland Lakes (this giant lagoon), the populated part of Victoria seems to have ended. There's still a few towns out there but its not like Gippsland west of here with large swaths of farmland. It was beautiful country of forests and low intensity pasture land.

   Arrived at our bnb in the town of Marlo. This not a single residence like most Bnbs we've stayed in but a four unit "retreat" that was really nice. There was a pool and bbq area and almost uniquely for anywhere I've ever stayed I think, the other guests (families with kids) were very friendly and acted like we were all there together. It was a really nice place, would definitely recommend it for anyone headed that direction. The owners whom we met later were also really nice.

the pub as seen later when walking back past it after the sun had set

   Walked to the Marlo pub (called the Marlo Hotel of course). We'd called ahead to make a reservation even though it seemed like a small town, but the day before the first place we'd tried to go to, on a random Thursday in Traralgon was all reservationed up. Arriving at the Marlo pub and seeing all the cars parked out front I began to be nervous that there wouldn't be room (actually, writing this nearly a week later now, I remember being worried, but I thought I called in a reservation. Maybe I didn't? who knows). Anyway it was packed but it was a big place and I found us seats around a barrel by the rail on the edge of the back veranda, overlooking a lawn (with one random electric car charging station that was in use!), and beyond it the river, and forest covered hills on the far side.
   I held down this seat while my parents stood in line to order the food. I had identified a lamb tangine on the menu I thought looked really good and I think had re-stated my desire for that to my mom as she went to stand in line. Seeing a specials board I hadn't seen before I commented "oh they have a cubano sandwich" just as an observation. When my parents had ordered and joined me I learned dad had thought I had changed my mind and asked for a cubano sandwich. I actually don't terribly much like sandwiches in general and was getting a bit tired of the cheese sandwiches we were always having for lunch and had NOT intended to order a cubano sandwich so I was actually very disappointed by this but whats done is done so I did my best to act like it wasn't a big deal though I felt pretty disappointed. As luck would have it, when the sandwich came it was actually absolutely delicious. Altogether the pub seemed to have really good food and a really good atmosphere. Definitely recommend.

   As we were eating, we had a good view of where the sun was setting behind the hills across the river. Dark thunderheads were gathering in that direction and so the sunset was a beautiful combination of the golden glow of the sun breaking through and illuminating some clouds while around it the dark purple thunderheads loomed dramatically. As we finished our dinner there were smoe flickers of lightning over there, that ramped up to fairly constant flickers of lightning and soon many people were at the rail watching the show.
   After dinner it was a short walk across the lawn to some steps that lead down a short tree-covered slope to the road along the waterfront. It was still nice and warm, a lovely summer evening, and just down here where we now were on the waterfront (of the river) there was a narrow pier sticking out into the river and about half a dozen kids around 12ish were out there in their bathing suits enjoying jumping into the river. I reflected it was the kind of classic childhood moment they'll probably cherish in their memories forever (or perhaps one of many memories of doing so to be remembered in aggregate). The sun is setting around 8:30pm-ish around here these days and the sun was just setting. We watched the flickering horizon for awhile. Further down the river it looked like there were some adults out swimming or chilling in the water. As I said it was a warm summer evening.

   We walked back to our hotel. The other guests were still hanging out in the bbq area. Presently the lightning was all around us and we went out and watched for awhile as flashes lit up the sky all around us. Oddly there was hardly any sound of thunder, and only there merest smattering of rain.

Thursday-Sunday I was on another roadtrip adventure with my parents, this time to explore the east of this state (Victoria). I was even well on my way to contemporaneously posting updates, the first day having written up most of the day into an entry while in the car. But then at the end of the day when I went to finish it, livejournal prompted me to "restore from draft," which has never been a bad idea before. Even though I could see the top part of what I'd written on the screen behind the pop up window, if I clicked "no" maybe it would clear that. Anyway, it ended up restoring a previous already-posted entry and I compeltely lost everything I'd written. Back button didn't bring it back, it was all just gone. ): I absolutely hate re writing what I just wrote, so I was too demoralized to write it again, and then I couldn't update teh other days and have it out of order soo no field reports. But now I'm back home on my computer (and my parents are currently somewhere over the Pacific) and I'll have another hack at it.

(Day 1 travel)

   My across-the-street neighbor likes to go on vacation to a town called Mallacoota at the far eastern end of the state. Often while he's been giving me a haircut (which he does in exchange for honey), I've heard the virtues of this paradise extolled. By his account it is a wonderful place. Plus, it's the furthest East one can go in this state and I'm fond of crossing off goals such as visiting a places extremities. I've been to the Western border of the state. I've been as far south as one can drive in the state (it's an overnight hike to the furthest tip, which I'd absolutely lvoe to do but it's really really hard to get a booking for the campsite one must stay at to do so). The furthest north point I suspect is mainly hot and dry and boring but it's still on my list (though looking at a map I see that Mildura, to which I've been, is actually not far off, I suppose I can legitimately say in a general sense I've been to the north end of the state).
   But anyway, so I wanted to go to Mallacoota. My parents didn't seem sure we could make it in the short amount of time (four days) available, but we'd take it one day at a time and see how we went.

   So we set out around 9am bound for Walhalla in the mountains. It was my inclination to take the ferry across the bay as I usually do since I loathe driving in Melbourne. But dad pointed out that would take an hour longer. He's driving though so if he wants to drive through Melbourne... ::shrug::. As it happens, I usually avoid tollroads like the plague both on principal and because I don't know how to pay for them; and this causes me to have to slog through surface streets. The rental car had an account with the tollroads so we just stayed on the main highway, which becomes a tollroad and becomes a tunnel through the middle of the city before coming out and resuming being a normal highway. It was quick and painless!

   We decided to stop for a quick break in the town of Bunyip which was just off our route. When I was little we'd had a pet bunny named Bunyip, and as well mom has a friend who married a guy from this very town of Bunyip. The bunyip is a mythical Australian swamp monster. With a population of 3,000, this was a classic rural small town, with one grand old "hotel" (pub), brick, two stories, wraparound balcony on the second floor, classic style. It was hot (in the 80s?), we had some ice cream.

   From Bunyip to Walhalla was another hour and twenty minutes. First mostly along the flat lowlands until the town of Moe (an amusing name, pronounced "mo-ee" which makes it slightly less silly), and then we wound up into the mountains and forests of tall trees. While we were oohing and awing at the forest I reflected that the Otway Forest just beside my house is at least as nice but because it's practically in my back yard I tend to take it for granted and not ooh and aah at it as much as I perhaps would if I had to drive four hours to get to it.

   Walhalla is a cute little former mining town in the mountains. The classic gold rush era houses (restored and/or reconstructions in this case) sit in a very very narrow valley. There's a narrow gauge railway that runs a bit of a way through the valley which I was hoping we could ride but I didn't realize it's only currently operating Sat, Sun and Wednesday. The website listed the times it ran but hadn't indicated the limited number of days as far as I could find, so that was a disappointment. There's also a mine tour, which I was only mildly interested in, until I read about how a big machinery chamber had been hollowed out deep in the mountain and then I kind of wanted to see if, but if the tours had been available this day the last tour time was passed anyway.

   We lunch (cheese sandwiches w pickles) at a picnic table and then went walking along a scenic trail along the canyon wall. There were signs indicating the direction for "the amazing raCe." I was/am very curious if this was THE Amazing Race (the TV show) or just a local event that used the same name, if anyone happens to know if The Amazing Race has recently been through there? Along the trail there was various abandoned mine machinery, and several blocked off entrances to former mines. We also saw some interesting butterflies we later identified as wood whites, black cockatoos, a kookaburra, and a snake on the trail! The snake is believed to have been a copperhead (not the American copper head, but venomous itself). We encouraged it off the trail by tapping the ground near it with a stick and then edged past it.

   From there we proceeded back to the bridges across the Thompson river (the modern road bridge beside the old rail bridge), where a school group seemed to be endinga kayak trip.

From there we headed back out of the mountains down to Traralgon. Traralgon is a larger town of 27,000. The origin of the name is officially unclear, but I think it sounds like the name of a dragon (the town of Yarragon which we passed through earlier, I posit is also a dragon, Traralgon's younger brother. It is unclear how dragons and bunyips get along). We decided to change it up here for dinner and get Thai (my parents are starting to catch on I think, that all Australian restaurants of "Australian cuisine" have the same six items on the menu and you eventually need to go to an ethnic restaurant for more variety). We were suspicious that no Thai persons seemed to be in evidence, the staff just being your typical bemulleted rural Australians, but the food was surprisingly good -- though my "Thai iced tea" had no cream in it, it was just an iced tea.

We had just booked a motel here and I wasn't expecting much, being as from my experience Australian hotels are often at least one star less than they advertise themselves to be, but this one was actually surprisingly nice. I was expecting just a cheap motel but it was cozy and nicely appointed, with complementary little cookies and jams and things in the room. So if you're ever in Traralgon I recommend you stay at the Garden View Motel (no garden actually in evidence though).

