Upon arriving back in Melbourne, we spent three delightful days kicking back with our Mel and Damien, our friends from the Grampiens. They kindly put us up for several evenings, and we had some very enjoyable dinners with them, including a memorable meal at Melbourne’s Moroccan Soup Bar. The restaurant was a little closet-like venue, packed with atmosphere and serving up a set four-person multi-course banquet of phenomenally good food. Our days were spent doing things like baking, doing laundry, and figuring out where we would head to next. We also spent a great deal of time coughing, hacking, and blowing our noses, as by this time Glen was getting over his cold, which I had just caught.
Due to the cost of train tickets, we decided to skip Sydney and flying directly to Brisbane instead of taking a multi-leg train journey north. The plan is to use Brisbane as a launching pad for small side trips around that area. We will stay along the Gold Coast and the southern part of the Sunshine Coast until it comes time to fly to Auckland.
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Ugly Side of Hostels
As I mentioned earlier, I am now going to give the not-so-proverbial dirt on our Hobart hostel.
We elected to stay at Montgomery’s. In the YHA advertisements, it had billed itself as being "Hobart's most luxurious YHA" and promised a lively hotel atmosphere that would be good fun and good value for money. The rooms were more expensive than I would have normally liked, but the price of a dorm bed wasn’t too dreadful and I figured that it would be worth the cost due to the hostel’s convenient downtown location. Truthfully, luxury doesn't particularly interest Glen nor I. Cleanliness, on the other hand, does.
The hostel managers evidently feel that convenience of location outstrips the requirements of any good hostel to keep a reasonably clean, well-appointed place for guests to stay. The place, quite frankly, just isn’t up to scratch.
One would expect a hostel billing itself as "luxurious" to have kitchen accommodation that could reasonably provide for the 40+ guests that the hostel could hold at any given point of time. In the case of Montgomery’s, one would be wrong. This picture shows the kitchen in it’s entirety – it has one stove-top range, one functioning microwave, one broken microwave, two tables, a whole lot of dinner plates, and a whopping four bowls for stuff like soup or cereal. And as you can see, it was a considerable squeeze to fit six people in the kitchen at once:
The kitchen is on the first floor of the hostel, and as we mount the stairs to the floors containing the rooms, dorms, and TV/internet lounge, we start to witness the strange phenomenon of drywall holes:
The next stop we shall make on our tour is the TV/internet lounge itself. Mouldy old couches aside, we were rather aghast at the state of the ceiling. The paper, paint, plaster, or whatever the heck is covering the ceiling is bubbling up and flaking off in large areas:
Really large areas.
Next up is the dormitory. Funky smell aside (which I blame on the re-breathed sleep air of twelve people as opposed to negligence on the part of the hostel), I am left wondering what sort of pollutants are near this window, whether the pollutants are a result of interior or exterior air, and whether or not the hostel ever intends on actually cleaning said window:
And now, for the finale: the bathroom. In my option, hostels can be rated almost solely on the cleanliness of the bathroom. Soap and hand drying systems, be they blow-dryers or towels, should be available. Toilets should be properly cleaned. Shower stalls should be properly maintained and relatively free of serious mildew or mould build-up. As you can see, such was not the case:
Here’s a close-up:
The pictures don’t really do the mould justice. It crawled up the wall from the floor to at least chest level, a good five feet for sure. It was also thick. It was thick and furry, like a caterpillar. And the mould wasn’t just limited to that one line of grout – it was on the opposite side of the shower stall and around the grouting of the floor basin. Oh, and the toilets were not properly cleaned. Nor were there ever hand towels or dryers. As for soap, one would be lucky to find one of those tiny bars of soap that hotels leave in their guest suites for complimentary use. Usually, there was no soap at all.
Is it any wonder that Glen came away from the Hobart hostel with a really, really nasty cold? "Luxurious" my ass!
We elected to stay at Montgomery’s. In the YHA advertisements, it had billed itself as being "Hobart's most luxurious YHA" and promised a lively hotel atmosphere that would be good fun and good value for money. The rooms were more expensive than I would have normally liked, but the price of a dorm bed wasn’t too dreadful and I figured that it would be worth the cost due to the hostel’s convenient downtown location. Truthfully, luxury doesn't particularly interest Glen nor I. Cleanliness, on the other hand, does.
The hostel managers evidently feel that convenience of location outstrips the requirements of any good hostel to keep a reasonably clean, well-appointed place for guests to stay. The place, quite frankly, just isn’t up to scratch.
One would expect a hostel billing itself as "luxurious" to have kitchen accommodation that could reasonably provide for the 40+ guests that the hostel could hold at any given point of time. In the case of Montgomery’s, one would be wrong. This picture shows the kitchen in it’s entirety – it has one stove-top range, one functioning microwave, one broken microwave, two tables, a whole lot of dinner plates, and a whopping four bowls for stuff like soup or cereal. And as you can see, it was a considerable squeeze to fit six people in the kitchen at once:
The kitchen is on the first floor of the hostel, and as we mount the stairs to the floors containing the rooms, dorms, and TV/internet lounge, we start to witness the strange phenomenon of drywall holes:
The next stop we shall make on our tour is the TV/internet lounge itself. Mouldy old couches aside, we were rather aghast at the state of the ceiling. The paper, paint, plaster, or whatever the heck is covering the ceiling is bubbling up and flaking off in large areas:
Really large areas.
Next up is the dormitory. Funky smell aside (which I blame on the re-breathed sleep air of twelve people as opposed to negligence on the part of the hostel), I am left wondering what sort of pollutants are near this window, whether the pollutants are a result of interior or exterior air, and whether or not the hostel ever intends on actually cleaning said window:
And now, for the finale: the bathroom. In my option, hostels can be rated almost solely on the cleanliness of the bathroom. Soap and hand drying systems, be they blow-dryers or towels, should be available. Toilets should be properly cleaned. Shower stalls should be properly maintained and relatively free of serious mildew or mould build-up. As you can see, such was not the case:
Here’s a close-up:
The pictures don’t really do the mould justice. It crawled up the wall from the floor to at least chest level, a good five feet for sure. It was also thick. It was thick and furry, like a caterpillar. And the mould wasn’t just limited to that one line of grout – it was on the opposite side of the shower stall and around the grouting of the floor basin. Oh, and the toilets were not properly cleaned. Nor were there ever hand towels or dryers. As for soap, one would be lucky to find one of those tiny bars of soap that hotels leave in their guest suites for complimentary use. Usually, there was no soap at all.
Is it any wonder that Glen came away from the Hobart hostel with a really, really nasty cold? "Luxurious" my ass!
Launceston, Devonport, and beyond
After our tour had ended, we found ourselves with about four days to kill before heading from Tasmania back to Melbourne. To be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot we felt like doing in Launceston. It is a cute little city, with a few nice areas to walk and some interesting shopping districts, but we were feeling somewhat frustrated by our lack of transportation options. After two days in Launceston, we headed up to Devonport, where we would be catching the Spirit of Tasmania overnight ferry back to the mainland.
The day we left was, like most days in Launceston, raining steadily. The rain did bring about some form of amusement, however, as it heralded the apparition of a rare and noble creature, namely the Humpbacked Glen:
Devonport was similarly a pretty but somewhat dull pace to visit. There are beaches, but I would frankly recommend staying away from them. If the warning signs speak the truth, the Devonport beaches are out to kill you:
I think that the many days of non-stop driving and touring was finally getting to us, and we were wanting to be able to kick back and shut our heads off for a little bit. Happily, our Devonport hostel was completely devoid of other visitors save us, and we found an unsecured wireless connection in our room. As our room was a private double bed with the luxury of its own sink and television, we basked in the relative glory of our newfound electronic access and did little more than sit around, go out for groceries, cook and eat for two days. We did take some walks here and there, but there wasn’t much around to really grab our attention. The fact that Glen was in the throes of a nasty cold he picked up in Hobart didn’t exactly help our energy level either.
