TasMANIA

Tasmania and Iceland - my two favorite places so far. Let's look at some comparisons:

• Island size - 68,400 sq. kilometers / 103,000 sq. kilometers
• Population - 512,000 / 320,000
• People per sq. kilometer - 7.5 / 3.1
• Percentage land held as park or refuge - 5 / 19.9

I think I'm seeing a pattern emerging. I like relatively large islands with low populations, a high percentage of public lands... and unfortunately, high costs of living. Good to know for future relocation searches, although with two new islands on the list already, I don't think I'll need to keep looking for my next place to move when I hit the lottery.

A rainbow at sunrise, what further proof do you need that it's an awesome island?

The Bay of Fires. Don't be fooled by the crystal clear water, it was COLD!

Moonlight on the beach, waiting for the penguins to come ashore. No photos of the penguins themselves though, they apparently are easily blinded by the flash

Like several of my favorite experiences, going to Tasmania was unplanned and a bit of a last-minute decision when I couldn't make the west coast of Australia work within budget and time constraints. I decided to go to Tassie instead because it was supposed to be beautiful (it is), outdoorsy (check), and cooler than the Northern Territory (important at the time since I was tired of sweating my days away in 95+ humidity). Going from Darwin in the Top End to Tassie was like going from the Florida panhandle to Portland (either one) and the change in climate, scenery, and vibe was perfect.

Bay of Fires again, named for the cook fires seen on the shore by the first European explorers

Sunset in Strahan

Wineglass Bay, considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world

The capital city, Hobart, reminds me a bit of a quiet suburb of West Coast city; it's very walkable, with a laid-back college town mood, good restaurants, and the kind of hilly terrain that make for great views and tired calves. I spent about 2 days in Hobart wandering around, enjoying the coastal climate, and planning the best way to see the rest of the island.  Although only 3% of the tourists who visit Australia make it to Tassie, it was still high season when I arrived and for the first time since leaving DC, I encountered some trouble finding available rooms at reasonable rates and open spots on the tours. In the end, I had to create a rather ridiculous itinerary of going from Hobart to the 2nd largest town, Launceston, just to catch a tour that passed through Hobart and ended back in Launceston, and then taking the bus back to Hobart for my flight out to Sydney. Ridiculous, yes, but the bus ride was cheap, the timing worked out perfectly, and in the end I wouldn't have wished it any different.

View from the top of Mt. Wellington, part 1 - looking down on Hobart

View from the top of Mt. Wellington, part 2

A waterfall in west Tasmania

The tour I chose was a 7 night loop of the island that hit all of the major scenic sights, as well as Hobart and several smaller towns. Since it operates on a constant schedule of picking up and dropping off people in Hobart and Launceston, the group changed halfway through the tour, but I feel very lucky in that every one of the 22 or so people I met on the tour were friendly, fun, and interesting to talk to, including the 3 tour guides we had over the week. This is always an important thing when you are cooped up in a van together for hours at time. During the 7 days, the group had members from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, the UK, Australia, Mexico, Colombia, and probably a couple of countries I've forgotten. Typical for most of my traveling in Asia and Australia, I was the only American in the group.

One of my favorite exhibits from the MONA - a shower of illuminated waterdrops that spelled out random words selected from web news sites

Another beautiful, two-step waterfall from western Tasmania

Walking the suspension bridge to the waterfall

If you're planning on visiting Tassie, I'll be happy to tell you all the names of all the towns and natural wonders we stopped at that I loved, but I'll spare you all the details for the blog and just hit the highest of the high points. Although now that I think of it, the highest of the high points is still a pretty long list. I guess I'll start with Hobart since I've already mentioned it, even though it happened in the middle of the tour. The day in Hobart was one-half walking around Mt. Wellington, the mountain that provides spectacular (or spekkie, if you prefer) views of Hobart and the surrounding valley, and one-half walking around the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), which has put Hobart on the international art scene. Both are visually stunning in different ways and it's really fun to start off the morning with some physical exertion and end the afternoon with some mental exertion... and a glass of wine. The MONA is the private collection of a Tassie eccentric millionaire who basically built this amazing, beautiful building just to have a place to display his art (and make a bunch more money, I assume). The collection is huge, inconsistent, and tries too hard to be shocking, but it's also been a while since I've spent four hours in a museum and enjoyed it that much.