Also Traralgon was a remarkably happening place on a Thursday night. Maybe because it was a pleasant warm summer evening, the outdoor dining areas of many restaurants were packed, many pedestrians strolling the downtown area, and a long line snaked out the door of an ice cream place.

And that was day one! From here it would only be four hours to Mallacoota BUT there didn't appear to be any lodging with vacancies there! Would we make it??

Friday we got off the ferry around 6:00am. Because the ferry only recently began arriving at geelong instead of Melbourne i don't think the Cafe ecosystem has adjusted yet, whereas there's several cafes advertising their open status when you get off the early morning ferry in Tassie there was no such thing in G Town. Fortunately there's a 24 hour diner i know of so we went there (doesn't have the iconic American diner charm though. Is just like a barely passable Australian cafe. I think five years ago they served me nescafe (note to Aussies: this is essentially an insult to Americans) but now they at least have an espresso machine). Then we still had a fair bit of time before the rental car place opened (recall, because my parents rental car wasn't allowed to go to Tassie they returned it, borrowed a friend's car, and now we needed another rental car)

Drove home in two cars. Despite being by now 10am there was very thick fog on the way home and it was quite rather cold. Got home and had lunch and then sky cleared and it became warm and sunny. Welcome to Victoria!

Then i drove to work because el bossman can't go to the bees while I'm not there and i knew he'd be itching to do so. So while many have questioned why I'd return to work for just literally the last three hours of the work week it seemed to me worth doing and i think he appreciated it.

Saturday afternoon was the local beekeeping group meeting. Our format has morphed around a fair bit in the last year or two but our latest thing which i think has been very successful is we meet at a members house on a Saturday afternoon, look at some hives and then have a bbq. I had always intended to avoid the club being a "one expert beekeeper lecturing everyone else" kind of event but both this and the previous meeting, the two that have been this format, was pretty much i get handed a hive tool and everyone watches what i do and i narrate. But whatever they want hey. But next time will be a Sunday specifically so my boss can come and then he can be the one wielding the hive tool.

The bbq portion is at least as much fun. It brings together a group of people with common interests in hobby farming and serious gardening in general and new members and old alike always get along swimmingly. I think my parents enjoyed meeting everyone very much as well.

After that my parents and i went on a nearby rail trail hike and found an enormous sausage sized caterpillar:

I think we've identified it as a helena gum moth caterpillar.

And we saw a wallaby

Sunday (today) we poked around the local market here in my village. Which conveniently takes place about 100 meters from my front door. Mom commented on the number of people selling knit goods. There was a dog jumping competition at noon but it appeared to be starting late and we had to go before it started.

In the afternoon we drove to the town of Camperdown about an hour west of here. A quantify it as "a cute country town" ... a contrast and rebuke to the nearer town of Colac which i think is generally agreed to be a country town that isn't cute. In Camperdoozel my friend, fellow beekeeper (and editor of the Australian Bee Journal) and retired botany professor showed us around the local botanical garden (mom's really into plants) and then we went back to her place for "afternoon tea." Which when she had first proposed it i had had to admit my ignorance of the subtle nuances of Australian tea related phraseology -- "tea" is sometimes a whole meal, what is "afternoon tea?" She had a laugh, admitted it can be confusing, and clarified that it's "literal tea and bikkies." Anyway we ended up chatting for quite awhile. She has a great view from her dining room down into a volcanic crater and there were about 15 kangaroos slowly bouncing around down there.

And now we've come home and mom is making "curry goo" which smells delicious!

Tomorrow i go to work but we're plotting a Thursday to Sunday expedition to the far east end of the state.

Parents leave in nine days (Tuesday the following week, the 21st), my how time flies!

Thursday we checked out of our airbnb in Flowerpot, Tas. The owners live in a house on the property but we never did see them, guess they were busy these past three days.

We proceeded about an hour up to, through and past Hobart town, over the bridge over the Derwent (which we've learned had a horrifying incident in the 70s when a ship collided with its supports, a section fell down sinking the ship, and several cars flew off the gap.) to the town of Richmond which was another cute town of Victorian looking little storefronts. This one looked very well maintained and flourishing (as opposed to the cute Victorian houses of Bothwell which were all kind of in a state of decay). Our destination here was the "Poo-seum"

I wasn't actually sure i was looking forward to this. Poop.. doesn't appeal to me, shall we say. But mom is a science teacher (mostly but not entirely retired) and she was very intrigued. So the museum is basically dedicated to animal poop. There were examples of the poop of many different animals, carefully preserved in a manner that kept it looking just as you might find it on a trail. Along with lots and lots of information. It was actually rather interesting. Though i remain grossed out that gorillas eat their own poop (because it's only like 20% digested each time it goes through) 🤮

There was also apparently a maze in this town as well as a 1:16 scale model of early Hobart, but we had a ferry to catch in the evening so we didn't have time for all that. But we did have a delicious meal in one of the cafes in town

From there we drove up to the ferry terminal in north Tasmania, three hours across the country, and we once again boarded and took the overnight ferry back to the mainland.

There's lots of places still to visit in the world but I'm sure I'll be back in Tassie with Cristina if nothing else. In the South i wanted to visit the Hartz Mountains near where we were but didn't end up fitting it in. I'd actually really like to go on the big multi day hike through there southwest wilderness. I hope Cristina likes hiking. Also I want to get back to the MONA museum while not pressed for time. And then there's the whole East Coast of Tassie i haven't seen yet, which i think is often the first place people go so presumably there's stuff to see there.

Wednesday morning we drove about fifteen minutes to the Bruny Island Ferry, which departs every twenty minutes so we didn't have long to wait. Presently it arrived and disgorged an implausible number of vehicles. Around 11:30 we began our crossing of the channel, which only took about fifteen minutes.

First we drove to the northern tip of the island. The northern (and presumably southern) lobes are big enough that while in inland valleys you can't even tell you're on an island. Land use was mostly pasture or eucalypt woodland. There was a little township at the north end but we couldn't find the heritage trail indicated on the map. Proceeded south.

Next stop was a cheese and beer place. They had a very nice outdoor set up with a pleasant atmosphere and it seemed popular. We got a cheese platter and a milk stout (dark beer). The cheese platter had some cooked wallaby on it too.

From there we proceeded a short distance to Bruny Island Honey. Obviously it's not novel to me to see a honey/bee place but I was interested in their presentation and such. And it was really good! Much better presentation than we have at Edmonds Honey. If bossman ever shows interest in substantially redecorating these pictures will be good reference. Also they had some tasty honey-vanilla ice cream.

Next we were headed down the isthmus, which as you can see on the top map is very thin. It does however have a solid hillock right down its middle. About halfway down there was a boardwalk with steps to the top. There are penguin burrows all over the central sandy hillock but we didn't see any penguins, i think it's not the nesting season (and even when it is your primarily see them just after sunset)

At the southern end of the isthmus there was supposed to be a trailhead but we couldn't find it either.

Just at the top end of the southern lobe we went into a chocolateria, selling us chocolate should have been the easiest thing but their presentation was as bad as the honey place was good. Just a shed w self serve chocolates along one wall. I'd kind of expected fancy hot chocolates and all kinds of tempting goodies. We left there without getting anything.

Proceeding down the east side of the southern lobe we came to Adventure Bay. The bay is named after the HMS Adventure which was part of Captain Cook's famous expedition, and had become lost, wandering into the bay alone. Captain Bligh anchored here for reprovisioning in the HMS Bounty a few years later on his own famous journey.

And then we flew past a "Bligh Museum" it was little and came up suddenly. I really wanted to go in but there wasn't a convenient turn around :(

And then there was a tallship! We were able to pull over so i could get a good shot. I think this was the Lady Nelson which we'd seen at the wharf in Hobart.

Finally at the end of this road we found a trailhead. And saw our first live wallaby! By a wallaby cut out!

I would have liked to hike longer but by now we were feeling strained for time -- if we missed the ferry off the island we'd be stuck! So we just went half an hour out and came back. It was a nice well maintained trail ("grass point trail") through forest woodland just beside the coast. According to informational signs here too there were a bunch of whalers huts from whence they'd dart out and nab hapless passing whales.

From there we proceeded straight to the ferry. They don't check tickets getting back on the ferry since they only sell round trip and obviously you got one to get here. Ferry 17:45-18:00

Ate at a pub in the nearby town of Snug that looked like it couldn't decide if it was a nice tourist spot or a grungy local pub. The tables were nice and if you just faced the tables and windows from the bar maybe you'd think it was the former, but the bar itself looked like it belonged to a grungy backwater and though the food was good they didn't have any local Tassie beers or ciders on tap, just the same tastes-of-bootleather mass produced macro lagers you could probably find in the mines in the NT.

