Goodbye Townsville--Hello Hobart

Leaving Townsville
Saturday morning was probably the hardest day I ever had my whole time in Australia. I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I didn’t even go to bed until 1:30AM and I had to be up at 5AM. Perhaps I got 45 minutes of sleep total. 5AM I took a shower and called up Miranda and Sameer. Rhona rang me and Dylan was at my door soon after. They all got up to say goodbye. They all had spent the night with me until 12AM too. They are such sweet people. We were headed to the airport by 5:40AM after discarding my garbage and double checking I had everything. As we drove to the airport all I could do was sigh-loud and painful. Sameer tried to crack a few jokes but it was hopeless. I was miserable. I started to cry, but tried to hold it in. When I got out of the car at the airport it just came out. I managed to hold it in while I got my boarding pass. I think the guy behind the counter could tell because when my bag rang up as 27 kilos (23 was the limit) he told me just to pack lighter next time. I was so thankful for this because I had had enough stress already that morning and to have to throw down 32 dollars for my extra weight just was not my idea of fine. We passed through security—Dylan and Sameer were searched for explosives (as every man is at the Townsville airport). Then we sat and waited. I held them all: Sameer was holding one hand Miranda the other, Dylan was leaning on me and Rhona was close at hand. It was so sad, we didn’t even have anything to say. The horribly sad sighs continued. The time came far sooner than I was expecting. We went up to my gate and within 5 minutes nearly everyone had boarded my plane. It was so sad-I barely got to say a proper goodbye to them. And as I ran off I started to cry, looking back at my friends I cried even harder and as I got on the plane I could feel everyone staring at me wondering why on earth I was crying so early in the day. The plane ride sucked I was so bummed about leaving. It was over, soooo so soon.
I first flew into Brisbane, where within 5 minutes I had to board another plane headed to Sydney. Neither flight was long because I was sleeping the whole time. I was almost glad I didn’t sleep the night before because then I could escape the reality of leaving. When I got to Sydney I called Sameer, he was really bummed about me leaving. I also talked to Rhona through texts. Soon enough Noor was at the airport to see me, pick up my luggage and go out for lunch. It was raining in Sydney and it was cold—exactly how I felt inside. To see Noor was really comforting. She was dressed in a bright red coat and had a smile and a hug waiting for me. It was probably the nicest gift I could have asked for that day. We loaded my bags and drove off to a thai restaurant her family typically goes to when near the airport. It was delicious—I even bought some food for that night because I wasn’t sure what Hobart would bring. It turned out I couldn’t even finish my lunch, so I ended up bringing both with me. Afterward we hunted down some deodorant in the rain because mine had exploded in my luggage on the flight there. I didn’t mind much because I really was waiting for an excuse to get back on my normal deodorant (roll on liquid deodorant sucks!). Of course the stuff I got was $4.50 and it was half the size of anything that was worth $4.50. But while in the store Rhona called and it was so nice to hear from her!! She sounded really bummed about me leaving, but still wished me luck on my adventures. I am really going to miss her. Before I left, the night before my last exam, she gave me a necklace. It was the first thing she bought when she first got a job. So it meant a lot to her, and she wanted to give it to me. Its beautiful, it’s a silver leaf.
Anyway after this I headed back with Noor to the airport. It wasn’t too sad because I’ll be seeing her again in two weeks, luckily! I had to wait quite a while for my flight—it ended up leaving at about 4PM rather than 3:30. But I did some real good people watching in the airport. Lots of odd looking people headed for Tasmania! The flight was okay, I think I slept on this one too. When I got there and got off the plane I noticed the drastic change in temperature, as well as latitude. It was pitch black and it was only 530PM! This was a bit depressing and kind of scary, I just feel like everything ends once its dark and I was nervous about how I would find my hostel. After walking into the basically empty airport (and throwing away my orange because of quarantine!) I stood clueless. Then I decided to go outside and see if there was some sort of transportation because I had read somewhere that there was a shuttle bus. I found one—it ended up being 25 bucks for a round trip, which was a hell of a lot better than taking a taxi. I had to wait awhile, so I called Sameer who had called me earlier to see if I had landed. Finally the shuttle bus had enough people to leave. He dropped me off first. I walked up to my hostel and went inside. At first I thought it was closed because the lighting was poor and no one was at the desk. But then this really interesting man came through and opened the reception. He turned out to be quite friendly. He had been expecting me since 4PM I guess this is when I had said I’d be there. He offered me a cheaper room so it ended up being 16 dollar and since I was leaving 6AM the next day I didn’t have to pay the key deposit. I booked another room there for my return after my tour. It was a really cold hostel, but it was quiet and I liked this. There were only two other people in my twelve person room. They both seemed nice. I set up all of my stuff to charge and then heated up my food from lunch. Enjoyed that and then received a phone call from Rhona, Sameer and Dylan who I guess were all sitting in my room thinking about me. It was so sweet, but so sad because there is nothing I can do. And I couldn’t hear them very well so when they were being sentimental I felt really bad that I couldn’t hear. After talking to them I decided it was still early and I should check out Hobart incase I don’t get another chance on my return. The man at the counter had recommended a few grocery stores and also Salamanca. I took a map and headed in that direction. I ended up finding it—all of Hobart is probably a 20 minute walk. So this was nice. It was quite a pretty place, you can definitely tell it is winter here. They have bare trees and you can see your breath when you breathe. I took a bunch of pictures-shops, water fountains, parks and the harbor -and when I was pretty sure I had seen everything I headed back to the hostel. I managed to find my way back without looking at a map. I got back and basically got all set for the next day. I was in bed by exactly 10PM. I was really glad of this because it meant I would at least be getting 7.5 hours of sleep. Amazing compared to my 5 hours total from the previous two nights.