Looking down from the suspension bridge

It's pretty rare that I'm able to look up at a waterfall from the base. I know it looks like a river, but it's almost a straight vertical shot up

The beginning of our trail up Cradle Mountain

The rest of the 7-day tour was split between the east and west sides of the island. The highlights of the east side were the Bay of Fires and Wineglass Bay, two world-class beaches that looked more like the Caribbean instead of edging into the polar latitudes, until you got into the water. Even though it was in the high 80s to low 90s most days, the water was probably a brisk 60, which was bearable once you fully got in, mainly because you were working so hard to keep from being knocked down by the hefty waves. A 15 minute swim/body-surfing session was about all I could handle before getting out and basking in the southern summer sun to bring my body temp back up. And if the water was too cool for you, Bay of Fires had some great boulders to scramble around on, and you have to hike downhill for about 40 minutes just to get to Wineglass Bay, so there are several ways to stay occupied.

The view after scrambling up the Henty dunes near Strahan - very bright, very hot

Our guide walking the sand dune - I wish I had thought of taking this photo at the time with me as the subject

The edge of the Henty dune is slowly growing outward and consuming the nearby trees. It's a very strange thing to see the tops of trees sticking out of a sand dune

The west side tour, on the other hand, focused on forests, waterfalls, and hikes than beach life. Every stop had amazing views of the mountain ranges, prehistoric-feeling woodland walks, or little mining towns that had me thinking I was in the American old west (compete with saloons). The west side tends to be a little drier that the east, and since temperatures were pretty steady in the 90s the whole time, ice cream breaks became a daily requirement... sometimes twice daily. Aside from the hike up Cradle Mountain, one of the highlights for me was the Henty sand dunes, which is a strange formation of 70-foot high sand, nowhere near the beach, and slowly eating the forest next to it. The Henty dunes gave me the unexpected opportunity to engage in one of my favorite activities: fighting my way up a sand dune, and then running down it like a maniac. It's so much fun, I even did it twice, even though the climb up the second time was brutal. If you've never run down a sand dune, you don't know what you're missing; I've done it in Colorado, Jordan, California, and now Tasmania.

From the top of our trail on Cradle Mountain

The group taking a well-deserved break at the top of the trail

Looking down at the valley

There were lots of other smaller activities on the tour, and once I was back in Hobart, like visiting a wildlife center and feeding kangaroos and petting baby wallabies, but the other great thing I'll mention about Tasmania is visiting all the small towns scattered around the island. Most of the towns only have a few hundred people in them, and touring around the island meant we stopped in at least two of these (mostly) quaint little villages for lunch and dinner every day. Many of them were founded in the late 18th and early 19th century, and you could almost believe you were suddenly transported to the middle of the English countryside, since they all had pubs, neat little houses with neat little gardens, and streets named after English aristocracy and English towns. Just reading the street and town names is enough to really give you a sense of how much the early colonists must have missed the British Isles.

Feeding the 'roos at the wildlife center

Eating for two

So I was very sorry when my time was up in Tasmania, but I hope to go back again someday and explore more of the beautiful island. It may not be very easy or quick to get to, but it's well worth the effort.

One of my favorite things in the world to do - running down a sand dune!

Speaking Australian, Lesson #1 "Howrya Goin?"

Many people think about learning to speak Australian, but think that it is too different or too difficult to do in their free time. But don't worry, although Australian can sound like a challenging language at times, it actually shares many common elements with English. For example, many Australian words are rooted in everyday English words. Repeat after me:

• Brekkers ("breakfast)
• Spekkie ("spectacular")
• Sunnies ("sunglasses")
• Goodonya ("Well done")
• Bathers ("bathing suit")
• Bikkies ("biscuits", or "cookies")
• Mozzies ("mosquitoes")
• Tassie ("Tasmania")
• Howrya going? ("How are you?")