The Spirit of Tasmania voyage was quite lovely. We had gone with the budget-friendly option of ocean-view recliners that were on a promotional sale, and enjoyed a nice on-board dinner (the first nice dinner out we’ve taken since arriving in Australia), a shared bottle of wine, and an evening screening of Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix. As a result of entirely too much rich risotto, too much wine, and a very choppy sea, my night’s sleep was redolent with dreams of being seasick and throwing up overboard. Happily, such nastiness didn’t actually occur in real life, but it did make for an, uh, interesting night. Glen, on the other hand, slept like a rock.
The day we left was, like most days in Launceston, raining steadily. The rain did bring about some form of amusement, however, as it heralded the apparition of a rare and noble creature, namely the Humpbacked Glen:
Devonport was similarly a pretty but somewhat dull pace to visit. There are beaches, but I would frankly recommend staying away from them. If the warning signs speak the truth, the Devonport beaches are out to kill you:
I think that the many days of non-stop driving and touring was finally getting to us, and we were wanting to be able to kick back and shut our heads off for a little bit. Happily, our Devonport hostel was completely devoid of other visitors save us, and we found an unsecured wireless connection in our room. As our room was a private double bed with the luxury of its own sink and television, we basked in the relative glory of our newfound electronic access and did little more than sit around, go out for groceries, cook and eat for two days. We did take some walks here and there, but there wasn’t much around to really grab our attention. The fact that Glen was in the throes of a nasty cold he picked up in Hobart didn’t exactly help our energy level either.
The Spirit of Tasmania voyage was quite lovely. We had gone with the budget-friendly option of ocean-view recliners that were on a promotional sale, and enjoyed a nice on-board dinner (the first nice dinner out we’ve taken since arriving in Australia), a shared bottle of wine, and an evening screening of Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix. As a result of entirely too much rich risotto, too much wine, and a very choppy sea, my night’s sleep was redolent with dreams of being seasick and throwing up overboard. Happily, such nastiness didn’t actually occur in real life, but it did make for an, uh, interesting night. Glen, on the other hand, slept like a rock.
The Grand Tour, Part III
The third day involved a transfer to a different tour company and a drive up to Cradle Mountain. Cradle Mountain is a much scrubbier, rougher place than the rest of Tasmania, or at least the rest of the areas that we had seen. It’s fairly similar in nature to the Rocky Mountains around the Jasper area, although Cradle Mountain is covered in these weird patchy clumps of grass called "Button Grass".
Cradle Mountain is also covered in wombats. We probably saw over a dozen wombats foraging around, much to the delight of one of the families on our tour group. They were obsessed with wombats, and were inevitably the first ones to see one waddling around. During the tour, the family encountered a wombat on a walking path, and as the daughter was standing very still, taking a video, it waddled up to her and gave her leg a bit of a taste. The family was ecstatic at this – the wombat didn’t bite, per say, as it didn’t puncture jeans or skin and just left her with a bit of a bruise. They got it on video and couldn’t stop talking about the wombat love bite. They decided that their daughter would become "wombie girl", and when the tour guide took them to the ranger station to have the bite looked at, the rangers had a good laugh at the incident.
On our way back to Launceston, the bus driver suggested we go past a farm cheese factory and have a look at their farm gate store. There would be many samples to try, and for those who don’t like cheese, there would be many varieties of honey to taste. So we stopped at the Ashgrove Cheese farm and stepped off the bus and into a sticky, cheesy heaven. As the farm operates their own dairy and honey production, everything was as fresh as you could possibly hope for.
There were about ten varieties of cheese produced on that farm, eight varieties of honey, homemade ice cream, and oodles of wines and meads. Glen and I bought two bottles of braggot (mead ale) to try. In addition to the mead, we picked up two different kinds of cheese and a bottle of strawberry wine. It was a dangerous, dangerous place to be in, and now I shall regale you with photos in order to make you, dear reader, wildly jealous. I give you:
The cheese wall!
The honey stand!
The wine wall!
Personally, I think we held off reasonably well, only coming away with two small bottles of mead, one small bottle of strawberry wine, and two kinds of cheese. That would be the sort of place to visit if you were looking to put together the best Christmas stocking ever, because they had sample size variety packs of everything and the prices were extremely reasonable. Like I said: it was a dangerous, if delicious, place to visit.
Ah, and for the curious among you, the cheeses we bought were both Lancashire, regular and smoked.
Cradle Mountain is also covered in wombats. We probably saw over a dozen wombats foraging around, much to the delight of one of the families on our tour group. They were obsessed with wombats, and were inevitably the first ones to see one waddling around. During the tour, the family encountered a wombat on a walking path, and as the daughter was standing very still, taking a video, it waddled up to her and gave her leg a bit of a taste. The family was ecstatic at this – the wombat didn’t bite, per say, as it didn’t puncture jeans or skin and just left her with a bit of a bruise. They got it on video and couldn’t stop talking about the wombat love bite. They decided that their daughter would become "wombie girl", and when the tour guide took them to the ranger station to have the bite looked at, the rangers had a good laugh at the incident.
On our way back to Launceston, the bus driver suggested we go past a farm cheese factory and have a look at their farm gate store. There would be many samples to try, and for those who don’t like cheese, there would be many varieties of honey to taste. So we stopped at the Ashgrove Cheese farm and stepped off the bus and into a sticky, cheesy heaven. As the farm operates their own dairy and honey production, everything was as fresh as you could possibly hope for.
There were about ten varieties of cheese produced on that farm, eight varieties of honey, homemade ice cream, and oodles of wines and meads. Glen and I bought two bottles of braggot (mead ale) to try. In addition to the mead, we picked up two different kinds of cheese and a bottle of strawberry wine. It was a dangerous, dangerous place to be in, and now I shall regale you with photos in order to make you, dear reader, wildly jealous. I give you:
The cheese wall!
The honey stand!
The wine wall!
Personally, I think we held off reasonably well, only coming away with two small bottles of mead, one small bottle of strawberry wine, and two kinds of cheese. That would be the sort of place to visit if you were looking to put together the best Christmas stocking ever, because they had sample size variety packs of everything and the prices were extremely reasonable. Like I said: it was a dangerous, if delicious, place to visit.
Ah, and for the curious among you, the cheeses we bought were both Lancashire, regular and smoked.
The Grand Tour, Part II: Devil bites
Day two involved a morning trip to a wildlife park and Tasmanian Devil sanctuary. This was yet another place where you have the opportunity hand feed kangaroos and other various wildlife. Glen had it out with a black swan:
It was rather odd how many people in our tour group were nervous about feeding the kangaroos. These suckers were so hand-fed I suspect I could have saddled up one of the males and chucked a four-year-old on its back and it wouldn’t have blinked.
The Tasmanian Devils weren’t part of the hand-feeding extravaganza, of course, as their disposition wouldn’t exactly endear them to accepting nibbly treats out of someone’s outstretched palm. The park did, however, have a couple of hand-raised devils they use as part of a feeding demonstration. The devils, a pair of females named Danger and Delilah, are very fond of their handlers, and lap up any amount of attention he gives them. The handler picks one up so that visitors can give her a pat on the back, and as soon as he scooped up the devil, she chomped down on part of his sleeve, closed her eyes, and went blissfully limp. The other devil, meanwhile, had chomped down on his pant cuff and was dragged around the enclosure as the handler made his way among the visitors. Apparently the devils latch on to the handler’s clothes as a sort of happy/security gesture, as they would similarly latch on to their mothers in the wild. It’s a bit like a cat kneading a cushion (or belly, or whatever). And it’s darn cute:
The rest of the day was spent driving to more lovely locations, namely the Bay of Fires and a couple of spectacular waterfalls. There was pastoral countryside and dairy farms galore, and we ended up in Launceston for the evening.