And then we returned to our cabin and lit a fire in the stove, the end (until next day update). In the meantime we just boarded the ferry back to the mainland (:

Current Music: Kilkenny Krew - Sloop John B

After leaving Hobart on Monday we headed southwest about 45 minutes to our next airbnb, a little cabin in a place on the coast named Flowerpot.

dot on our final destination of Cockle Creek, not Flowerpot

dot on our final destination of Cockle Creek, not Flowerpot

Tuesday we headed south about two hours to the end of the road. This entire drive, including the Monday portion to Flowerpot, is through absolutely beautiful countryside. The road mostly follows the coast, though occasionally cutting across peninsulas. The coast itself is extremely squiggly here and dramatically hilly, and across the water (with cute sailboats upon it) there's inevitably either more squiggles of the same coast or islands. The countryside is bucolic, cute small towns, orchards, artisinal this and that shops, interspersed with eucalypt woodland. Until we got to the very southern end of the road and then it was mostly impenetrably thick forest on either side.

Now this road doesn't go to the southernmost point of Tasmania, it would take days of hiking to get there. In fact if you look at a map of Tasmania about a quarter of the island in the southwest is entirely undeveloped, no roads or anything. I'd love to someday go on a multi day hike through there.

By and by we arrived at the end of the road at Cockle Creek. It seems like as far as you can go from anywhere now but apparently was once a whaling station with 2,000 people. There's a cute whale statue. Cute until you realize the disturbing fact that they used to slaughter whale calves like the one in the sculpture.

We went for a walk a few miles along the coast (an hour out, hour back), the beach sand was fine and white, the water clear and turquoise blue. The shore being lined with thick forest up to the edge it looked live a Caribbean paradise if you didn't know it was quite chilly and ignored that there were no palm trees. Across the water was dramatic silhouettes of mountains to the north and northwest, faint rows of islands to the northeast, and where we came around and could see out to sea to the southeast one could see huge distant breakers crashing on a reef -- i think it's thousands of miles across the Great Southern Ocean from here before there's any land.

Because he's a maniac dad had to go for a swim. If you look closely you can see him splashing along in the above picture. When he came out he declared it felt like 62f, just like back home in California!

You can see the difference between previous picture and this one, at clouds blew over it was constantly changing from sunny and brightly colored to cloud shadowed and cold. I was constantly taking my jacket on and off.

And then we drove back to our Flowerpot. It felt like we spent most of the day driving there and back but the views along the way recall cliche sayings about how it's all about those journey!

The more we travel the more we seem to come up with things to do "next time" -- there was a longer hike leaving from Cockle Creek I'd love to hit up "next time"

Current Music: Wellerman

My parents arrived Thursday the 26th. I hadn't seen them in three years.

Here's some but not all of the trove of books they brought. A lot of things aren't available on Amazon Australia so i have them shipped to their place in California.

The first Saturday (the 28th) i had some honey to deliver on the Great Ocean Road and it's a delightful drive. We went on a short hike to Sheoak Falls (pictured above) and Swallow Cave Falls. I record this particularly to keep track which waterfalls we have or have not been to.

The next day we drove down the lovely Gillibrand Valley to Triplet Falls. I'd been there before (with two of three triplets!), in my first week or two here actually. I had wanted to drag my parents along to Little Airey Falls which leaves from the same trailhead and i don't think I've been to but we were short on time so we opted for the shorter (an hour?) hike, but didn't regret it as I'd forgotten how lovely it was.

I continued working as usual during the day Monday-Wednesday. Wednesday morning my parents stopped by my work to see the honey business as well as my boss' extremely impressive cacti garden pictured above

I've of course been enjoying mom's cooking. Pictured above what we call a "monster," possibly also known as a "Dutch baby?" Mom tells me i can describe it as "a giant popover."

Also my favorite dish "firecracker pork fusilli," which the picture doesn't do justice for so i won't post but is delicious.

On Thursday we boarded the ferry for Tasmania. We're here now but I'll make that a separate post as i need to wrap this up so we can scurry down to the famous Salamanca Market.

   My dear parents arrived here on Friday!

A Yarn
Yesterday, Saturday February 15th - We didn't really have a plan other than to go to the historic sheep station just outside of Birregurra in the morning for coffee and a scone, and it turned into a day long adventure (a good one) though we never got our scone.

   "Sheep stations" massive tens-of-thousands-of-acres sheep operations, are an important piece of Australian history, and apparently this one right here, Tarndwarncoort was actually the first one! Founded in 1840, they pioneered the polwarth sheep breed adapted to the local climate. Once 15,000 acres, the core of the operation has been whittled away down to 60, though many of the adjoining properties are also still in the hands of descendants of the original Dennis family. A beautiful grand old bluestone house still sits on this core lot as well as some historic outbuildings. (I didn't get any good pictures really but if you click the link earlier in the paragraph you can see some)

   I had been fortunate that in about my first week in Birregurra town I was invited to a party at "Tarndie." Someone on whose land I have hives had invited me. The party was to celebrate the launch of the refurbished "cider house" as an accomodation. At that time I was introduced to the very nice family who own and run the place, the same family who has lived there for [???] generations since the founding in 1840.

   So on Saturday we popped in there. We found Tom Dennis, 40ish, entertaining some guests who appeared to be eating carrot cake and coffee, on a the table under the leafy veranda of the wool shop.
   "My parents are here from California!" I announced to him
   "Oh these people are from San Diego!" he said.
   Too funny. It turned out to be a woman originally from Chile, her mid-20sish daughter, and the daughter's Australian boyfriend whom she had met while backpacking in Guatamala.
   We went on a little walkabout around the grounds and then were perusing the wool store -- they sell yarn from their own sheep in their little shop, hand dyed locally with natural dyes -- when Tom mentioned the other group was about to go on a tour of a woollen mill, which was just under an hour away and the tour was beginning in an hour! So mom purchased some wool and we dashed out the door without pausing for the planned for coffee-and-scones!

   So we went driving out west through and beyond Colac town, through the rugged "Volcanic rises" area.. out just past the town of Cobden where I was fighting a fire two years ago or so.. and sped past the woollenmill and had to make a turn and come back because it was so small and easy to miss. Basically just a big shed by a house. One car in the parking lot which was of course our friends the Chilean-Australians.
   The Great Ocean Road Woollen Mill is run by this shortish guy and his possibly-European wife (accent.. dutchish?). They have machinery to turn alpaca or sheeps wool into yarn. The guy stressed that he's "not a greeny" but the mill is almost completely self sufficient, generating something like 85% of its electricity from solar and all of its water collected on site, and very little waste going out.
   But yeah so they can do alpaca from start to finish on site. Apparently sheep's wool is naturally greasier than alpaca and needs to be rinsed by people with more advanced and regulation-complaint filtration systems. He was saying that only costs "$5 per kilogram" for the washing "and yet people still send it off to china for cheaper rinsing! And that's probably because there's less environmental regulation there but it all washes down into the same ocean!" (I told you, I think he's definitely a greeny, which in my opinion is a good thing but I think it's kind of pejorative in Australian politics).
   Their machine can handle really small batches so they can do yarn entirely from one of their alpacas at a time. Even though I'm not exactly into knitting it was fun seeing the machines and hearing him explain all the steps involved in taking freshly shorn wool and cleaning it and spinning it into yarn. And mom is a bit into knitting, she had even worked at a yarn store (actually so did I briefly, putting the yarn up on ebay), so she was very interested and had some insightful questions to ask.
   The guy was definitely passionate about ethical production. If I understood him correctly it sounded like he had declined to do business with a customer because they were going to take his painstakingly-ethically-produced yarn and send it to India to be made into garments ("they said they wanted to give their business to the poor people in India but did they pay them Australian wages? no of course not. Hmmmmm!"

Quest for a Scone
   By this time it was around 3:30pm. We asked if there was anywhere good to eat and he suggested the Distillery in the nearby town of Timboon. We headed tehre (about ten minutes), but a sign on the door said they stopped serving food at 2:00. We looked around Timboon town and every eatery was dark and closed up. It looked like people were going into the pub but a sign by their door also said they stopped serving food at 2:00. Welcome to Australia, where you're out of luck if you want to eat between 2-5!

   I knew there was next to nothing between here and Colac on our way home, and really nothing very good in Colac either for that matter, and having not had anything to eat since breakfast I was kind of deliirously hungry. But Port Campbell on the coast was only ten minutes away and knowing it was a tourist hotspot I was sure it must have places open all hours. So we headed down there.
   It had been grey all day but here in Port Campbell it was _cold_ and windy. "This is summer!?" dad kept exclaiming. Now you feel my pain!
   We walked into a cute cafe by the beach but they were only serving tea and scones, the chef had already packed up too many things to make real food. We said we'd be back and went walking down the short main street. Long story short EVERYWHERE had stopped serving food at 2:00. Except a pizza place. None of us were really in the mood for pizza but being as it was the ONLY option we didn't have much choice. It was actually pretty busy, being the only place open and all.
   They only had the basic beers and being a bit of a beer snob I'd rather drink wine than that shit, but I was so delirious with hunger I ordered a souvignon blanc when I meant I souvignon gris. Yes just what I need on a freezing day to go with my pizza, a cold white wine.
   After this we walked back to the cafe to finally have our tea and scones .... only to find it was closed!!

