Tassie!

Wow. Its been a while since I posted anything. Not much other than school was going on until last week, which was my Easter holiday. I got a week and a day (Good Friday) off, and went on an IES sponsored trip to the Australian state of Tasmania, which they call Tassie here. We flew out midday on Tuesday. Our flight was delayed by several hours, so instead of having a nice sit-down meal, we ate at mackers (MacDonalds). We spent the night at the first of several hostels. That day we woke up to rain and decided we wouldn't let that deter us. We hiked to Wineglass Bay, which despite appearances is actually in the shape of a Wineglass.

It was a fantastic hike up and over the saddle of a mountain, and then down onto the beach. On the beach we saw a wallaby that was quite tame. It hopped up to us and sat around calmly while we took pictures and petted it. I was amazed at how calm it was, though I think it had been fed by tourists before.
We then drove to Tarana, where we checked in to the Fish Lips hostel, and had a fantastic dinner. We all then went on a ghost tour of Port Arthur, which was silly and fun. Port Arthur is the former prisoners colony for repeat offenders. Criminals who were transported to Autralia and then re-offended while in Australia were sent to Port Arthur. On the ghost tour we saw the church, the mortuary, a few of the houses, and the asylum.

The next morning we went to the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park, which also had other Tassie animals. We saw a bird show and a devil feeding, which was intense. When people talk about the weird noises devils make, they aren't kidding! They're smaller than I expected, but apparently have almost the same force in their bite as a saltwater crocodile. They are scavengers and eat everything from what they scavange. They are also being wiped out by a cancer of the face which results in tumors that grow on their face, and they eventually starve to death. The conservation park has a completely healthy population, and the University of Tasmanina is hoping to come up with a test for the cancer soon.
From the devil park, we went back to Port Arthur for a "cruise" around the bay there. We got a tour of the Isle of the Dead, which was the burial grounds for all baptized members of the community, free or not. However, the island (which is really small) is split into two burial sites, separated on the north and south ends, for free and imprisioned, and then further split by class. Most of the prisioners who were buried there don't have headstones, and there isn't a full count of how many are buried on the island. They think its about 1,100 people. Our tour guide was a hoot, and gave all of us exchange students a hard time about not calling home often enough. I was glad I'd called home right before I left!

From Port Arthur we drove to Hobart, which is the capitol of Tassie. We stayed at a hostel called the Pickeled Frog right near the central buisness district (cbd). Hobart is a port city, and I had fish and chips several times, at Mako, which is (apparently) a famous floating fish and chips place in constitution dock.
The next day, we went on a tour of Cadbury, which has a huge factory just outside of Hobart. We watched a funny little movie all about how chocolate is made, and why Cadbury's is special. It was pretty fun and resulted in a lot of free chocolate, and cheap chocolate. From Cadbury we drove to an apple orchard, and picked apples and strawberries and had a picnic lunch, which was a fun, quiet few hours. From the orchard we went to a winery, and did a wine tasting, which pretty much reinforced the idea that I don't really like wine. But it was fun to do all the silly swirling and sniffing and checking the color. We then hung out at the winery for a while, and played a bunch of group games on the lawn, providing entertainment for the people at the restaurant. The winery was in one of Tassies wine regions, and was really beautiful.

After the wine tasting, we went back to Hobart and had free time. I went and got fish and chips and ice cream, which was the meal I had most often (3 times!) while in tassie. Olivia and I wandered around the cbd and other areas, and then pretty much went to bed early.

The next day we all got up and went to the Salamanca Market, which is sort of both on the docks and in the cbd. There were tons of booths with really cool, cute stuff - shirts, bags, scarves, hats, jewelry, art, and food booths, both fresh produce and hot food. I bought lunch there, as well as two pairs of earrings, a scarf, a hat, and some postcards. It was good shopping! Olivia and I wandered around the market together, and spent about three hours there. We then went looking for the Royal Botanical Gardens, but after walking probably 3 or 4 k, we didn't find them, so we wandered back to the hostel and rested until dinner. The whole group went out for Indian together, and it was a fantastic meal, and really fun to hang out with everyone.

The next day was our last in Tasmania, and we got up really early to go rafting. It was a level 2 rapids, which basically means nothing was very difficult and we got more wet from water fights with the other rafts than anything. It was really fun, though the water was really cold. After rafting we all piled into the bus to head back to the airport. Our flight was delayed several hours (seemed to be a theme!), so we arrived in Melbourne at 10:50, and got home just before midnight. It was a really great trip - I loved tassie, and Hobart especially. I do have a lot of work to catch up on, though!

Pictures:
The first is a group photo at the lookout to Wineglass Bay. The front row, left to right, is Philip, Cari, Sam, myself, Kayla, and Olivia. The next is Natalya, girl whos name I have never been able to remember (Stacey), and Chris. Next is Heather, Austin, Rachel, Arielle, and Mark. The back row is Ray, Laura, Kate, Cari, Emma, Suzanne, Nathan, and Alisha.
The second photo is of Wineglass Bay from the lookout.
The third is Kate, wallaby, and Ray.
The fourth is a Tassie devil.
The fifth is the Port Arthur penitentiary.
The sixth is the Isle of the Dead.
The seventh is my favorite fish and chips place, mako.
The eight is a view of the wine region from the winery.
The last is a view up the river from the landing point.