It was rather odd how many people in our tour group were nervous about feeding the kangaroos. These suckers were so hand-fed I suspect I could have saddled up one of the males and chucked a four-year-old on its back and it wouldn’t have blinked.
The Tasmanian Devils weren’t part of the hand-feeding extravaganza, of course, as their disposition wouldn’t exactly endear them to accepting nibbly treats out of someone’s outstretched palm. The park did, however, have a couple of hand-raised devils they use as part of a feeding demonstration. The devils, a pair of females named Danger and Delilah, are very fond of their handlers, and lap up any amount of attention he gives them. The handler picks one up so that visitors can give her a pat on the back, and as soon as he scooped up the devil, she chomped down on part of his sleeve, closed her eyes, and went blissfully limp. The other devil, meanwhile, had chomped down on his pant cuff and was dragged around the enclosure as the handler made his way among the visitors. Apparently the devils latch on to the handler’s clothes as a sort of happy/security gesture, as they would similarly latch on to their mothers in the wild. It’s a bit like a cat kneading a cushion (or belly, or whatever). And it’s darn cute:
The rest of the day was spent driving to more lovely locations, namely the Bay of Fires and a couple of spectacular waterfalls. There was pastoral countryside and dairy farms galore, and we ended up in Launceston for the evening.
The Grand Tour, Part I: Ovens and cracks
Our grand solution to the "how on earth do we get around Tasmania" question was to sign up for a tour that would take us from Hobart to Devonport. About four days after we landed in Hobart, Glen and I left our manky hostel and hopped on the tour bus, along with the American girl we had met (she decided to take the same tour as us after we told her about the itinerary).
The tour was, as I suspect all tours are, a whirlwind exposure to a few of the tourist highlights in that part of the state. We boarded the bus, hopped off at a couple stops, boarded the bus again, stopped at a hostel, slept, boarded the bus, and so on. It was a good choice for our transportation dilemma, but defiantly reinforced the fact that if you want to make the most of Tasmania, you really do need your own vehicle.
On the first day we made a very brief stop over at the town of Ross. Ross is one of those nauseatingly picturesque towns that you would see in postcards and visit on long weekends for the sole purpose of staying at that adorable little bed-and-breakfast where they have a blind dog and two goats. It was more of a pit-stop than anything else, but oddly enough Ross has a bakery, cleverly known as the Ross Bakery Inn in which most Japanese tourists have a keen interest, as it is one of the sites in the anime movie Kiki’s Delivery Service. I had no idea it was an actual place, but apparently the oven in the bakery is quite a feature in the anime movie.
The exterior of the building in question:
And the interior, including the famous oven. It's difficult to see the workers, but most of the women were wearing what I can only describe as a Scottish tartan "Miss Muffet" costume:
Glen and I indulged in a couple of desserts while we were in the bakery, and shared a Lamington (I think that’s what they call it), which is a sponge cake sort of confection with jam and coconut shavings around the outside, and an absolutely heavenly vanilla slice – perfectly flakey pastry, excellent custard. I shall have to attempt to recreate the vanilla slice when we get back home.
Next we found ourselves heading to Wineglass Bay, a lovely white-sanded, blue-watered bay nestled among a whole pile of other smaller bays. The tour group did a hike up to the main bay lookout point, and the view is indeed picturesque and spectacular.
Even better than the view, however, are the huge cracks in the cliff face around the lookout point. The tour guide pointed them out, so Glen and I scrambled around them for a while.
Pretty cool, eh?
Possibly the event that gained popular interest among our fellow tour groupies was the appearance of a couple of female wallabies, complete with joeys in their pouches, near the Wineglass Bay parking lot. These suckers were so accustomed to visitors and so very, very good at begging for handouts that they would actually allow people to pet them.
Behold the ferocious beast and its spawn!
We spent that night in Bicheno, a small town on a particularly windy harbour. The hostel was freakishly cold, as the wind kept howling right through the exterior wall of our room. Happily, Glen and I had a dorm room to ourselves, which meant that we could squish onto a single twin-sized bed and huddle together for warmth. All newlywed jokes aside, it was necessary to do so to get any sleep. The wind made a hell of a racket, screaming around the outside of the hostel and wailing through trees and boat masts. I could have sworn that there were banshees outside trying to kill us with their howls.
On to the next stop!
(The chair upon which we are lounging is located on the hiking trail to the Wineglass Bay lookout - it is surprisingly comfortable!)
The tour was, as I suspect all tours are, a whirlwind exposure to a few of the tourist highlights in that part of the state. We boarded the bus, hopped off at a couple stops, boarded the bus again, stopped at a hostel, slept, boarded the bus, and so on. It was a good choice for our transportation dilemma, but defiantly reinforced the fact that if you want to make the most of Tasmania, you really do need your own vehicle.
On the first day we made a very brief stop over at the town of Ross. Ross is one of those nauseatingly picturesque towns that you would see in postcards and visit on long weekends for the sole purpose of staying at that adorable little bed-and-breakfast where they have a blind dog and two goats. It was more of a pit-stop than anything else, but oddly enough Ross has a bakery, cleverly known as the Ross Bakery Inn in which most Japanese tourists have a keen interest, as it is one of the sites in the anime movie Kiki’s Delivery Service. I had no idea it was an actual place, but apparently the oven in the bakery is quite a feature in the anime movie.
The exterior of the building in question:
And the interior, including the famous oven. It's difficult to see the workers, but most of the women were wearing what I can only describe as a Scottish tartan "Miss Muffet" costume:
Glen and I indulged in a couple of desserts while we were in the bakery, and shared a Lamington (I think that’s what they call it), which is a sponge cake sort of confection with jam and coconut shavings around the outside, and an absolutely heavenly vanilla slice – perfectly flakey pastry, excellent custard. I shall have to attempt to recreate the vanilla slice when we get back home.
Next we found ourselves heading to Wineglass Bay, a lovely white-sanded, blue-watered bay nestled among a whole pile of other smaller bays. The tour group did a hike up to the main bay lookout point, and the view is indeed picturesque and spectacular.
Even better than the view, however, are the huge cracks in the cliff face around the lookout point. The tour guide pointed them out, so Glen and I scrambled around them for a while.
Pretty cool, eh?
Possibly the event that gained popular interest among our fellow tour groupies was the appearance of a couple of female wallabies, complete with joeys in their pouches, near the Wineglass Bay parking lot. These suckers were so accustomed to visitors and so very, very good at begging for handouts that they would actually allow people to pet them.
Behold the ferocious beast and its spawn!
We spent that night in Bicheno, a small town on a particularly windy harbour. The hostel was freakishly cold, as the wind kept howling right through the exterior wall of our room. Happily, Glen and I had a dorm room to ourselves, which meant that we could squish onto a single twin-sized bed and huddle together for warmth. All newlywed jokes aside, it was necessary to do so to get any sleep. The wind made a hell of a racket, screaming around the outside of the hostel and wailing through trees and boat masts. I could have sworn that there were banshees outside trying to kill us with their howls.
On to the next stop!
(The chair upon which we are lounging is located on the hiking trail to the Wineglass Bay lookout - it is surprisingly comfortable!)
Monday, October 8, 2007
Devil the Convicts
About a 1.5 hour drive away from Hobart is the Port Arthur Historic Site. Port Arthur was one of Australia’s more notorious convict camps. The history is broad and very interesting, the website that this post references has loads of info that you can read. There were lots of ruins to wander around, and lots of restored buildings and exhibits to explore.
Originally, Port Arthur wasn’t on our list of things to visit. For some weird reason the tour company we were booked with had to remove the Port Arthur leg of the tour from the itinerary. One of the girls in our dorm room, however, had rented a car and was heading to Port Arthur with a different girl in our dorm room. Snapping up an opportunity to tag along with them, we joined the American girl and the Aussie girl (who
had rented the car) and went to Port Arthur.