Today, Sunday February 16th
   Today we decided to hike to another of the nearby waterfalls, Beauchamp Falls (locally pronounced as "Bocham Falls" I believe). This involved driving for an hour into the rainforest, where as usual I hummed the jurassic park theme music as we took the tightly winding road that weaves amongst towering ferns. I hadn't been to this waterfall in many years so I wasn't quite sure which one it was from my memory-bank of waterfalls but they're all nice. After driving to seemingly the middle of nowhere we came upon this nice parking lot with a very well maintained trail with a lot of people on it (where did they all come from??). Today the sun actually kept coming out which was nice, I'm not very accustomed to the sun actually shining while I walk in the forest here!
   Round trip hike was 2.4 miles, down on the way in and up on the way out. It was very nice, amongst big leafy ferns and towering "mountain ash" eucylypts. Among the many other people on the walh, of note were two young men doing the whole thing barefoot which I just thought was so Australian.

   On the return drive we stopped at one of the places I supply honey, the Otway NouriShed, to finally get our tea and scones. Well mom had this pastry calleed a "beesting" which was pretty delicious.

   In the afternoon I dragged my parents along to pub trivia at the Moriac Pub (which was quite a drive, forty minutes the OPPOSITE direction from my house from where we were, took us an hour twenty to get there from the trailhead). I was worried they'd die of boredom during the first two rounds, "entertainment" and "sports," where like me they didn't have a clue on a single answer. But as usual we caught up on the remaining rounds. My friend Mick and his girlfriend and mom were there so my parents got to meet them and experience an authentic hanging-out-at-an-Australian-pub experience. At dinner there, was good.

My parents and the waterfall. It doesn't look as big as it is here since you can't tell how far back it is

   And that's days 1 and 2!

Saturday, February 24th, 2018 - We awoke to the first rainy day of our whole week in Tasmania. People say "it's cold!" down in Tasmania and allege the weather is much worse, but from my brief experience, we had a solid week of lovely sunny days in Tasmania whereas at home in Victoria I don't think we've had more than three days of sunny weather in a row all year, and even three in a row has happened maybe once or twice. I asked friends back home if they were getting the same week of nice weather and they said they were not, so there you have it, weather in Tasmania is great, case closed!

   We'd spent the night at an airbnb in a rural area on the peninsula between Hobart and Port Arthur, in this case a woman was airbnbing out a self contained section of her house. She was very nice. Mom wanted to visit with the farm animals and chooks (chickens) said to be on the property but in the pouring rain it wasn't very appealing to go mucking about. Well for some of us. For my dad, there was one thing he wanted to do: go swim in the ocean!!
   Following directions from our kindly host, we proceeded to nearby Pipe Clay Lagoon, which as were driving up beside it appeared to at the time consist of mud flats and/or a centimeter of water with happy water birds walking around looking for tasty snacks. What was really kind of neat though was on the sand bar section between the lagoon and the sea, there was literally no road but one drove on the sand (on the lagoon side) and there were houses on the sand bar whose driveways just went into the sand. Our host had mentioned that at high tides the water is up to the bottom of the driveways. Guess one has to plan one's comings and goings!
   Because it was still raining, when we parked and walked to the sea-side there was no one at all on the beach there. Dad declared the water to be (62? 65f?), which is actually similar to the ocean water temperature in California, in which he swims alll the tiime. So he went in and soon he was just a distant splish splashing arm. While he did this mom and I strolled up the beach looking for keen shells. There was quite a large amount of nice shells on the beach. Also the boiler of a ship that ran aground there in the 20s or thirties I believe (there was an informational plaque but I don't actually recall the date).

   By and by dad returned, invigorated and happy. He had swam in the ocean at the southernmost point any of us has ever been (save for Port Arthur the day before which looks like it has a few kilometers southing on this place but hey thats quibbling)! Now he was feeling celebratory so we decided to look for a nice place for breakfast. We had noticed on the maps a canal that appeared to not quite cut through a narrow neck in the peninsula and decided to investigate!! While so doing we found a nice restaurant overlooking the canal and settled in for a rather fancy brunch (at first I mom and I were thinking it looked a bit fancier than our usual lunch budget, but like I said, dad was feeling very festive - "it's our last day in Tasmania!"). While there we learned the canal had been built (in the 20s? 30s? I'm just gonna go ahead and assume every date I can't remember falls in that area) after intense lobbying by local farmers who wanted to I guess shorten the shipping route to bring their products to market in Hobart by boat (though looking at the map it really doesn't look that far around). After building the canal at a fair expense it was only briefly operational before storms silted up the seaward end of it, and constantly dredging this build-up proved unfeasible. So today it's just a canal to nowhere, with the seaward end completely built-over.

   Our plan for this morning WAS to go to the famous Salamanca Market, which everyone was saying we needed to go to, but being as it was totally pouring we decided to maybe take a rain check on the market (I can picture tassie_gal throwing up her arms in utter consternation at us here ::hides::).

   Instead we decided to hit an animal sanctuary on our way back north. We headed north, off the peninsula, and skirted along the east side of the Derwent estuary, with Hobart town across the way (though a fair bit of it had overgrown onto this side as well). About half an hour north of the city we came to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, here, conveniently, the rain had stopped and the weather was once again rather pleasant. We caught a guided tour by an elderly guide who mom (and dad agreed I believe) swore was the spitting image of my dad's mom, whom I barely knew, so I tried to get a good look. Here I suppose I really ought to describe said guide but I'm not sure how. She was a bit wirey, with white hair that looked like it had once been red, irish features.
   The sanctuary had the obligatory hundred or more tame kangaroos one can feed, lounging around living the good life, but we steamed right past these boring dime a dozen animals to see the famous Tasmanian devils. It turns out, you know, they look nothing like the cartoon character at all. They look kind of like large (small dog sized) stocky rats. And apparently are prone to tumors which makes them, um, really a bit ugly most of the time. I couldn't really get a good picture of one, they're very restless and I kept getting pictures of their back or otherwise ruined pictures, this is the best I got. They're mainly scavangers and opportunist eaters of anything they can get their hands on, and I realized they share their belligerent temperament with a lot of other animals that also fill that niche such as hyenas, and jackals; I guess it comes with the territory. Some of the enclosures had a chew toy on a bungee as an "animal enrichment item" to simulate the tug of war over a piece of meat they might regularly get in with their compatriots in the wild.
   When my grandmother's lookalike moved on to the koalas we peeled away, admired the cute echidna a bit (sign there said that echidnas are actually very smart with an unusually large brain for their size), fed some kangaroos (look at this cute kangaroo family, and note the tail and leg of the joey hiding in his mother's pouch here), managed not to accidentally feed the kookaburra, and were all a bit mind-bizorgled to learn from the sign that one cockatoo they had was over a hundred years old!! I knew some parrots live a really long time, such as the alleged* parrot of Winston Churchill which is still alive at 119 years old, but now I'm looking around at the huge flock of cockatoos that live around my house and thinking jesus any of these could be a hundred years old!

* while fact checking this claim I was sadly disillusioned to learn that the Churchill estate firmly maintains he owned no such parrot.

   From here we headed right across the island to return to the ferry terminal at Devonport. The land through the middle was idyllic rolling farm land. I tried to pull up some Beatles songs on youtube since my memory of childhood roadtrips with my parents were always accompanied by Beatles music (my dad is a big fan). The Beatles estate must be good at keeping the music off the freetube though because all I could find were crummy live recordings.
   I think we all thought there'd be some kind of cafe or something available at the ferry terminal, but once we checked in at around six and were let in to the car corral, there was no cafe other than someone selling coffee out of the back of a not-even-van-sized vehicle, and a very utilitarian toilet block, and we couldn't leave the corral area! Since the boat wasn't leaving till (9?) we realized we probably shouldn't have checked in so early, needlessly condemning ourselves to a few hours incarceration in literally a parking lot on a nice Tasmanian afternoon.

   This time we had a "family cabin" to ourselves, which was basically the exact same four bunk room but no weirdo strangers. Trip back was quite uneventful. Both my parents got up at 5 to witness the crossing of "the rip" into Prince Phillip Bay but having caught it on the way out I was happy to keep sleeping. Rousted up at 7:15 for an 8ish arrival. Had breakfast in one of Melbourne's cute laneways. Earlier planning had played with the idea of seeing some of Melbourne while we were there but I think we all agreed we were ready to go home, and proceeded back to my place.
   But not without stopping at another wildlife sanctuary!! On the northern outskirts of Geelong there is the Serendip Sanctuary! Whereas the other one had been pay entry and swarming with staff, Serendip is nice and quiet -- it's well maintained but I've never seen any staff, and it's free entry. Billie used to live just near it and we went a few times, it's a nice peaceful place to stroll and look at the animals. We saw emu and brolgas as well as wallabies and more kangaroos. They have some nice wetland areas where the viewing area is accessed through an entirely enclosed walkway and viewing is done thorugh slits in the wall, so the birds don't get started, and dozens of different kinds of birds can be seen. My mom in particular is a bit fond of birding so she enjoyed seeing so many different species all in one place. In addition to the open wetlands (birds there are all just naturally visiting of their own volition), there were also several large aviaries with dry land and scrub birds. Altogether a fun place for a peaceful stroll and/or seeing some birds. As always when I visit we only saw a handful of other people.