Now add in some local pronunciation by elongating your vowels and you'll be speaking Australian in no time. Let's put it all together, shall we?

"Howrya going? This sunset is really spekkie, but these bloody mozzies are eatin me up. Howbout we go round the pub instead? Goodonya!"

See? Australian is not such a difficult language at all! To be sure, there are certain cultural elements of Australia that are completely incomprehensible (see: Vegemite, Cricket), but with these quick tips, you'll be enjoying your Australian vacation like a local. Enjoy!

Sunset from the plane. Leaving Bali and heading to Australia!

Magnetic termite mounds in Litchfield National Park, in the Northern Territory. I know they look like gravestones, but they're really termite mounds

There were LOTS of waterfalls in Top End in the monsoon season. This one is in Litchfield

(OK, I kid, but I did enjoy listening to the Aussies take almost any word with more than two syllables, chop it in half, and add "-ie" or "-er" to the end.) So I'm finally getting caught up in photos and posts after nearly 5 weeks in Australia. 5 weeks, by the way, is completely insufficient to see any reasonable chunk of Australia, as I was told on a daily basis by the locals, as well as Europeans who were working or studying there. Here's a quick size comparison just to set the scale.

I started my time in Darwin in the Northern Territory, or "Top End" as it's known, mostly to see Kakadu National Park and the saltwater crocodiles that live there. It was the middle of the monsoon season when I arrived, but I barely saw any rain for the 10 days I was there. Instead it was in the high 90s and about as humid as DC in August... perfect for a camping trip into the swamps, right? Well, generally it was great, although the night in a tent without electricity was a little rough, and the group I toured with was a lot of fun. We celebrated New Year's Eve with wallabies, mozzies, and sparklers, and then promptly went to bed since we had to be up at 5:30am.

A blue-winged Kookaburra

Despite all the warnings, I never saw a snake in Australia, but I did see a lot of very large spiders

But like with scorpions, you don't have to worry about the large ones

Saltwater crocodiles ("salties", of course) were a little hard to find, but we did see a few on a beautiful river cruise, and downstream from one rock pool we were swimming in (oops), so I was able to check off another animal on my world tour. In addition to it's natural beauty, Kakadu National Park is known for its Aboriginal cultural heritage, so we also stopped at several archaeological sites with rock wall art, and a few cultural heritage centers, which was interesting. Just to give the experience a little authenticity, I also tried some "bush tucker", traditional forage food, by eating a few green ants, which have a zingy citrus flavor. But I didn't try grubs, kangaroo, croc, snake, wallaby, or emu - and I saw all but the grubs on menus, so it was an option.

Kakadu rock art of fish good for eating

This rock art contains an early picture of one of the white settlers, in the lower right corner with this hands in his pockets

Rock art of a long-necked turtle, also apparently good to eat

From Darwin, I was planning to go west along the coast to Perth... until I actually worked out how far and expensive that would be. When I found out that it would take me two 24 hour bus rides just to get to the beach town I wanted to visit - only two-thirds of the way to Perth - I decided to reevaluate and head all the way south to Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania (my plane ticket was less than those two bus rides would have been), and it proved to be one of the best decisions of the trip. I'm going to separate Tassie into another post since I have the most photos from there, and it's worth it's own entry. So far, out of everywhere I've been, there are only two places I absolutely, 100%, definitely plan on going back to, and they are Iceland and Tasmania.

Above the rock art, there was an incredible panorama of northern Kakadu

While sitting in an little alcove to hide from the sun, I realized I could get some really interesting photos of the rock overhang. Stone above sky!