This is the ruin of the old flour mill / prisoner dormitory. There is a great deal to see there, but this is one of the more dramatic shots.
The cheery fellow photographed below stands in one of the interpretive exhibits at the Port Arthur visitor's centre. Glen took a liking to him.
"PULL MY FINGER."
We had a great time there, both on the visit to the camp and on the hour long detour we took we took on the way back to Hobart when we missed the correct highway turn-off. It was defiantly a good side trip to take; I’m quite glad we met up with those two girls and was able to pal along with them.
Originally, Port Arthur wasn’t on our list of things to visit. For some weird reason the tour company we were booked with had to remove the Port Arthur leg of the tour from the itinerary. One of the girls in our dorm room, however, had rented a car and was heading to Port Arthur with a different girl in our dorm room. Snapping up an opportunity to tag along with them, we joined the American girl and the Aussie girl (who
had rented the car) and went to Port Arthur.
This is the ruin of the old flour mill / prisoner dormitory. There is a great deal to see there, but this is one of the more dramatic shots.
The cheery fellow photographed below stands in one of the interpretive exhibits at the Port Arthur visitor's centre. Glen took a liking to him.
"PULL MY FINGER."
We had a great time there, both on the visit to the camp and on the hour long detour we took we took on the way back to Hobart when we missed the correct highway turn-off. It was defiantly a good side trip to take; I’m quite glad we met up with those two girls and was able to pal along with them.
Devil the City
Tasmania is very, very, very pretty. Tasmania is also very, very, very windy and astonishingly cold. The chilly weather shouldn’t come as such a surprise, considering the state’s proximity to Antarctica. Still, when we arrived in Hobart, the blast of cold wind that met us upon leaving the airport just about left us breathless. We would come to learn that the wind is relentless and, similar to houses in Melbourne, it would be next to impossible to warm up. Once again the Canadians were left shivering and whimpering, revealing the truly sissy approach we have to being persistently cold.
Our flight landed in Hobart at 10:30 in the evening, and we took the airport shuttle to our hostel, a YHA by the name of Montgomery’s. I willwax poetic crab about the hostel later. Creeping into our 12-person dormitory at nearly midnight, we tiptoed around and went to bed fully dressed to avoid waking everyone up.
In order to make our way around Tasmania we elected to sign on for a multi-day bus tour, as transportation around the state was difficult and expensive. This left us several days in Hobart to tool around and take in the sights. So we wandered and we looked at a very pretty city on a very pretty harbour. Getting blown hither and thither, we explored their shops and landmarks, namely the open-air Elizabeth St. Mall and the Salamanca area.
The Salamanca area is downright fun. There are strange little shops located in alleyways, cafes and polite bars galore, and on Saturday there is a huge open-air farmers market on the main street. One of the cutest places there is The Faerie Shop, a pink-and-purple lined dreamworld for any little girl. There are beads and fairies hanging from the ceiling, a story corner where there are regular story-telling session, costumes everywhere, and anything else that could possibly be related to fairies and fantasy. It is adorable, tiny, and will leave you with a sugar-induced toothache.
Another primary attraction of Hobart is the Cadbury chocolate factory (actually located in nearby Clairmont). People at the hostel were freaking out about the Cadbury factory, people at the tourist information shop were freaking out about the Cadbury factory. Touring the Cadbury factory would have cost over $40 for the two of us, and we really couldn’t justify that cost to go and inspect vats of waxy cheap chocolate. In case you have never encountered Cadbury’s chocolate, it’s pretty typical of all cheap "chocolate" candy available in any store you walk into. So we didn’t bother going. The fact that all tours of the factory were booked up for the next two weeks also might have affected our decision.
In the evening, we had a beer in the karaoke bar located smack underneath our hostel dorm room. As the howling coming from below didn’t allow for any sleep whatsoever, we figured we may as well check it out. Good fun, but not really our thing. It was still awfully amusing to watch the drunks stagger around, spill their drinks, and howl at top volume into the microphone.
Our flight landed in Hobart at 10:30 in the evening, and we took the airport shuttle to our hostel, a YHA by the name of Montgomery’s. I will
In order to make our way around Tasmania we elected to sign on for a multi-day bus tour, as transportation around the state was difficult and expensive. This left us several days in Hobart to tool around and take in the sights. So we wandered and we looked at a very pretty city on a very pretty harbour. Getting blown hither and thither, we explored their shops and landmarks, namely the open-air Elizabeth St. Mall and the Salamanca area.
The Salamanca area is downright fun. There are strange little shops located in alleyways, cafes and polite bars galore, and on Saturday there is a huge open-air farmers market on the main street. One of the cutest places there is The Faerie Shop, a pink-and-purple lined dreamworld for any little girl. There are beads and fairies hanging from the ceiling, a story corner where there are regular story-telling session, costumes everywhere, and anything else that could possibly be related to fairies and fantasy. It is adorable, tiny, and will leave you with a sugar-induced toothache.
Another primary attraction of Hobart is the Cadbury chocolate factory (actually located in nearby Clairmont). People at the hostel were freaking out about the Cadbury factory, people at the tourist information shop were freaking out about the Cadbury factory. Touring the Cadbury factory would have cost over $40 for the two of us, and we really couldn’t justify that cost to go and inspect vats of waxy cheap chocolate. In case you have never encountered Cadbury’s chocolate, it’s pretty typical of all cheap "chocolate" candy available in any store you walk into. So we didn’t bother going. The fact that all tours of the factory were booked up for the next two weeks also might have affected our decision.
In the evening, we had a beer in the karaoke bar located smack underneath our hostel dorm room. As the howling coming from below didn’t allow for any sleep whatsoever, we figured we may as well check it out. Good fun, but not really our thing. It was still awfully amusing to watch the drunks stagger around, spill their drinks, and howl at top volume into the microphone.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Devil the Planning
Next up comes Tasmania. Mel and Damien played kind host to us the evening we returned to Melbourne from the Grampians, and the next evening we hopped onto a last-minute flight for Hobart, Tasmania.
Oddly enough, not a single part of our entire trip – from getting passports and visas and vaccinations to deciding where and when to go – was as big of a pain in the ass as figuring out the Tasmania leg of our voyage. It started off in trying to figure out how we were going to get down there. We wanted to take the Spirit of Tasmania ferry from Melbourne to Devonport, as it is an all-night sailing and would make for a more interesting trip than just flying (plus, we would have sleeping quarters, namely ocean view recliners, and our accommodation for the evening would thus be taken care of). The regular priced tickets for the ferry are quite pricey, but they had a spring sale on which reduced the cost by 40%, placing the tickets into approximately the same price range as a flight, with the added bonus of including our place-of-sleep. Unfortunately the seat sale only applied to a certain number of seats on the boat. Once the sale seats had all been bought out, the other remaining seats could only be purchased at full price. The only sale seats yet unpurchased weren’t available until a sail date of a week and a half later. We decided to investigate how long we wanted to stay in Tasmania, and would call the ferry back to reserve seats when we decided on a return date.
After getting frustrated with the ferry seats, it came time to be frustrated with methods of transportation around Tasmania in general. Our original plan was to focus entirely on the more rural northern parts of the state, as we liked the look and price of the hostels there. Needing to fly in instead of taking the ferry, we now had to include the state capital Hobart into our plans. Hobart is one of the most southerly cities in the state, so we would need to figure out how to get up to the northern port town of Devonport if we wanted to take the ferry back to Melbourne.