   And the next day, Monday, I had work! And my parents left on Wednesday! The End! Altogether a lovely visit and I think we're all very much looking forward to next time already.

   Total journey through Tasmania:

Current Music: The Beatles - Paperback Writer

Monday, November 24th, 1642 - Two fluyts are making their way across the limitless southern seas, their sails full and taut with the trade winds. A look-out up in the Zeehaen's crosstrees, huddling against the cold, looks out toward the grey horizon, where the sun should soon appear. The first golden sliver appears, straight ahead, and as the sea begins to sparkle the golden orb rises from the flat sea. But wait, is the sea not perfectly flat there? The sailor peers towards the sun, though it is quickly beginning to hurt his eyes. Salty spray stings his eyes but he squints fit to bore a tunnel, and, yes, there appear to be mountains silhouetted against the rising sun! He stares for a moment longer to be sure and then calls out, "laaaand hoooooooooo!" Moments later Captain Tasman has climbed up from deck and stands on the topyard, holding the mast with one hand and shielding his eyes with the other.

and here's actually a picture I took of the Red Sea coast of Egypt in 2009 because Captain Tasman didn't allow cameras in the rigging ):

Thursday, February 22nd, 2018, Zeehan, Tasmania - I had thought Zeehan was just a corruption of Zion or something, but it turns out Zeehaen, one of Tasman's two ships, means "sea hen" in Dutch. The town is named after the nearby Mt Zeehan which is believed to be what Abel Tasman first sighted in 1642, thus becoming the first European to see what would become Tasmania.

   That morning in Zeehan, I was delighted to find bumblebees (pictured below) busy visiting the flowers around the cottage -- there are no bumblebees on the Australian mainland, and Australians, famous for nonchalantly noting "you call that a spoider?" and "you call that a snoike?" and generally being entirely unimpressed with anyone else's animals, can be seen to jump and exclaim when seeing a bumblebee for the first time and insist that "you wouldn't believe it!!" when trying to describe it to another Australian.

   First stop, let's just drive through downtown. We were only a block or two away, and these intervening blocks showed a sad depressed old mining town ... but downtown mainstreet there was a cluster of beautiful grand old buildings with big facades and verandas. There was a museum with several steam locomotives under an awning. We decided to give this museum, the Western Heritage Museum a go and it turned out to be quite an impressive museum!! They specialized a bit in the mining history of the area, and had at least three rooms full of samples of minerals from all over the world, which mom found very exciting being a geology enthusiast. They also had a huge amount of historical artifacts, photos and information covering the entire western region of Tasmania. And a complete blacksmiths shop, and a number of historic water wheels and the locomotives and and and... we were forced to tear ourselves away before even seeing anything because we had the long run to Hobart this day.
   But first! The people we'd talked to in the Mushroom Cafe in Waratah the previous morning had said we needed to visit the "Spray Tunnel" in Zeehan. It turned out to be just out of town, about ten minutes down a curvy one lane dirt road with absolutely impenetrable bush on either side -- which made me marvel at the early prospectors who had somehow tromped around out here through that stuff looking for likely mining locations. We were concerned what would happen if we met another car on this road since there weren't even turn-outs, but presently we came to a small open area, the little parking area for the Spray Tunnel! There was of course an informational plaque, and there it was, a hole in the mountainside through which you could see light at the other end. The Spray Tunnel! Apparently an "adit" of the Spray Mine. We walked through it, marveling at the lack of graffiti.

   And now we really had to hoof it. We had planned to visit the nearby port town of Strahan, and I believe dad and I still wanted to but mom eventually won out that we didn't have time any more. So we set course for the the island's capitol, Hobart!

   Heading south-east through mountainous forested terrain, we soon came around a corner to see a completely denuded mountain looming above the town of Queenstown. Queenstown itself looked cute though, with once again a lot of beautiful old-timey looking buildings in town (in this case a few blocks of them). While it looked like the mountain behind town was one giant strip mine, and the river running through town ran a rusty brown, the town seemed healthier than Zeehan, possibly getting more tourist traffic since its on a main highway. Passing through downtown we were excited to see a steam locomotive actually chugging along outside of what appeared to probably be a rail museum. We quickly tried to park and take a picture of it but it was slinking into the railshed by the time I was able to get a picture. We didn't feel we had time to poke around any of the museums here, so we kept on trucking.
   For the next three hours we drove through beautiful natural landscapes -- you'll notice no the embedded map that nearly a third of Tasmania, consisting of most of this southwest corner, is national park. We remarked that it looked like it could be Yosemite, as the forests and meadows flitted by. Yosemite with eucalyptii. About half the journey was in national park but even once we got out of it things weren't very developed, just the very occasional small town.

   Finally about half an hour from our destination, we came to a town called New Norforlk where we crossed the river Derwent (which eventually becomes the big estuary Hobart is on), by way of a little bridge, and from here to our destination we were driving through urban area. Which isn't to say Hobart is huge, with a population of 222,000 its only a bit bigger than my nearby town of Geelong (177,023). It actually reminded me a bit of Portland Oregon (which is three times as big at 640,000). All of Tasmania only has 520,000 people, so half the island's population lives in Hobart.

   Driving in we noted what looked like "a bond villian lair" on an island in the Derwest estuary -- apparently that's the famous MONA art museum, only reachable by boat!

   We checked into our airbnb in a cute narrow house reminiscent of something one might find wedged in in San Franscisco. This time we were just getting a room from a woman who lived on premises. She was very nice. I coveted her crockery, when did I become someone who covets crockery? But just look at those pleasing simple patterns and nice elegant shapes.

   From there we walked a block to a street (Elizabeth Street) that was just restaurants and eateries for several blocks. It was at this point that I decided I loved this town! Making a decision was a bit difficult with all the options -- dad and I both were salivating for a $13 rump steak special at a brewery but mom was not having it and instead we had some very tasty thai. Walked back to the airbnb looking forward to the next two days in the Hobart area!

Current Music: Chris Stuart - Springhill Mine

Wednesday, February 21st, Waratah, Tasmania - We woke up to find ourselves on a precipice! Right in the very middle of town! The town of Waratah, it seems, is built right around a chasm, with a waterfall cascading down into it, right in the middle of town! Apparently the early pioneers saw this chasm and thought "ahah, we shall harness the mighty power of this convenient waterfall to mill osmiridium!" Which totally sounds like a made up mineral used as a mcguffin in a movie or game, like the "unobtainium" in Avatar. But compare this impressive old photo of their mcguffin mills to the previous link showing it now!

Our airbnb had actually been a few blocks away from the abyss, so we didn't wake up just beside it exactly per se. But it was still a bit of a surprise. We had headed off in search of "downtown" for some coffee, and found instead a giant chasm where downtown should be. Though the town had obviously seen better days, it still had another one of those grand old hotels, looking much as it had in ye olden days. Just beside the hotel was a rather funny cafe -- "the MUSH Room" was in a rather nondescript but oldish looking building, inside the decorations were very eclectic, but what struck me the most was the wide open kitchen looked like it had almost nothing in it. Like a coffee machine and microwave or something. It seems a bit odd. Also there were pictures of mushrooms all over, and books about mushrooms sitting around. Originally I was just gonna run in and get a coffee, and mom had come in with me, but we looked at eachother and said "dad needs to come in here!" because he's rather a fan of mushrooms. While waiting for my coffee we got to talking to a nice couple who gave us some more tips on things to see (though I think they themselves were only in Tassie as tourists?).

