Tassie, Tassie, Tassie! Oy, Oy, Oy!

If you're an Aussie, you know the reference. Cept Tassie's different, down here, they've all got two heads. Or four arms. Or six eyes. So I suppose it isn't the same thing. . .Okay, I'll stop confusing all my American readers now. The mainlanders like to take the piss out of Tassie, apparently they're all mutants down here. So yes, I've been the lucky-ist exchange student in the world and I have spent the last 8 days with the Agnew family in Tassie, A.K.A. THIS

part of the pancake. Eh Britt :) To get here, we took the "Spirit of Tasmania". Which really has nothing to do with Tasmania cause it's BIG, Tassie is VERY VERY VERY small, it is also RED and Tassie is VERY VERY VERY GREEN, not to mention WET. Hence the reason I got so muddy when we went bushwalking. Yes, we spent the first four days in the bush. Got off that BIG, RED boat and headed straight for that GREEN bush :) Cheesy I know. . .Anywho, this is a map of Tasmania, you can't really see it cause there's some dumb Yank standing in front of it, but you get the gist.




Now to shock and awe you with some of the scenery of the Cradle Mountain Lake St. Clair National Park in northern/Central Tasmania. This is a photo of one of the forest we walked through, Ryan (15 year old son) deemed it the Faghorn Forest, just like in the Lord of the Rings (NERD!) We walked roughly 10 k's (by my calculations, which are probably wrong, that's about 6 miles)into a hut where we stayed four nights. And when I say hut, by no means is it a shack, it's a big building with wooden bunks, picnic tables and counters for all of our bush cooking, it sleeps 60 when it needs to.


The second day we climbed Mount Ossa. It's the tallest mountain in Tasmania. I was bragging about this to Nic Crouch and all he said to me was "you're from Colorado and you're proud of climbing a mountain" He's right, it was a lame 5,000 feet. But it was a hell of a climb and because all the other mountains in Tasmania are even more pathetic, you could see EVERYTHING.



AND I was clever enough to use the panoramic setting on my camera so you folks back home could revel in it's beauty too :) Aren't so thoughtful?


The next day Di (Mum) and I were so sore (and it was kinda sorta snowing) we just spent the day sitting around the hut playing cards with another family. It's funny cause I've been in Australia for less than 6 months and I've seen it snow twice. Once driving through Ballarat (which has, on more than one occasion, been explained to me as a 'cold, miserable place' sorry Lachie) And then again on this bushwalking trip. This is Mount Ossa from a distance with snow on it, in January. A.K.A mid summer here in Oz. Yes, that's how far south Tasmania is.


This was another moment of genius, yay for panoramic photos!!! This was the view from the front porch of the hut. That is Mount Oakley, to climb this we would have had to wade through waste deep mud. So, being the brave soles that we are, we skipped that one :)



Okay, so after four days of hills that seemed they'd never end, 20 kilos on our backs, sleeping on wooden planks, mud mud and more mud, and eating Ryan's famous instant pudding, we headed for Hobart. The first day we went to the famous Salamanca Markets, they are similar to the Farmers markets in Durango except it's warm enough for it to happen all year round down here but only on Saturdays. I was very lucky in that our first day in Hobart happened to be a Saturday . . .Day number two, we headed up the top of Mount Wellington and took in the sights. See all that water down there? They call that a river. What a load of poppycock. As far as I'm concerned, it's a lake with open ends. But the view was marvelous.



Kay, never mind, you can't really see the water. But IF you could, you'd see that it was a large expanse of water with bits of land floating around in the middle of it and buildings on either side. AKA a lake. Or the outlet to the southern Ocean. . .what ever floats your boat :) Which, by the way, I went swimming in today. One of the most southern parts of Tasmania in fact, in the Southern Ocean where there's nothing between you and Antarctica. Yes, I live in Colorado and I'm proud of swimming in cold water :)


Yesterday we made a visit to Port Arthur, one of the best known convict sights in Australia. As you could probably guess, it's ancient and therefore slowly crumbling into the earth. But it was historical and I learned a lot. The idea behind these convict settlements was actually kind of decent. They intended to teach all the offenders trades and send them off to Hobart to become citizens. It was more of a 'correctional facility' than a prison. I also discovered that instead of flogging (whipping) they took to solitary confinement as a form of punishments. The men and women (yes, women were kept here too, as well as young boys) who misbehaved would be put into a singular cell, let out for one hour a day to exercise and forbidden to use their voices except to sing hymns in church. But even in Church, they were divided. There was a stall for each prisoner so all that they could see was the minister. I remember seeing this very room in an informational video I watched once upon a time and to actually be there was something different. That room was probably my favorite part. As you can tell by the enormous grin on my face, although I could hardly say you'd be that happy after 4 months of solitary confinement. . .