At 5:40AM my alarm went off and I got up and took a shower. It was odd because it was sooo so cold and dark and obviously no one else was up. At 6:15 AM I saw a bus drive by—not realizing it was mine I waited longer and a man came to the front door. He was looking for me and so I realized that bus was for me. Meeting him around back I went to the carpark where he was parked. Inside I met Joanna, a girl from Holland who had been studying in Melbourne for the last 6 months. She was really nice and continues to be the person I am most friendly with on my trip. Next we picked up 12 other people, stopping at several hostels and a hotel. Most of the people are about my age, though there are some mid thirty year old guys and a couple that are probably in their 60’s. 14 of us in total and 1 guide named Andy. Andy is an Aussie with quite some character, a good guide, and very knowledgeable about Tassie. After everyone was picked up we went around again in search of this mysterious Esteban guy who hadn’t responded to phone calls or texts. Failing we headed to the office where we had to fill out paperwork, pay and eat some yummy breakfast. This was exciting because I didn’t think we were getting breakfast and I didn’t have any food. So yay! I had to pay $741, not bad I think, I am not sure what that converts to but I think I was expecting to pay about 100 dollars more. We headed off then Andy gave us a little detail on Tassie itself. Hobart has roughly 200,000 people in it and all of Tassie has about 400,000. Scary right! He told us that Tassies has the freshest waster in the world and that it is beautiful regardless of the weather. He also basically said we could have about 16 seasons in one day, that’s how fast the weather changed.
Our first stop was a park called Mt. Field State Park. We did a nice nature walk here ending at a waterfall. It was basically a rainforest landscape. We managed to see several wallabies and get some poor pictures of them. Next we did quite a bit of driving and ended up in the central part of Cradle Mountain National Park. This was beautiful, we were at the entry point of Lake St. Claire. Surprisingly there was actually sand here. Andy described to us how it was formed—glaciers obviously. He said it was about 165 meters deep, the deepest lake in Australia. Next we took a drive to the Franklin River, home to the freshest water in Australia. We all filled our water bottles up here, and I even drank from it with my bare mouth. Cold, but good. We took a walk around here and this was actually a better walk than the one that morning. The forest was covered in moss, it was mystical, almost like a fairy land. Really extraordinary. It is classified as a cool temperate rainforest, which I’ve now declared my favorite rainforest type. Random fact—Tassie is found at about 42 degrees South latitude.
As we got back in the van and headed for Queenstown, Andy described and told us stories of Sarah Island, one of the first penal islands in Tasmania. He told us this one story about a bunch of men who tried to escape and a few of which when to the point of starvation killed a man each night to satisfy their hunger. A few men caught on to this and left the group. After finding the prison guards and telling their story they were put back on Sarah Island with increased times because the guards thought it was just a cover. When it finally got down to one man, he was caught and thrown back into prison, only to escape a little later with another man. Of course he killed him too and ate him, but was caught in the act. Finally being hung for his crimes. Wow!
Queenstown was extraordinary. It is a town solely for the families of miners, or the miners themselves. You should have seen the massive mining mountains, and I wish I had gotten better pictures because these were massive and sooo incredibly beautiful. Tasmania is a place you can only imagine until you’ve been here. Queenstown itself was a depressing little place. Supposedly only 1,000 to 4,000 inhabitants. There were about two streets and absolutely nothing was going on. It was really eerie. I don’t know how anyone could survive. Andy however told us there were tons of things for people and children to do. The government (or someone) had to do something to get miners to stay so they had to find things for families to stay. Mostly in the range of sports and such. After checking this out we headed for Strahan where we would be staying that night. It wasn’t too far of a drive and Strahan itself was pretty small: supposedly only 200-1000 inhabitants. It was dark by the time we arrived so we just headed for our private home on the opposite side of the harbor. The house was really nice-I mean I was expecting a hostel and this place had nice bathrooms, heat, carpeted rug and it was only for us. I shared a room with three other girls and my own comfy bed. We all pitched in for dinner—stir fry. Then we sat around and talked to Andy about his previous tour guides in Uluru, played uno and relaxed. Andy told us about aboriginals, about how they felt about tourism on their sacred rock, how he felt and so on. It was really interesting and I learned a lot. He also told us this creation story from the aboriginals. It was really horrible and I guess we got the kid version. Scary! We went to bed around 11PM because we had to be up by 7 the next morning to get ready for the day. Oh I should mention it is the winter equinox here so Sunday (June 21st-the first day of my tour) it was the shortest day of the year and my guess is that here in Tassie it is a lot shorter than other places in the world since its so far South. It was basically light out from about 8AM to about 5PM, and it was cloudy for the majority of that.