We looked into renting a car, but that would have completely blown our budget for the following two weeks and then some. Besides, we still aren’t too terribly accustomed to the whole left-hand-driving thing to want to spend our time white-knuckling a steering wheel on the tiny, winding rural roads of Tasmania. Of course, we immediately thought that we would leave it up to public transport, as we had done in Victoria. After being thoroughly spoiled by the Victoria state public transportation system, we figured that most placed in Australia would have good, expedient, reliable, and reasonably priced train/bus systems. Such is not the case; Tasmania’s busses are nearly all privately owned and operate on strange schedules, incomprehensible routes, and pricey tickets. Plus, we would still need to figure out where we would be sleeping during the evening.
With much hemming and hawing, we took the advice of a YHA hostel travel agent and booked ourselves in for a multi-day bus tour. We wanted a tour that would take us in one direction from Hobart to Devonport. YHA recommended the Under Down Under tour company, and we found a four day tour that would take us to various highlights along Tassie’s east coast. It sounded good and the price, while more than we had intended to spend while in Tasmania, was as reasonable as we could expect. We asked the YHA agent to book it for us. He called back and stated that the first day of the tour was, for some indefinable reason, ‘unavailable’. So we could either do the two day tour or the five day tour. We felt that the two day tour was entirely too short to make it worth our while, and the five day tour was on a loop circuit that would bring us right back to Hobart, and therefore was no good. The YHA agent called the tour company back and managed to dicker them into giving us a three day tour, wherein the first day’s trip would simply be wiped off the agenda. Good enough. The tour would end in Launceston, which is about 100 km south of Devonport. The tour circuit, however, indicated that we would pass through Devonport on our way back to Launceston, so we hoped that we would be able to ask the driver to simply drop us off in Devonport, and therefore avoid the hassle and expense of yet another bus ticket.
All that rot being settled, we needed to book our passage from Devonport back to Melbourne. A quick call to the ferry company and we secured our sale seats on the first available date. Tasmania was rapidly becoming the most expensive leg of our trip, so we decided to stay just the 10 days we needed to in order to see what we wanted instead of the two-plus weeks we had originally intended on spending there. We would need to bum around Launceston or Devonport for four additional days between the end of our bus tour and the departure of our ferry, but we figure we can keep ourselves amused for that length of time.
It took us about four or straight hours of calling, investigating, and bartering to get all this figured out. Thanks to our new friends’ kindness of letting us stay at their house and use their telephone and internet, it actually got done. Otherwise, I doubt we would have been able to figure out Tasmania at all. But we have our flight, we have our tour and transportation, we have places to stay, and we have our boat ride back to Melbourne (which seems to have become our launching pad for Australian adventuring). It all got done in the end.
Oddly enough, not a single part of our entire trip – from getting passports and visas and vaccinations to deciding where and when to go – was as big of a pain in the ass as figuring out the Tasmania leg of our voyage. It started off in trying to figure out how we were going to get down there. We wanted to take the Spirit of Tasmania ferry from Melbourne to Devonport, as it is an all-night sailing and would make for a more interesting trip than just flying (plus, we would have sleeping quarters, namely ocean view recliners, and our accommodation for the evening would thus be taken care of). The regular priced tickets for the ferry are quite pricey, but they had a spring sale on which reduced the cost by 40%, placing the tickets into approximately the same price range as a flight, with the added bonus of including our place-of-sleep. Unfortunately the seat sale only applied to a certain number of seats on the boat. Once the sale seats had all been bought out, the other remaining seats could only be purchased at full price. The only sale seats yet unpurchased weren’t available until a sail date of a week and a half later. We decided to investigate how long we wanted to stay in Tasmania, and would call the ferry back to reserve seats when we decided on a return date.
After getting frustrated with the ferry seats, it came time to be frustrated with methods of transportation around Tasmania in general. Our original plan was to focus entirely on the more rural northern parts of the state, as we liked the look and price of the hostels there. Needing to fly in instead of taking the ferry, we now had to include the state capital Hobart into our plans. Hobart is one of the most southerly cities in the state, so we would need to figure out how to get up to the northern port town of Devonport if we wanted to take the ferry back to Melbourne.
We looked into renting a car, but that would have completely blown our budget for the following two weeks and then some. Besides, we still aren’t too terribly accustomed to the whole left-hand-driving thing to want to spend our time white-knuckling a steering wheel on the tiny, winding rural roads of Tasmania. Of course, we immediately thought that we would leave it up to public transport, as we had done in Victoria. After being thoroughly spoiled by the Victoria state public transportation system, we figured that most placed in Australia would have good, expedient, reliable, and reasonably priced train/bus systems. Such is not the case; Tasmania’s busses are nearly all privately owned and operate on strange schedules, incomprehensible routes, and pricey tickets. Plus, we would still need to figure out where we would be sleeping during the evening.
With much hemming and hawing, we took the advice of a YHA hostel travel agent and booked ourselves in for a multi-day bus tour. We wanted a tour that would take us in one direction from Hobart to Devonport. YHA recommended the Under Down Under tour company, and we found a four day tour that would take us to various highlights along Tassie’s east coast. It sounded good and the price, while more than we had intended to spend while in Tasmania, was as reasonable as we could expect. We asked the YHA agent to book it for us. He called back and stated that the first day of the tour was, for some indefinable reason, ‘unavailable’. So we could either do the two day tour or the five day tour. We felt that the two day tour was entirely too short to make it worth our while, and the five day tour was on a loop circuit that would bring us right back to Hobart, and therefore was no good. The YHA agent called the tour company back and managed to dicker them into giving us a three day tour, wherein the first day’s trip would simply be wiped off the agenda. Good enough. The tour would end in Launceston, which is about 100 km south of Devonport. The tour circuit, however, indicated that we would pass through Devonport on our way back to Launceston, so we hoped that we would be able to ask the driver to simply drop us off in Devonport, and therefore avoid the hassle and expense of yet another bus ticket.
All that rot being settled, we needed to book our passage from Devonport back to Melbourne. A quick call to the ferry company and we secured our sale seats on the first available date. Tasmania was rapidly becoming the most expensive leg of our trip, so we decided to stay just the 10 days we needed to in order to see what we wanted instead of the two-plus weeks we had originally intended on spending there. We would need to bum around Launceston or Devonport for four additional days between the end of our bus tour and the departure of our ferry, but we figure we can keep ourselves amused for that length of time.
It took us about four or straight hours of calling, investigating, and bartering to get all this figured out. Thanks to our new friends’ kindness of letting us stay at their house and use their telephone and internet, it actually got done. Otherwise, I doubt we would have been able to figure out Tasmania at all. But we have our flight, we have our tour and transportation, we have places to stay, and we have our boat ride back to Melbourne (which seems to have become our launching pad for Australian adventuring). It all got done in the end.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Neil!
We have encountered a hiccough in the perfection of the Grampians YHA Eco-Hostel, and it comes in the package of Neil. Neil has come to embody every irritating characteristic a hosteller can possess.
It all began with the free food cupboard. There are usually such cupboards in hostel kitchens, where guests who are leaving can abandon leftover food that they do not wish to carry to their next destination. Glen and I avail ourselves fairly regularly of the free food cupboards. We’ve had pretty good pickings – peanut butter (which is a rather expensive commodity here), bread, pasta, pasta sauce, milk, butter, seasonings, etc. It has become a habit of ours to check the free food cupboards before every meal, we take what we need for that meal (and only that meal) and leave the rest for others who need it.
The free food cupboard at this hostel had a few goldmine items appear in it one morning. There was a nearly whole loaf of rye bread, a nearly full bottle of canola cooking oil, a full bottle of mango soda type beverage, and chicken bouillon cubes. We were planning on using some of these supplies, particularly the canola oil, as everything we’ve been cooking has been cooked in butter and proper cooking oil would be a nice change. The bottle was practically unused, so we figured that it would take people quite a few days to get through it all. You can imagine our surprise, therefore, when the bottle went missing.