From Waratah we headed to Dove Lake, about an hour toward the middle of the island, through mostly forests, land cleared by logging, and replanted plantations. Dove Lake is near (at the base of?) Cradle Mountain, which I've gathered is one of the most famous destinations in Tasmania. I still don't really quite see how it looks like a cradle though. At the visitor center car park we had to park in the overflow parking lot it was so busy. One can drive to the trailhead parking lot sometimes if it's not too busy, but it was too busy on this day so one had to get a bus up from the visitor center. About twenty minutes on the comfortable bus (and they run like every five minutes) winding up a beautiful valley with several stops at different trailheads. Dove Lake is the end of the road and I'm not sure anyone on the bus was going anywhere else. From the trailhead start one has a good view of cradle mountain just behind the lake -- there was even a sign with a bracket to guide you to take the classic picture of the scene ... which I declined to take because it seemed way to cliche (why take a photo a million other people have taken?). Instead I took a picture of the big drones prohibited sign, thinking "what a world we live in, where people have to be warned to keep their flying robots at bay."

and also took this one of the lake and Cradle Mountain and a boat shed

The hike around the lake was a very lovely two-hour-ish hike, extremely well maintained. Large parts of it were on boardwalk, in places over the lake itself where the bank rose basically in a cliff around the lake. One can go on further loops to make the hike even longer if one so desires. Also I learned from signs in the vicinity that there's an epic transtasmanian "Overland Track" hiking trail that begins here and crosses most of the relatively wild and undeveloped southwest of the island. Something to potentially do some day!! Also the every popular wombat poo track ... I think some larrikan just stole the L from "wombat pool" ;)

After this delightful hike we tried to visit the interpretive center but it had closed at 3 and we arrived at 3:06. While waiting for the next bus from this stop we went on another lovely short loop walk. Finally got back to the main visitor center hoping for a snack at the cafe ... only to find IT closed literally a minute before we arrived at 4:01. Such sauce. This is the most popular tourist destination in Tasmania, there are five more hours of daylight, and everything is shutting down before normal business hours are even up? WTF Tasmania.

From Dove Lake we headed off to that ever popular must-see, Zeehan. Okay maybe not but my coworker is from there so we thought we'd swing through. It was about an hour and a half away, through a series of small mining towns as the road wound around small mountains. At one point we were alarmed to see a car protruding just off the road from a small gully! It was so fresh looking our first instinct was to pull over and see if someone needed assistance, but then we noticed the tires were gone and wheel mounts rusty. We hypothesize that the car really did crash there, but rather than tow it out the local council opted to keep it freshly painted as a clear warning to passing motorists to be careful.

Here's a calidendrous bit of forest on the Dove Lake loop

   Dad's search for accomodation in this sector had found slim pickins, but eventually he had called the local pub (called a hotel but usually they don't actually have accomodation) on said coworker's recommendation (not that she _recommended_ it, just that it was a local accomodation possibility) and it turned out they could put us up in a little miner's cottage next to the hotel! How quaint!
   The hotel turned out to be yet again one of these grand old 19th century gingerbread edifices, which seemed a bit out of place in what was obviously a down-on-its-luck former mining town. The hotel bar was full of "tradies" in their dirty high viz uniforms (Australians in any job that even remotely resembles blue collar seem to inevitably be wearing flourescent high visibility uniforms), the restaurant room was a cavernous hall that seemed to dwarf the few tables in it. The menu had a surprising selection of chinese food on it, clearly they had a chinese cook. Food was a very long time coming but that seemed entirely in keeping with this sleepy backwater of a place.

   Back at the cottage, another evening of watching the olympics. Doping in curling? Really Russia?? Really??? Even other curler's were like "uh, WHY??"

Mom and dad on the Dove Lake Loop

Tuesday, February 20th, Dismal Swamp, the Tarkine Wilderness - "Wait, which way is it?" asks dad, looking from the small map to the junction in the boardwalk "this junction isn't even on here!" I look at the map myself and as far as I can tell this junction is indeed not on the map. We are lost literally and figuratively deep in the dismal swamp!

   The day at begun at our little airbnb bungalow outside of Stanley. We had only been working up the plan for this day since yesterday and as soon as I saw "dismal swamp" on the map I knew we had to go there. I didn't really care what was or wasn't there, just, why WOULDN'T one want to visit a place called "dismal swamp??"
   The weather was sunny, with a cool breeze, which I realized with alarm reminded me of Autumn! If one accounts for the flipped year, February does equal August, so indeed the summer is coming to an end! Mom was eyeing some wild birds out the window "those look like chickens, are they chickens??" they looked just enough not like chickens to make one wonder. Mom got out the bird book and determined that they were in fact some kind of native bush-chicken, I believe?

   Our first destination was a coffee shop and bakery in the nearby town of Smithton (once again small, built around an estuary, with a busy little mainstreet), where the woman behind the counter was remarkably friendly. Smithton also had a small museum, which was closed, but we could see through the window the (plastic casts of, presumably) bones of a prehistoric giant wombat (a diprotodon I believe?) , and read the informational sign about it. Also, I think it was in the dismal swamp we learned about it actually, but while I'm on a paragraph about ancient megafauna: you've undoubtedly heard of the Tasmanian devil, you may (should) have heard of the Tasmanian tiger, but did you know there was also a Tasmanian lion (Which for some reason has a separate wikipedia entry under the name thylacoleo! The Tasmanian Lion is believed to have been extincted (extunck?) by the arrival of aboriginals around 60,000 years ago. The last confirmed living Tasmanian Tiger of course sadly died in a zoo in 1933 due to neglectfully being locked out of it's shelter during extreme weather ):< ...and I just learned just this moment that the closest living relative of the Tasmanian Tiger is the NUMBAT, which is the adorable little critter in my default icon!

   Next stop, Dismal Swamp!! --Or, as they're making a vague effort to rebrand it, "Tarkine Forest Adventures!" ...what's wrong with "dismal swamp???" Anyway the Dismal Swamp is a privately run "eco adventure" thing. There's 40 meter deep sinkhole (I can't find a good "about" page on the internet but the area of the sinkhole is hundreds of hectares actually I think? its big anyway). One drive up and parks in the car park, surrounded by walls of forest. From the gift-shop / cafe / ticketing area one can take "the longest slide in the southern hemisphere" (110 meters) down to the bottom ... for a hefty $25 roo-bucks. Or one can walk down via the lovely and well-maintained boardwalks, which we did.
   Down at the bottom there was a network of these nice boardwalks and it was really lovely being deep in such a delightful swamp. They had lots of informational little signs about the trees and plants, which mom in particular was really excited about. Another remarkable thing I learned from the signs was that there were crayfish who lived on the muddy swamp floor here and made themselves little crayfish towers. We saw their towers but not the crayfish themselves. We enjoyed strolling around the swamp for maybe two hours before dad started to get antsy that we needed to keep a move on for the rest of our planned perambulations. As noted at the beginning of the entry, we found we got a bit lost trying to navigate the unintentionally labyrinthine boardwalks on our way out, but not too badly. All in all I loved the dismal swamps, they were every bit as delightful as I had expected, and more!!

   From there we booked it to the west coast of the island, through mostly bucolic farm countryside. Visited the coast itself and beheld an isolated and idyllic surf beach, but being pressed for time we only looked at it from the car park and got back on the road. Headed south down the coast it was clear this is not the highly populated part of the island, as for miles and miles we saw nothing but brush around the road, and the roadkilled-padme-per-kilometer index was at almost zero. Despite this we saw fairly regular signs advising to be careful not to run over devils from dusk to dawn, as well as signs that appeared to warn of kangaroos lifting one's car, no doubt after having become addicted to human-introduced crossfit ::shakes head sadly::. On our whole coastal drive we only drove through one tiny micro-townlet, it really felt like a very remote and unpeopled coast.

   After half an hour running down parallel to the coast we turned inland (apparently the road continues to a miniscule former town that was once the port to a now closed mine and is now "just a collection of shacks." Our journey inland back into the Tarkine Wilderness led us into alternating forest and cleared land, with signs proclaiming we were witnessing managed sustainable logging or some such. Eventually I believe we entered a protected state forest and the huge surrounding trees were uninterrupted. We also passed several turnoffs just off the road with pallets of beehives on them, which of course we were intrigued to see. The hives had a lot of supers (additional boxes) stacked on top which would seem to indicate they were doing really well, and indeed they all seemed very busy at the entrances. Interesting to note, I'm not sure if anyone reading this is interested in the obscurities of comparative beekeeping, but I was interested to note while most commercial beekeepers in at least the states prefer to give the bees about two "deep" boxes before stacking shallow honey supers on top these operations seemed to use entirely shallows. I've been thinking about doing that if I were to god forbid restart, since I don't like having differing box sizes and am currently using all deeps, which get gosh darn heavy when full of honey.

   There were many many short walk options within the Tarkine Wilderness loop, but we had to zip right past most of them due to our ambition drive plan. Maybe some day I'll get back! ::looks off whistfully into the distance:: We managed to stop at a nice lookout point, and planned to stop to see a "flooded sinkhole" but accidentally zipped past it and there was nowhere to turn around. We did stop at the "Trowutta Arch" though. It consisted of a pleasant half hour walk through what an informational sign described as, I swear, "calidendrous," but I'm feeling a bit consternated because I wanted to double check the spelling and no variation comes up with ANY hits of any kind on Teh Google. But according to the sign this word means "beautiful or park-like forest" and referes to the wide airy space between the trees here under the canopy high above. It was indeed well beautious.

If adventure games taught me anything it's that I need to stand under that vine and type "climb vine"

   The "arch" it turned out was two side-by-side sinkholes which were connected by a big hole. One sinkhole was filled in allowing access and the other had a pool of water in the bottom. Pretty neat!