Look at this absolutely adorable water bird from Kakadu (a comb crested Jacana). Check out those feet! Great for walking on lilies

After leaving Tassie, I went to Sydney to meet up with my parents, who apparently wanted to see their son badly enough to travel two days straight to get to Australia... or they wanted to see Australia badly enough to spend 11 days with their son. Either is fine with me. After letting them recover from the jet lag, we spent a great few days exploring Sydney, eating a lot of good food, and catching up. I know a lot of Aussies disagree, but I thought Sydney is a great city with a lot to see. It is expensive, but no more so that NYC or San Francisco. That being said, I think the best experience we had was taking a full-day tour out of the city to the Blue Mountains and some of the scenic areas outside the city. 

The biggest (non-stuffed) saltie I saw in Australia

He came right up to the boat in Kakadu and checked us out

At about 5 meters, it was good advice to keep all hands and arms inside the craft at all times

Our major side trip from Sydney was back up north to Port Douglas, where we could go into the last remaining pockets of prehistoric Aussie rainforest, and go out to the Great Barrier Reef. It's hard to say which is the more impressive experience; the Great Barrier Reef is an incredible amount of coral and sea life and it stretches for over 1500 miles, but the Daintree forest is also a magical place where you feel like a dinosaur might walk out of the foliage at any minute. What I find really amazing is that we went almost as far north as you can go without a 4x4 vehicle, and there is still about another 600 miles of coastline until you'd hit the northernmost point, with the Great Barrier Reef hugging it the whole way. Tropical far north Queensland should definitely be on everyone's Australia travel checklist. 

Sunset in Kakadu, on a very peaceful monsoon season day

And no mozzies... yet

I had to have at least one photo of the Opera House, even from a gray day

Since the GBR is so far off shore, there are really only two ways to get to the main sections of the reef: liveaboard dive boats that stay out for a week, and enormous high-speed catamarans that go out with 100+ people. The catamaran was so large and stable that I barely noticed we were moving along, and they do a pretty good job of spoiling you with morning and afternoon tea and a serious buffet lunch. As someone who doesn't like to be on dive boats with more than 8 people if I can avoid it, it was amazing to see the crew process 50 snorkelers, 20 experienced divers, and at least 40 divers who had never been in the water before, at yet somehow make it seem pretty smooth. Once we got into the water, the guides tried to keep the groups out of each other's way, but with that many people in the water, I saw way more people than fish on my two dives.

One of the many, MANY warning signs I saw in Australia. I particularly enjoy the way the Aussies call something that can kill people "stingers". It sounds much milder that way.

Panorama of Tropical Far North Queensland, near the Daintree Forest

World famous Bondi Beach, the only wifi-enabled beach I've ever been to

A very small portion of the Great Barrier Reef

I was scheduled to do three dives, but after the first two and seeing how shallow the coral was, I decided to skip the heavy equipment and just snorkel, which was the right decision. The sheer quantity of coral there is amazing. I've been on some really impressive dives lately where I've seen more healthy coral than I ever have before, but the mountains of coral on the GBR dwarfed the all. Some of the coral mounds were size of houses and it seemed to be in pretty healthy shape, despite the number of divers that get dropped off there daily. However, as several people remarked, there were hardly any fish in sight. I don't know if that was just because of all of the hubbub from the boat, divers, and snorkelers, or if that's normal for the area, but I have had much better dives in terms of variety and quantity of fish.

I got to feed kangaroos and wallabies at several sanctuaries. This is the typical look they give you when you have food

Misty waterfalls in the Blue Mountains

And here's what the blue mountains look like when the mist finally lifts

I love the statement about safety being our concern, but your responsibility - very un-American

After a couple of days back in Sydney taking it easy and getting our quota of fish and chips, meat pies, and ice cream, my parents headed back to the States, and I started planning my next continental stop, Ecuador. But before I start posting pictures of the Andes, quaint traditional villages, and Amazonian rainforests, there will be one last entry from the Eastern hemisphere on Tasmania.

I don't see what the big deal is. The river looks safe to me, right?

A giant clam from the GBR, only about 2 feet across though, barely "giant" at all

Emu is not impressed with my food offering