The disappearance of the loaf of bread was to be expected – get a few people making a couple pieces of toast each and presto, a loaf disappears. Nor were we shocked at the missing bottle of mango soda; get a few people having a glass or two each, and presto, a bottle of pop disappears. The bouillon cubes were a little odd, as we couldn’t think who could consume seven bouillon cubes in one meal. But the bottle of canola oil, well that was just plain odd.
Early next morning, I noticed that the loaf of bread and bottle of oil hadn’t simply vanished, they had migrated. To a different cupboard. To Neil’s cupboard. How did I know that it was Neil’s cupboard? Why, because the little turd had re-labelled the bread and oil. A quick inspection of one of the fridges revealed that he has also re-labelled the mango pop. While I couldn’t locate the chicken bouillon, I suspect that he had similarly nabbed that as well.
It isn’t the fact that someone else had dared used the food that irked us, it was that he had the nerve to re-label something that he hadn’t even used yet. It defies the definition of the communal free food cupboard. Communal food is supposed to be available to whoever needs it at that time. Take what you need for that meal, and leave the rest: that it how it works.
A few days later, Neil’s food cupboard was empty, and the loaf of bread (unused) and the bottle of canola oil (unused) re-appeared in the free food cupboard. Neil had vacated the premises and left behind food he nicked and then didn’t even have the courtesy to use! I could see the bread – had he used it. But the bottle of canola oil completely flabbergasts me. If he didn’t think he could get through an entire bottle of cooking oil in a few short days, why did he feel it necessary to re-label the blasted thing?
There was another item missing from the hostel that morning – the contents of the sugar canisters. There were two reasonably large sugar canisters that sat at the tea stations (the hostel had two honour-system tea stations: $0.20 per cup, and sugar was available). Both canisters were empty, but Glen and I assumed that they had run low the night before. We thought nothing of it at the time and set about getting our breakfast.
Shortly after we started breakfast, one of the hostel managers seemed a bit flustered. They were short handed that morning; being without a housekeeper at the moment, they’ve had some hostellers helping out with the housework in exchange for their accommodation. One of the people helping, who had done housework in trade for accommodation with them in the past, just picked up and left that morning for a different job. “So now Neil’s gone,” he told us.
Neil!
Then he noticed the empty canisters of sugar. His wife came in and also noticed the empty canisters of sugar. That’s odd, they mused, because they had filled them the night before. Apparently sugar, along with teaspoons, tea bags, and instant coffee, is one of the most common items nicked from hostels. But why would someone take the equivalent of about a kilo of plain sugar? And who took it?
I can tell you who Glen and I suspect.
NEIL!
So henceforth, should we come across some hosteller who behaves in a thoroughly annoying manner that flouts conventions of hostel etiquette, he or she shall be dubbed Neil.
It all began with the free food cupboard. There are usually such cupboards in hostel kitchens, where guests who are leaving can abandon leftover food that they do not wish to carry to their next destination. Glen and I avail ourselves fairly regularly of the free food cupboards. We’ve had pretty good pickings – peanut butter (which is a rather expensive commodity here), bread, pasta, pasta sauce, milk, butter, seasonings, etc. It has become a habit of ours to check the free food cupboards before every meal, we take what we need for that meal (and only that meal) and leave the rest for others who need it.
The free food cupboard at this hostel had a few goldmine items appear in it one morning. There was a nearly whole loaf of rye bread, a nearly full bottle of canola cooking oil, a full bottle of mango soda type beverage, and chicken bouillon cubes. We were planning on using some of these supplies, particularly the canola oil, as everything we’ve been cooking has been cooked in butter and proper cooking oil would be a nice change. The bottle was practically unused, so we figured that it would take people quite a few days to get through it all. You can imagine our surprise, therefore, when the bottle went missing.
The disappearance of the loaf of bread was to be expected – get a few people making a couple pieces of toast each and presto, a loaf disappears. Nor were we shocked at the missing bottle of mango soda; get a few people having a glass or two each, and presto, a bottle of pop disappears. The bouillon cubes were a little odd, as we couldn’t think who could consume seven bouillon cubes in one meal. But the bottle of canola oil, well that was just plain odd.
Early next morning, I noticed that the loaf of bread and bottle of oil hadn’t simply vanished, they had migrated. To a different cupboard. To Neil’s cupboard. How did I know that it was Neil’s cupboard? Why, because the little turd had re-labelled the bread and oil. A quick inspection of one of the fridges revealed that he has also re-labelled the mango pop. While I couldn’t locate the chicken bouillon, I suspect that he had similarly nabbed that as well.
It isn’t the fact that someone else had dared used the food that irked us, it was that he had the nerve to re-label something that he hadn’t even used yet. It defies the definition of the communal free food cupboard. Communal food is supposed to be available to whoever needs it at that time. Take what you need for that meal, and leave the rest: that it how it works.
A few days later, Neil’s food cupboard was empty, and the loaf of bread (unused) and the bottle of canola oil (unused) re-appeared in the free food cupboard. Neil had vacated the premises and left behind food he nicked and then didn’t even have the courtesy to use! I could see the bread – had he used it. But the bottle of canola oil completely flabbergasts me. If he didn’t think he could get through an entire bottle of cooking oil in a few short days, why did he feel it necessary to re-label the blasted thing?
There was another item missing from the hostel that morning – the contents of the sugar canisters. There were two reasonably large sugar canisters that sat at the tea stations (the hostel had two honour-system tea stations: $0.20 per cup, and sugar was available). Both canisters were empty, but Glen and I assumed that they had run low the night before. We thought nothing of it at the time and set about getting our breakfast.
Shortly after we started breakfast, one of the hostel managers seemed a bit flustered. They were short handed that morning; being without a housekeeper at the moment, they’ve had some hostellers helping out with the housework in exchange for their accommodation. One of the people helping, who had done housework in trade for accommodation with them in the past, just picked up and left that morning for a different job. “So now Neil’s gone,” he told us.
Neil!
Then he noticed the empty canisters of sugar. His wife came in and also noticed the empty canisters of sugar. That’s odd, they mused, because they had filled them the night before. Apparently sugar, along with teaspoons, tea bags, and instant coffee, is one of the most common items nicked from hostels. But why would someone take the equivalent of about a kilo of plain sugar? And who took it?
I can tell you who Glen and I suspect.
NEIL!
So henceforth, should we come across some hosteller who behaves in a thoroughly annoying manner that flouts conventions of hostel etiquette, he or she shall be dubbed Neil.
La Dolce Vida
We stayed in Hall’s Gap a total of six thoroughly enjoyable and laid-back days. We went on many hikes in the mountains, and saw a great deal of wildlife. In particular, we saw a lot of little black skinks, which like sunning themselves on the warm rocks.
As you can see, they would pose obligingly until we snapped a few pictures.
Glen attempted to stare one down. Eventually, the skink squibbled back into its rock crevasse, and Glen declared victory.
We also crawled around town a great deal, and found Glen Street.
In case you’re wondering, he still hasn’t gotten over the discovery.
Most delightful of all, we managed to make a few friends. There was a very nice girl from Kent, England who came on a very affordable three hour bus tour around some of the remoter areas of the mountains. She was kind enough to get what is quite possibly the most atrocious picture of my arse that shall be captured on this entire trip:
Behold the magnificent Visible Panty Line! I was ducking my head into the bottom pool of the MacKenzie Falls. Our bus tour guide assured me that to do so constituted some form of initiation, so I was the first to stick my head in. Most of our group followed suit. The water wasn’t as cold as I expected!
Glen opted for the spread eagle post when dunking his head:
For the record, MacKenzie Falls looks like this:
To our very great delight, we met a positively wonderful couple who hailed from Melbourne. They were up for a few days of relaxing at the Eco-Hostel, and we met by having them explain how Aussie rules football works while watching one of the semi-finals matches in the hostel TV room. We hit it off and continued hitting it off over several days. Marathon conversation periods that spanned entire afternoons and evenings ensued, fuelled by generously shared wine and lovely nibblies. Our Kent girl joined as well, and I’ll risk sounding overly cheery by saying that we had several merry evenings by the fire in the hostel common-room.