   From there we more-or-less hoofed it back up to civilization back at Smithton, and used main roads (such as they are in Tasmania) to get to our destination for the night about two hours away. First we traveled east along the coastal road we had come west on and then turned south, and noted that the padme-roadkill-per-kilometer was extremely high (like double digits) on this main corridor in the "relatively" densely populated north. When we got further from the coast it got less populated again and finally just as the sun was settomg we rolled into the little mining town of Waratah which seemed a bit isolated in the mountains. It was both cute and visibly run down, and had pleasant looking ponds right in the center of town. After we established ourselves in our airbnb (a little house that had been brought up to good repair and set up seemingly expressly for this purpose), inspired by platypus crossing signs we went out to see if we could see platypii in the ponds. Sadly no luck, I think the moon was mostly behind clouds again, I remember it being VERY dark. We stumbled through the darkness back to the house to watch some Olympics instead.

   In the morning would we discover we had been on the edge of a precipice? Would we figure out why the famed "Cradle Mountain" is so called? Find out next entry! :D

Monday, February 19th, Devonport - the sky is slate grey and casts a dreary industrial look on the town around the waterfront. Across the estuary the Spirit of Tasmania ferry we'd recently debarked looks like a giant toy with its discordantly optimistic red and white. I'm standing under giant bronze statues of flowers. There's a nearby explanational sign, and informational signs always attract me like bees to a flower. These poppies, it informs me, are a monument to the importance to the local economy of legal poppy farming -- under close government regulation they raise opiate poppies for use in commercial pharmaceuticals. "Such sauce!" I say to mom. Dad returns from his quick dash to a better vantage point to photo the ship.

Next stop, Ulverstone! Mission: Scallop pies! My coworker here (not Cato, though I'm sure he'd loorve a scallop* pie) is a native** Tasmanian*** and had informed me the first thing she always does when getting off the ferry is proceed straight to Crusty's Bakery in Ulverstone for a scallop pie. Ulverstone is only about twenty minutes west along a coast dotted with little seaside towns interspersed with farmland. We found Ulverstone to be another one of these little seaside towns built up around an estuary (at a population of 6,985, wikipedia informs me it's "one of the largest towns in Tasmania"), with several bakeries on the main street buzzing with business like a beehive on a sunny morning. Beside Crusty's was one of those grand old hotels with beautiful gilt second floor wraparound verandas which we would see many of throughout the island. At Crusty's we got one scallop pie and two pasties ("pahsties," a thing I fondly remember from Ireland but Not A Thing in the States). The scallop pie was.. interesting but not my favorite.

*As noted last entry, they say "scallop" not as "scahl-op" as god intended but more like ::does some green room voice exercises before coming back:: "skwau-lope." As the week went on we found scallope pies weren't just a specialty of this bakery, rather all of Tasmania seems to have a thing for them. Later, I asked my friend whom my other friends always bag out for being Tasmanian if he secretly craves scallop pies while living on the mainland, he admitted he didn't actually, to which I declared he was not truly Tasmanian, and he then admitted to being born in Bendigo on the Australian mainland, thus proving the efficacy of scallop pie love as a test of someone's true Tasmanianism.

**My coworker was born in Tasmania, which is not to be confused with being aboriginal. The plight of the aboriginal peoples of Tasmania is truly appalling. By 1876 the last full blooded aboriginal was declared to have died and the government declared they were an extinct peoples and "the aboriginal problem" was over. To this day the perception prevails in Australia that the native people's of Tasmania were entirely wiped out. As it happens wikipedia informs me that one full blooded aboriginal did live till 1905, and of persons who are partially aboriginal the last census indicated there were 23,576 in Tasmania at the 2016 census.
Considering the genocides and forced migrations of the native peoples of Australia happened around the same time as the same was happening to the native peoples of North America, I find it interesting to see how different the cultural awareness of it is. Everyone in America is "aware" that terrible things happened to the native Americans, but its not like here where it is mentioned all the time, most events open with an acknowledgement of the "traditional owners of this land," the local mall has a plaque to them, etc etc. Conversely, I think 99% of the people living in Southern California haven't the faintest idea what the name of the native tribe of their area was (Tongva in OC, though I cheated and looked it up just now, I thought it was the Chumash, who are just north, but vaguely remembered enough to suspect that wasn't exactly right) and probably think of amerindians as something that happened somewhere else.

***While I'm on Tasmanian history, the island was called Van Dieman's Land until 1856, until they changed it partially (largely?) as a branding/marketing move to get away from the terrible Vandiemonic reputation as a harsh destination for convicts (which had just been discontinued). Early references to people living there referred to them as Vandiemonians though, which I think is a fun demonym (a van diemonym?? ohohoho okay okay I'll stop).

   From Ulverstone we set out to continue west through more farmland and seaside townlets until we came to "Fossil Bluff" and "Table Cape," and mom does love a good fossil. We turned off the highway (which was only a curvy two lane thing anyway) to proceed down a windy country road along farms and coastal bluffs. Had to stop at a beautiful field of sunflowers. By now the sun had come out to make for a beautiful scene of sunflowers fields draped over the slopes by the coast. Neighboring fields had already been harvested of a flower crop, but the big signs on the gate declared:
      WARNING: DO NOT ENTER.
      THIS CROP HAS KILLED PEOPLE!!
   O_o. Reading the smaller print one learns that these are the commercial poppy fields! The wording of the sign makes one picture man eating plants in the field but I suppose they mean if you steal poppies to make and use heroin you might die? I feel like the wild claim that the crop will kill you draws more attention to it than a simple "DO . NOT . ENTER" sign would.
   Continuing on the pleasant winding road to the table cape we also saw signs for the nearby allegedly famous tulip farms but I don't recall seeing them. And there was a deer farm!! Golly, Tasmania has the most whimsical industries!!
   Went on a pleasant walk along a precarous seaside cliff from a lookout point to a lighthouse, but as admission was ($20?) which we felt was steep and we decided not to go in. Then drove down to fossil bluff beach and saw some of the usual million year old embedded shells. I think a sign indicated the actual fossil bluff was a ten minute walk from there but we were getting antsy to keep on moving west at that point.

   I almost forgot one other very strong first impression we got. Plastered on walls in the towns, and showing up in the most unlikely places among sunflower (and opiate) fields, there was an overwhelming number of election campaign signs. I swear I've never seen such concentrations of them. And the viciousness of their declarations on rival parties! Sure US state and national elections get nasty but the local elections usually keep the slander to a background whisper, but despite population levels more akin to most place's town elections, it was clear these politicians were out to gouge eachother's proverbial eyes out with their proverbial thumbs. "Liberals" (whom I had to keep reminding my parents are actually analogous to Republicans in America) seemed to have the most signs, but even between Labor and the Greens there seemed to be no love lost, with one memorably sign by Labor saying they promised not to work with the Greens. Anyway, as I said I almost forgot this except just now I checked my newsfeed and saw that the Liberals had won the election and the Greens declared it "the most bought election in Tasmanian history."
   I think the vehemence of the politics may stem from the fact that you have this small island with beautiful pristine forests full or rare species, but also logging is the major industry, so the conservatives really really want to support the logging industry and the ~~liberals~~ people-on-the-left really really want to protect the forests.

View looking back from atop "The Nut" at the narrow isthmus connecting Stanly to the Tasmanian mainland

   Only about an hour west we reached our destination, the town of Stanley, situated out on a peninsula that had formed behind a volcanic plug known as "the nut." The town itself was really cute, reminded me of a New England fishing village. Apparently a major film meant to be set in the 1800s was recently filmed there since all the buildings downtown look period appropriate.
   We took the chairlift up to the top of the nut and went on the very lovely walkabout around the top. Much of it was covered in sort of heath, but one low part was forested and within this beautiful forested bit was saw our first pademelons -- basically smaller more rounded wallebies. Sadly the pad-melons most commonly are seen smashed by the side of the road and as we continued to drive around Tasmania one can gauge how much nighttime traffic a section of road gets by the smashed-padmé-per-kilometer ratio.
   At the base of The Nut I had some lavendar icecream which I found remarkably good, and now I wonder why one doesn't see more of this delicious flavor.

   That evening we ate at the Stanley Hotel as it was the only place open (I think my parents would have preferred somewhere cheaper, it was a bit fancy, but it was good!!). Also, being the only place open on a Monday night the place was reservation only and after initially showing up at (6?) we had to come back at 7:30.
   That evening we went out to see the penguins -- on our earlier penguin adventure we had caught a mention that penguins also show up on the shores of Tasmania and a bit of research had revealed that this was one of the places! The beach did have designated penguin viewing locations and signs once again admonishing people not to take photos of the poor little penguins since the blue light in flashes hurts their wee little penguin eyes. As it happens we were staring into the inky blackness (moon largely obscured by clouds) at a designated location with about a dozen other tourists when a series of bright camera flashes down the path caught our attention. We ventured that way and found a little penguin paralyzed in fear on the path as some ill behaved tourist took a few more pictures.

