Tassie Road Trip

Phew! Finally a minute to sit down and breathe. Sorry I've been so slack on getting this post up. We got back from our road trip, and I had just enough time to wake up the next morning to go get Mom and Jenny from the airport. No time for computers until now!
Well, the road trip was a blast! We took off on Wed. afternoon around three o'clock and headed up to Queenstown. Erin (from Devonport, a town up north), Naomi (from Japan), Courtney (the Canadian), and I rented a little Nissan and headed out. We made it to Queenstown by about 8 or 9pm and got a really nice hotel room. It was like a full apartment (actually quite a bit larger than the apartment I lived in last year in Iowa City!). We made one-eyed monsters for breakfast before we checked out the train museum and took off for Straun. Courtney had fun stealing clothes from the mannequins, and I was hard at work on the rail road tracks! It was crazy because they didn't have anyone watching over anything in the whole museum; it was just open to the public- no cameras or anything.


Straun was beautiful! It is right on the west coast of Tasmania. We were a little disheartened when the fudge shop was closed, but we went on a small hike, enjoyed a local bakery, and hung out at the saw mill. I thought that was really cool because the guy that was running it had been working there since he was ten years old! The saw he used was over 100 years old, and took about 20 minutes to cut one log (which he cut especially for us).
Next we went to Roseburry for the night. It was a tiny little town (it had two streets coming off the main highway) between Straun and Cradle Mountain where we were planning to hike the next day. We got a little trailer to stay in (and since they don't believe in heating or insulation I woke up every hour with the shakes it was so cold!). We found the local bar which was quite happening... Here we are with the cook at the restaurant behind the bar. She actually bleached her hair every night before bed and re-died it in the morning with different wacky colors. We kicked up the juke box later on and definitely gave the whole town something to talk about for the next few weeks... we got a little wild, but what can you expect from four crazy girls?!

In the morning we loaded up for Cradle Mountain. We saw a place along the way that gave horse back tours around Cradle mountain so we stopped to check them out. The guy told us he'd be back in an hour, but when he got back (we were waiting at our car, eating some lunch- he drove right past us and waved on his way in) he took off with two horses and we didn't get to ride! We were very upset!! But climbing Cradle Mountain was a blast! It was incredibly beautiful, and we were SO lucky! Apparently Cradle mountain only has 50 clear days a year. I guess the mountain is always just covered in clouds (especially in the winter.... which it is now) but there was not a cloud in the sky all day! Oh yes, and Courtney got violently attacked by a crow... or some sort of big black bird. It was actually pretty scary.

So after a great hike we drove up to Devonport where we stayed a couple days at Erin's house. We all snuggled up and had a movie party the first night. We made pancakes in the morning and hung out on the beaches of the northern coast and climbed around on some rocks by the light house. Our second morning in Devonport Naomi made some home made doughnuts (yum!). From there we went to Launceston. That was a fun town! We stopped at the Harley Davidson store (the only one in Tasmania) but the store was closed for the holidays (the Queen's birthday). We were very upset at this, but the guy at the bar said that if we came back in a couple hours the shop manager would come in and we might be able to check out the shop. So Courtney and I dropped Erin and Naomi off in the city and went back. We got lots of Harley paraphernalia and ended up hanging out with Mark (the store manager) and the owner for hours. It was a blast!!
We were planning on heading to Maria Island the next day, but we missed the ferry and came back to Hobart early. Then Mom and Jenny came, and that is a whole other blog!!