Mel and Damien – the couple in question – invited us to stay with them when we passed back through Melbourne on our way from the Grampians to Tasmania. We took them up on their offer and had another enjoyable evening of excellent company. As we need to pass back through Melbourne again on our way back from Tasmania, we’re hoping to hang out with them some more. I was hoping to make some firm overseas friends on this trip, and I consider it a very good omen that we made such good friends so early into the expedition.
I cannot recommend the Grampians and the YHA Eco-Hostel in Halls Gap enough. If you have the opportunity to visit the region and enjoy both the area and the hostel, it would be well worth your while to do so. The managers are delightful, the hostel is spotlessly clean and eminently comfortable, there is loads to do for people of all athletic abilities; challenging hikes for those who want the exercise, pleasant strolls and guided bus tours for those looking for more gentle activities. The town is a bit pricey, but the hostel is more than reasonable and it is very possible to visit Halls Gap on a modest budget. If all you want is a place to kick up your heels, read a book, and have some really good wine, the Eco-Hostel can provide that too. All in all, it is a great region to visit and a great place to stay. And the friends are a definite bonus!
As you can see, they would pose obligingly until we snapped a few pictures.
Glen attempted to stare one down. Eventually, the skink squibbled back into its rock crevasse, and Glen declared victory.
We also crawled around town a great deal, and found Glen Street.
In case you’re wondering, he still hasn’t gotten over the discovery.
Most delightful of all, we managed to make a few friends. There was a very nice girl from Kent, England who came on a very affordable three hour bus tour around some of the remoter areas of the mountains. She was kind enough to get what is quite possibly the most atrocious picture of my arse that shall be captured on this entire trip:
Behold the magnificent Visible Panty Line! I was ducking my head into the bottom pool of the MacKenzie Falls. Our bus tour guide assured me that to do so constituted some form of initiation, so I was the first to stick my head in. Most of our group followed suit. The water wasn’t as cold as I expected!
Glen opted for the spread eagle post when dunking his head:
For the record, MacKenzie Falls looks like this:
To our very great delight, we met a positively wonderful couple who hailed from Melbourne. They were up for a few days of relaxing at the Eco-Hostel, and we met by having them explain how Aussie rules football works while watching one of the semi-finals matches in the hostel TV room. We hit it off and continued hitting it off over several days. Marathon conversation periods that spanned entire afternoons and evenings ensued, fuelled by generously shared wine and lovely nibblies. Our Kent girl joined as well, and I’ll risk sounding overly cheery by saying that we had several merry evenings by the fire in the hostel common-room.
Mel and Damien – the couple in question – invited us to stay with them when we passed back through Melbourne on our way from the Grampians to Tasmania. We took them up on their offer and had another enjoyable evening of excellent company. As we need to pass back through Melbourne again on our way back from Tasmania, we’re hoping to hang out with them some more. I was hoping to make some firm overseas friends on this trip, and I consider it a very good omen that we made such good friends so early into the expedition.
I cannot recommend the Grampians and the YHA Eco-Hostel in Halls Gap enough. If you have the opportunity to visit the region and enjoy both the area and the hostel, it would be well worth your while to do so. The managers are delightful, the hostel is spotlessly clean and eminently comfortable, there is loads to do for people of all athletic abilities; challenging hikes for those who want the exercise, pleasant strolls and guided bus tours for those looking for more gentle activities. The town is a bit pricey, but the hostel is more than reasonable and it is very possible to visit Halls Gap on a modest budget. If all you want is a place to kick up your heels, read a book, and have some really good wine, the Eco-Hostel can provide that too. All in all, it is a great region to visit and a great place to stay. And the friends are a definite bonus!
Wines and Bones
It seems fitting that the first foray Glen and I made into a taste of la dolce vita (as far as our budget allows) involved a tourist town and a great deal of wine. After getting tired of the bustle of Melbourne we headed out to Halls Gap in the Grampian National Park. We were attracted to that area because the YHA hostel looked beautiful and they had a nice deal where if you booked three nights the third night’s stay is only $10. We hopped on a train and a bus to the hostel and found ourselves in a beautiful little touristy nook in the Grampians at a delightful eco-hostel that boasts its own free-range chickens and is close to a winery.
Here is my best imitation of a chicken:
After harassing the chickens a great deal – they are very tame and will pursue you around the yard if you indicate that you are willing to feed them table scraps – we went off in search of dinner and groceries in the little tourist town. We found both, and paid exorbitant amounts for both. Food in Australia is very expensive in general, and in Halls Gap is even more so, because tourists will fork over just about anything for goods and services. As we were exploring the grocery store, we learned first-hand about Halls Gap’s unpredictable weather, and got stuck waiting in the store for the hail to stop falling.
On the way home, we encountered something very surprising to our North American eyes. We were hoping to see one wild kangaroo on our trip.
We saw a whole lot more than one. That place was hopping (har har har) with the beasties. A few of the ‘roos in the above picture were play-fighting, which was quite interesting to watch. And once we saw that herd, we started seeing them everywhere. They wander freely through Halls Gap, lolling on the hillsides and strolling around the town. I wandered into the hostel kitchen early one morning and found a kangaroo munching the grass about eight feet away from the window, and one evening Glen and I watched as a big male ‘roo sauntered into the hostel courtyard for a look. The big, beefy boy sat around casually scratching himself as Glen and I gawked.
Sit in this kitchen and you'll have many dinners with kangaroos, neon-coloured parrots, cockatoos, and kookaburras:
You need to watch out for the kookaburras, as they are very bold when it comes to food. We were having coffee inside a shop at a little cluster of touristy cafes and shops in town. Outside was a couple eating their lunch on the patio, and a kookaburra. It was waiting on a lamp post, ever so patient and innocent, when it suddenly dive-bombed their plates, flying right over the table at about chest-height. The couple managed to jump back with their sandwiches, but the kookaburra merely flew back onto the lamp post and watched other diners with it's beady, beady eyes.
Our second day (the same morning that I had breakfast with a kangaroo) had us walking to the nearby winery – The Gap Winery - for some booze. We encountered more ‘roos on the way there, although this time they were in a markedly different state. Thinner. More skeletal.
Literally.
There were several kangaroo skeletons littering the side of the rural highway that leads to the winery. There were reasonably intact, too, and had been picked clean by scavenging birds and bleached white in the sun.
Glen got grossed out by a skull
While I got grossed out by some bone I couldn’t possibly begin to identify. At first we thought it might be a pelvis, but that looks way too small and delicate to be a kangaroo pelvis. When we got to the winery we asked the woman running the cellar shop about the skeletons, and she said that a lot of kangaroos get killed on that highway because they jump out in front of cars so suddenly. And if there is going to be a fight between a ‘roo and a car, the car will always win.
The Gap Winery is lovely, highway skeletons and all. We were treated to a free tasting of their wines, and the cellar-sales lady gave us detailed descriptions of the region, the wine, the history of their winery, and other tidbits of info. In addition to the wine, we got to taste some excellent gourmet olive oils. Glen gobbled down the olives (also cultured in the Grampians), and I became quite enamoured with a light olive oil that was infused with basil leaves. We came away from our tasting somewhat light headed and toting two bottles of excellent wine, a pinot gris and a shiraz.
Next stop was a local wildlife park, which has branded itself as being “the friendliest zoo in Australia” and came with heavy recommendations from the lady at The Gap Winery. And indeed it was friendly! It is actually more like a glorified petting zoo, and was all the more fun for it. In addition to the modest entrance fee, we each purchased a bag of animal treats and went off in search of creatures to feed.