   We then managed to run over no padmes at all on the return to our little airbnb (a custom made airbnb bungalow outside a main house) just out of town. And thus ended a delightful Day 1 in Tasmania!

Sunday, February 18th - In the dark evening with a smattering of raindrops upon the window (just enough to make pictures come out really badly) we drove up the tall narrow ramp -- more like a one lane bridge really. The lights of the classic Titanic-esque hull of the Queen Mary II are just off to our right and a little further forward, making it seem smaller than the red and white Spirit of Tasmania II that looms up right in front of us. While the whole front of the Queenscliff ferries opens like a whaleshark, the Spirit of Tasmania seems to suck them aboard with a straw, into a narrow one-car-wide entrance at the very beak of the prow.

   Once aboard we were directed up a ramp to park in one of three lines of cars on the port side .. it took awhile for me to orient myself since we had driven in from the front and were facing aft -- it being already dark even once we were moving one got no sense of direction looknig out of the windows so I kept having a hard time keeping track of which was port or starboard or fore or aft. Once parked we took everything we'd need for the night (no vehicle access during transit) and headed to the central stairwells. I was excited because I haven't ever been on a cruise or overnight ferry (except this one time in Sweden in 1999 which is longer ago than I can remember). Family cabins hadn't been available anymore when dad booked most of a week previously, so mom was in a four person women's cabin and dad and I were in a similar men's cabin. The hallways were so narrow one had to back up against the wall to let another person pass. The rooms were of course small but comfortable, with two bunkbeds, a desk that I can't imagine anyone using since it would obstruct everyone else and the llight wouldn't be appreciated t night, and a bathroom. After putting our stuff on our beds we went upstairs -- our car was on deck 6, rooms on deck 8, most of the length of deck 7 was "lounge," chairs and TVs. Deck 9 was crew only and 10 was also sort of lounge style but mostly deserted -- maybe it's more popular on day transits. There was of course a bar on the main lounge deck, but they had a very very small selection, not one beer remotely resembling craft and didn't even KNOW what a the traditional sailor's drink the "dark and stormy" is (ginger beer and rum), which is weird because its not nearly as obscure in Aus as in the States, most bars in Australia seem to have it in can. There was also a restaurant which we didn't partake of outbound but on our return we did and some of the buffet style food was pretty good. At the front (or was it aft, I really don't know!) was a room that was kept dark and full of recliners for people who didn't want to fork out the dough for a cabin -- I'm told it's really uncomfortable, and really, after paying $100ish (AUD, so like $75US), it seems silly to balk at paying another $33aud for a bunk in the dorm style cabins. Another economic mystery is it seemed like some people do this transit all the time, but flying costs abut HALF AS MUCH (google search just now is giving me $89 and $112 round trip options) and takes a fraction of the time. Obv the ferry is the only option if you want to take your car but seemed like some of the regulars take the ferry to commute regularly for work between Melbourne and Tassie and you really don't need a car to get around Melbourne.

Web photo since I don't have any worth posting from this episode but believe every entry should have a picture.

   We settled down to watch the Olympics, which fortunately was on about half the TVs in the lounge. As I mentioned before, we as a family don't watch much TV, but we have always watched the olympics. To me the Olympics is a special family tradition that feels almost like Christmas, since I can remember even as a very young kid getting to stay up later than usual to watch the olympics with my parents. We also none of us follow team sports at all, personally I can't even begin to comprehend how people can get excited about teams that really just represent a brand name, none of the players come from the city they "represent" and get traded around all the time, and one pointless season of pointless sporting and appalling scandals follows endlessly on another. But things like the Olympics I feel represent inspiring acts of true sportsmanship and striving for excellence, as well as national honor in fun way which allows one to get excited and root for countries one has a connection to.

   My parents being early-birds as usual went to bed much earlier than me, but I was enjoying the Olympics and wanted to still be up when we crossed the bar out of the broad bay Melbourne is at the back of. I believe we had departed around 9pm, and for the first few hours there was no feeling at all of wave movement. Finally, around 12:40am the vessel began to noticably buck a bit. I went out on deck to find the air warm despite the brisk ocean breeze, and we were just passing the Queencliff lighthouse. I walked through to the port side and saw the darker Point Nepean sliding past with the Sorrento lights further down the peninsula. At this point the boat had enough of a galloping motion that one stumbled around like a drunkard. Most of the rest of the passengers had gone to bed and crewmembers were cleaning up the lounge area. I've had a few locals ask me since if we had a "rough passage," and I'm never sure what to say, was this rough? It's relative. I've sailed in gale conditions with 18 foot swells in a 100 foot schooner, when even the most experienced crewmember kept a barf bag at hand any time they were belowdecks -- THAT was "rough." This was just enough to be fun and make me nostalgic for my sailing days.

   Made my way to my cabin happily bouncing off the walls like I was in a pinball machine. Tried to enter the cabin as quietly as I could and climbed onto my bunk with just the light from my phone -- apparently not the norm of courtesy here: my mom's roommates apparently routinely turned on the lights when they got up (and one was in the bathroom for two hours in the morning!), and when one of my roommates (who had a remarkable ability to loudly mumble profanities in his sleep) got up at 5am he had no compunction about turning on the blazing lights. The ship's announcements gave everyone a wake up announcement 45 minutes from arrival, I think around 7:15, using nice non-jarring tones. Dad and I talked a bit to the fourth member of our cabin, a regular on this route, who gave us some tips to see in Tassie. I forget exactly how we found mom, maybe she tapped on our door, anyway it turned out she'd already been up for some time (see also roommates turning on lights in her room). We went up to deck 10 to get some coffee and watch Tasmania approach. At first it appeared as a series of mountains with golden light shining down upon it through the clouds. Gradually it got closer and bigger until the town of Devonport lay around us in the dull grey morning light. Drivers were instructed to board their cars deck by deck and presently our call came. Recall we'd gone up a ramp to park, we appeared to be on an entire deck that would elevator down when the deck below cleared, and from a few cars ahead of us one could see the cars exiting below out the big opening in the back. A car near the very front of one of the rows below us (with door open here), an elegant classic car of some type, was unable to start and holding up the whole row behind it. After some ten minutes a RACV (Australian AAA) car came on on the ramp and jumped it -- I was really surprised the ferry didn't have portable jumping kits itself considering that out of a load of 700 cars at least one probably won't start every time. Finally our deck lowered down and we were off down the ramp and onto Tasmanian soil. I kept asking my parents "can you believe we're in Tasmania?? Did you ever think you' be in Tasmania??" Would we see the famous Tasmanian Devil? Maybe discover the last Tasmanian Tiger?? Tasmanian Lion??? Visit dismal swamps? Drive into a mine shaft? Eat scallop pies*?? All that and more will be answered in future entries!!

*just last night my Australian friends laughed at me for the way I say scallop ("scah-lop") and instructed me it's, let me see if I can get this right, ::does jaw excercises::, "skwau--loup?"

So last week I had my first (and second) days of French class at University of California Left off Avery (Saddleback Community College). So far we've only really covered the alphabet and numbers. Anyway, I've determined that all the young lads at Saddleback ALL have hair spiked with gel and look like they're some kind of horrible cross between metrosexual and emo (metremosexual?), and they all wear girl jeans with intentional "wear" on them. Its horrible really.

This morning mother and I met dad down at the San Clemente Pier (he ran there) and we had brunch at the restaurant on the pier. What was awesome, however, was that there was an ongoing lightning storm just offshore that hit land while we were there. So we finished our meal in pouring rain, which we didn't mind at all because it was awesome (though all the other patrons fled).

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Page Summary

Roadtrip Gippsland, Final (fourth) Day!
Mallacoota!
Den of Nargun and Beyond
Gippsland Ho! Day 1
Weekend around here.
Tasmania: Leavings
Bruny Island
Tasmania 3 - In a Flowerpot at the Edge of the World
Parents visit 2023
The Making of a Yarn
Last Day in Tasmania!
When We Remembered Zeehan
From Precipice to Pinnacles!
The Dismal Swamp and Tarkine Wilderness!
Tasmania! Day 1!
Onward, to Van Dieman's Land!
Week of 08/20 - 08/26

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The Agrinautica

Tales of a Beekeeper Errant

Entries tagged with my parents

Roadtrip Gippsland, Final (fourth) Day!

Mallacoota!

Den of Nargun and Beyond

Gippsland Ho! Day 1

Weekend around here.

Tasmania: Leavings

Bruny Island

Tasmania 3 - In a Flowerpot at the Edge of the World

Parents visit 2023

The Making of a Yarn

Last Day in Tasmania!

When We Remembered Zeehan

From Precipice to Pinnacles!

The Dismal Swamp and Tarkine Wilderness!

Tasmania! Day 1!

Onward, to Van Dieman's Land!

Week of 08/20 - 08/26