Tassie.

Tassie is cool. it actually seems pretty small but once you explore it, it’s actually quite big.
Some things about Tassie:

1) One third of the whole thing is national park. And there are twenty two of them through out Tassie.
2) There’s a lot of road kill. (while I was awake in the car, I counted like 90 or sumthin, but most of the time I was sleeping so there’s probably much more.)
3) The cities don’t feel like cities, just country towns with big buildings
4) The roads and signage around here are ridiculous! Seriously. If you miss an exit, (due to the poor signage) you have to travel like another 10 km’s of u turns and stuff just to get there again.
5) While we were at Cradle Mountain Nt Park, Mr. Rudd was there.. o.o
6) While we were at Freycinet Nt Park, He was there also.

Now unless you are seriously bored, read the below.

First day:
Got on the spirit of Tas. Its massive! And pretty nice too. They have everything there, restaurants, a gift shop, amusement centre (arcade etc) lots of kiosks and bars a massive lounge and much more I just probably forgot to mention.

Surprisingly, the bunks weren’t as cramped as I thought it would. It was plenty of room for four. =] (y)

Second day:
Road kill count: 35 :O
Kind of off topic, but when your hand is really cold and put it under warm water, it feels like it’s burning, right? And also when you smack your funny bone, a whole lot of blood rushes right through that arm, right? Well both of them mixed together is NOT good.

You see, I woke up, my hands and feet were cold so I thought I’d put some more clothes on. So I hopped off my bunk and managed to land a hard blow on my funny bone against the metal railing thing.

Ouch.

Then, all of a sudden, a WHOLE HEAP of warm blood rushed through my arm right through to my fingertips.

OMG, IT BURNS!!! D:

So I'm like holding my hand in pain yelling out “ARGH!!“ (2 full seconds after I actually hit the bloody thing) and everyone else in the room are like: “.. ?”

Anyway, so yeh I woke up at 5:00. And managed to do so much! We got off the Spirit of Tas, drove a long way, visited a few national parks, went with a tour group inside a cave that has stalactites and stalagmites, which is totally awesome.

and by then, it was only 11:00am. o.o

So we went to a honey farm shop. Then headed off to the city of Launceston.

Third Day:
Road kill count: 25, still :O
First we went shopping at Launceston, then we visited a lavender farm, called the Bridestowe lavender farm. Which happens to be, the largest lavender farm in the world.
Then we went to Cataract Gorge, First Basin which is a pretty nice place. Mum, Dad and sis went swimming in the outdoor pool. I didn’t want to cos Im not that much of a fan of swimming…
Anyway after, we all went on the chair lift over the basin. Beautiful views (y) :D

Fourth Day:
Road kill count: 8. now that’s much better.
Off to Strahan, a coastal village. On the way, we went to Chicken Feed, the best discount shop ever!!
Bought this Chinese army style hat. Well Dad described it as that.
He told me (in Hakka): “you know that hat, it looks like one of those Chinese army ones.”
Me: “yeh I realised that”
Dad: “when I see you wear this hat, it reminds me of dumb high school dropouts that join the army”
Me: “Oh.. really?”

LOL craaaaaap :/

Moving on..
Dad also pointed something out which I missed all this time, a map we picked up at the info centre is actually made by a company called ‘Wilkins Maps’. :D that’s cool.

Visit us at www.wilmap.com.au

Fifth Day:
Road kill: 2. Much better..
We took this rack and pinion train to Queenstown.
It was a rail built “on the edge of civilisation” to transport gold, silver and copper from Queenstown to the port of Strahan.

Oh and I had my first encounter with a leech! Whoooo…? It didn’t bite me. So I picked it off, and it was cold.. ew.

Sixth Day:
Road kill count: none!
We took a cruise to the Gordon River, and then to Sarah Island, also known as Devil’s Island, cos it was a “penal settlement from hell,” the convicts say. There is this story about the whole island and apparently, the last convicts (before the settlement closed) escaped all the way to Chille.

After the cruise, we watched, a play called “The Ship That Never Was” which explained the story about that boat escape all the way to Chille. It was pretty funny because they had to use random people in the crowd to play parts. It turned out that my Dad(who’s English is not that great) was “John sumthing from the 6th regiment who is half, a mile, away,.. fishing!” LOL :D

At night fall, we watched the Shearwater birds return home. The ranger told us we could legally hunt these animals without a license. :O ew. Anyway, the ranger also said the birds taste like corn beef wrapped in pork fat deep fried in fish oil.

Seventh Day:
Road kill count: 7
On the road to the city of Hobart. 4 hours T.T
On the way, we visited Cradle Mountain National Park. Did a 3 hour walk..

Eight Day:
Road kill count: 2. =]
We went to Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park. :D saw the Tassie devil. Man I love those things. They are the clumsiest carnivores ever man. They can’t even run properly and they can’t hunt. So they scavenge for anything. Mainly road kill, and even other dead Tassie devils too. Anyway they are endangered because of a fast spreading face tumour that spreads when Tassie devils fight and bite each other. (they fight for food you see..) once they have the tumour, they die five months later. Sad =[ but most of the Tassie devils are at the southern and western coasts and the tumour has not yet spread there yet, so that’s good.

We then went to Port Arthur, the main penal settlement of Van Diemen’s Land. We saw some cool buildings and stuff.

Ninth Day:
Road kill count: 8
En Route to Freycinet national Park.

Oh and the water there is yellow. =[

Tenth Day:
Road kill count: 2
All Freycinet Nt Park walks were closed. Due to bad weather. =[
‘not even the prime minister could get in’ LOL

We then went to a seafood farm. Dad ordered muscles, scallps and oysters. And a few raw oysters that Mum and Dad ate. yuk. I'm not a great fan of seafood but Mum Dad and Sis Loved it.

We then went to Bicheno’s Blowhole. There were pretty big waves crashing, and the waves shot up like up to 4 metres!

Eleventh Day:
Road Kill: argh F it. I cbs counting now
We went sea Kayaking, (y)

We then went to wineglass bay lookout. Man, the walk to that is really tiring o.o its 40 mins of stairs..

We then went to the city of Devonport for a night before we went on the spirit of Tassie the next morning.

Twelfth Day:
Home :)