We quickly learned that the animals in that zoo were very bold about getting their handfuls of treats. We had the opportunity to feed and pet wallabies and kangaroos galore. The wallabies in particular were insistent food-moochers, and would reach up to grab your hand in order to drag the food closer.
The deer in the zoo were beyond persistent. They’d pursue you through the park in order to get their goodies, and were something of a nuisance. If you didn’t hold the bag of food close to your chest, they’d rip it right out of your hand.
I tried telling them to go away, but they didn’t listen. One especially feisty wallaby would actually punch them in the head if they attempted to interfere with his treat-begging.
The wallabies are so darn cute!
There were other critters in the zoo as well, such as monkeys, emus, dingos, among others. Glen was quite taken by the marmosets, which shared a nice enclosure with several guinea pigs, which were actually bigger than the marmosets. It is my suspicion that the marmosets use the guinea pigs as mounts in much the same manner that humans use horses.
The various fowl running around the zoo grounds were also well aware that human visitors bear treats. This peacock would flare up this spectacular display of tail feathers whenever a human walked by; I think that he’d been rewarded for his displays with treats so often he figured out that it was the best possible manner of begging for goodies.
Or maybe he was just looking for attention, as all males are wont to do.
Here is my best imitation of a chicken:
After harassing the chickens a great deal – they are very tame and will pursue you around the yard if you indicate that you are willing to feed them table scraps – we went off in search of dinner and groceries in the little tourist town. We found both, and paid exorbitant amounts for both. Food in Australia is very expensive in general, and in Halls Gap is even more so, because tourists will fork over just about anything for goods and services. As we were exploring the grocery store, we learned first-hand about Halls Gap’s unpredictable weather, and got stuck waiting in the store for the hail to stop falling.
On the way home, we encountered something very surprising to our North American eyes. We were hoping to see one wild kangaroo on our trip.
We saw a whole lot more than one. That place was hopping (har har har) with the beasties. A few of the ‘roos in the above picture were play-fighting, which was quite interesting to watch. And once we saw that herd, we started seeing them everywhere. They wander freely through Halls Gap, lolling on the hillsides and strolling around the town. I wandered into the hostel kitchen early one morning and found a kangaroo munching the grass about eight feet away from the window, and one evening Glen and I watched as a big male ‘roo sauntered into the hostel courtyard for a look. The big, beefy boy sat around casually scratching himself as Glen and I gawked.
Sit in this kitchen and you'll have many dinners with kangaroos, neon-coloured parrots, cockatoos, and kookaburras:
You need to watch out for the kookaburras, as they are very bold when it comes to food. We were having coffee inside a shop at a little cluster of touristy cafes and shops in town. Outside was a couple eating their lunch on the patio, and a kookaburra. It was waiting on a lamp post, ever so patient and innocent, when it suddenly dive-bombed their plates, flying right over the table at about chest-height. The couple managed to jump back with their sandwiches, but the kookaburra merely flew back onto the lamp post and watched other diners with it's beady, beady eyes.
Our second day (the same morning that I had breakfast with a kangaroo) had us walking to the nearby winery – The Gap Winery - for some booze. We encountered more ‘roos on the way there, although this time they were in a markedly different state. Thinner. More skeletal.
Literally.
There were several kangaroo skeletons littering the side of the rural highway that leads to the winery. There were reasonably intact, too, and had been picked clean by scavenging birds and bleached white in the sun.
Glen got grossed out by a skull
While I got grossed out by some bone I couldn’t possibly begin to identify. At first we thought it might be a pelvis, but that looks way too small and delicate to be a kangaroo pelvis. When we got to the winery we asked the woman running the cellar shop about the skeletons, and she said that a lot of kangaroos get killed on that highway because they jump out in front of cars so suddenly. And if there is going to be a fight between a ‘roo and a car, the car will always win.
The Gap Winery is lovely, highway skeletons and all. We were treated to a free tasting of their wines, and the cellar-sales lady gave us detailed descriptions of the region, the wine, the history of their winery, and other tidbits of info. In addition to the wine, we got to taste some excellent gourmet olive oils. Glen gobbled down the olives (also cultured in the Grampians), and I became quite enamoured with a light olive oil that was infused with basil leaves. We came away from our tasting somewhat light headed and toting two bottles of excellent wine, a pinot gris and a shiraz.
Next stop was a local wildlife park, which has branded itself as being “the friendliest zoo in Australia” and came with heavy recommendations from the lady at The Gap Winery. And indeed it was friendly! It is actually more like a glorified petting zoo, and was all the more fun for it. In addition to the modest entrance fee, we each purchased a bag of animal treats and went off in search of creatures to feed.
We quickly learned that the animals in that zoo were very bold about getting their handfuls of treats. We had the opportunity to feed and pet wallabies and kangaroos galore. The wallabies in particular were insistent food-moochers, and would reach up to grab your hand in order to drag the food closer.
The deer in the zoo were beyond persistent. They’d pursue you through the park in order to get their goodies, and were something of a nuisance. If you didn’t hold the bag of food close to your chest, they’d rip it right out of your hand.
I tried telling them to go away, but they didn’t listen. One especially feisty wallaby would actually punch them in the head if they attempted to interfere with his treat-begging.
The wallabies are so darn cute!
There were other critters in the zoo as well, such as monkeys, emus, dingos, among others. Glen was quite taken by the marmosets, which shared a nice enclosure with several guinea pigs, which were actually bigger than the marmosets. It is my suspicion that the marmosets use the guinea pigs as mounts in much the same manner that humans use horses.
The various fowl running around the zoo grounds were also well aware that human visitors bear treats. This peacock would flare up this spectacular display of tail feathers whenever a human walked by; I think that he’d been rewarded for his displays with treats so often he figured out that it was the best possible manner of begging for goodies.
Or maybe he was just looking for attention, as all males are wont to do.
Melbourne: Final Call
Melbourne worked very nicely indeed for our first stop. It was friendly, convenient, and there was plenty in the downtown core to keep us busy. There were other diversions in addition to the gardens and architecture, of course. There was a great deal of shopping available (which we completely avoided) and nightlife (which we also completely avoided). We did play with living statues living and non-living.
This lady was soliciting coins with carefully and slowly blown kisses to those who deigned to place a coin in her hat.
I am assuming that these gentlemen are anxiously waiting for a bus, so I joined them.
After four days, however, we were ready to move on. If our attention spans with all our locations is as short as was with Melbourne, we’ll be back home by the end of the month. At any rate, we were ready to get out of the city and find something more gentle, more rural, more national-parkey. The YHA hostel where we were bunked had an advert for a lovely looking YHA Eco-hostel at the town of Halls Gap in the Grampians National Park. Mountains and eco-hostels sounded perfect, so we packed up and headed out.
As we needed to travel to the Grampians via train, then bus, then bus again, we started out at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station for our first real taste of travel-by-rail. We liked the station, and we liked travelling by rail even more – it is genteel, soothing, affordable, and generally very pleasant. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to do it some more.
See you there!
This lady was soliciting coins with carefully and slowly blown kisses to those who deigned to place a coin in her hat.
I am assuming that these gentlemen are anxiously waiting for a bus, so I joined them.
After four days, however, we were ready to move on. If our attention spans with all our locations is as short as was with Melbourne, we’ll be back home by the end of the month. At any rate, we were ready to get out of the city and find something more gentle, more rural, more national-parkey. The YHA hostel where we were bunked had an advert for a lovely looking YHA Eco-hostel at the town of Halls Gap in the Grampians National Park. Mountains and eco-hostels sounded perfect, so we packed up and headed out.
As we needed to travel to the Grampians via train, then bus, then bus again, we started out at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station for our first real taste of travel-by-rail. We liked the station, and we liked travelling by rail even more – it is genteel, soothing, affordable, and generally very pleasant. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to do it some more.
See you there!
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