As usual It's been longer than I would have liked since my last post as we've been so busy and so much has happened. It's only now that I've had time to sit down and type everything out and it's great to recall everything that's happened lately.
I should probably start by saying going to Hobart was the best spontaneous decision we've made during our travels. It is the island state that 90% of backpackers overlook, home to Australia's oldest pub, oldest bridge and oldest sailing ship with Hobart being Australia's second oldest state capital city after Sydney.
With similar landscapes to those of New Zealand (or so I'm told) mixing elements of rolling green hills, quaint little villages, and old english looking trees it has spectacular scenery that reminded us of home a lot. Very nostalgic.
It has been the highlight of our year and a truly memorable experience that will stand out from everything else. It feels completely different to that of mainland Australia (a nice change I suppose) and its beaches were breathtaking, easily (in our opinion) on a par or even slightly better than those of the Whitsunday's.
So while Tasmaina has secured my vote as Australia's best state, the title for my favourite city still remains as Melbourne, which I'm pleased to say is where Tom and I are now, and will be the place I stay in until I return home.
I don't want to make this an essay of a post but theres been a lot to talk about so I'll try and summarise as best I can.
I'll carry on where I left off which was when I flew in to Hobart airport. The weather was dismal by the way, looked like flying back in to the UK! Tom was waiting for me at baggage collection with his trademark cheesy grin. Was so good to see him after everything we'd had to deal with during our farmwork. What was actually two and a half months felt like half a year.
We spent about 3 hours in arrivals catching up and sharing stories and similarities and laughing about how crap everything was before we took a shuttle to the city. We were really excited to start this new chapter.
The first week in Hobart was great and went way too quick. Within five days we had got settled in to a pretty cool hostel, got our bearings in the city, been on a few nights out and met some really nice people. I was able to find us a plenty of cool volunteering positions and we accepted the best one we got offered. We arrived on in Tasmania on a Sunday (30th May) and by Friday we were working! Volunteer work is obviously so much easier to get an offer as people are desperate for free labour and you have the upper hand in choosing which job to take which is always nice!
Also in the first week I had my birthday, which was on the Tuesday. I booked us on a trip to a world heritage site on the Tasman peninsula called Port Arthur. The weather wasn't great but we had a good, interesting day and a laugh. Went out in the evening for tapas and a few drinks, nothing too full on but it was nice to relax and enjoy the little things.
...Some pics from the Port Arthur trip
We had no idea our volunteering position was going to turn out as good as it did. It was really rewarding and a nice thing to be involved with. We were getting a room and our food included for free as well so it was also nice to not have to use the savings account for living expenses.
Our host, Warwick, was quite possibly the friendliest guy we've met during the whole year. A really funny laid back and easy going bloke who turned out to be quite the socialite and local architectural historian within his home city. He is a renowned antique dealer and has his own shop in Hobart and knew loads of rich and wealthy people. But had still managed to remain pleasant and humble -not snotty arrogant like most of his clients. He owned a 'rip snorter' (his own words) of a house which was a beautiful 1820s colonial neo-classic regency house that actually featured in Vogue Living magazine a few years ago. The period property was full of expensive antiques and had plenty of original features. It was like a very small stately home and had a great garden that he had reinstated. It was our job as volunteers to landscape the garden and help around the house with maintenance and restoration tasks. The garden had been neglected for a year or two and needed some heavy labor and TLC.
It was the perfect opportunity to complete the last bit of our regional work. All of Tasmania is classed as a regional zone so we could have gone anywhere but we were literally 10 minutes from hobart city centre which was obviously really convenient. And the nature of the work - landscaping and restoration - is classed as specified work so no problems at all. Especially since our guy Warwick was really enthusiastic about the whole signing us off process and had previously done the same for previous backpackers he'd had before. Less worry for us.
It didn't take long for us to make a good impression and it helped that Warwick was so grateful and thankful for literally everything we did, no matter how big or small.
There was a lot of 'heavy' labor to be done which me and Tom liked so within a week we had already made significant changes to the appearance of the place...whilst also making time for some fun and messing around with the ride-on lawnmower. Standard, of course.
Pics of the house and the gardens
When we first arrived at the house we met Ivan, a Spanish backpacker (picture a miniature Antonino Banderas) who was already there helping Warwick (his duties were more website building and stock tasks for Warwick's shop). We soon realised that these two people we were spending time with we're absolute legends in their own right. Hilariously funny people and very down to earth, humble and genuine at the same time. We had a lot of laughs.
After the first two weeks we were thinking how lucky we were to be doing what we were doing after the nightmare that was working on the farms. We had got to see plenty of Hobart, been treated to nice restaurant meals and nights out, been on a few dates with some very attractive girls :) had plenty of time to relax when not working in the garden and visited the markets on the weekends. We also took a ferry to an evening event at Tasmania's now world famous Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) which was really cool. Very interesting building, weird installations / exhibitions and a disco in the main atrium.
Some pics from around Hobart
As we racked up the few remaining days needed for our regional work to be completed we were nearing the end of the Tasmanian adventure. We'd made some significant changes in the garden and Warwick couldn't have been happier with us.
We were keen to get to Melbourne after waiting so long and aware that the days had been going by quickly. We'd spent just under a month in Tas having been in the country for 10 months now and only 1 and a half to go before we have to leave. Fortunately we had left a few days to ourselves before our flight from Hobart to Melbourne and we decided to hire a car and drive up the east coast of Tas after hearing so many good things about it. And we weren't disappointed. First off because it was winter we managed to hire a lil' ripper of a car for just $140 for 6 days taking advantage of the off-season rates. Our road trip took us 5 days and meant we could drop the car back at the airport on the 6th day just before our flight which couldn't have worked out better.
We were glad to have managed to see all of the highlights of the coast, most of which are highlights of the whole state. And very fortunate to have pretty good weather considering it was winter (apart from the last day which was miserable). The beaches we stopped off along the way were incredible as you can see from the images. The whole coastline was speckled with gems like these and they were always deserted so we had them all to ourselves. Albeit it was quite chilly to lay on the sand and hope for a tan top-up. Too cloudy and windy.
The Freycinet National Park was the main highlight with the stunning Wineglass Bay taking the award for our favourite beach of Australia to date. Another highlight was on the last day of the trip when we took the ferry to Bruny Island - just off the south coast. The rocky cliffs and misty jungles there were amazing and we managed to see plenty of stuff despite having a short time there (the island is 100km long and takes a few days to explore properly). In what could be accurately described as surroundings from the arena in the Hunger Games we took winding paths through the dense wet bushland climbing to the highest points on the island for spectacular panoramic vistas, saw the Isle of the Dead at Port Arthur, walked down by rocky caves, over tessellated rock formations and had lunch at the bay where a certain Yorkshireman Captain James Cook first dropped anchor to re supply his ship. Also had a fair few extreme close encounters with some dozy Tasmanian wildlife while in the car. All in all, a very memorable road trip and loads of fun!
See newer post FOR IMAGES of the Road Trip as there are too many to attach to this post.
So, what next... Well Tom has set his sights on a monumental hiking trip (was only a matter of time), which I was initially going to join him on... until I researched it in detail. He will attempt to traverse most of if not all of the Australian Alps Walking Track which stretches between just outside of Melbourne to just outside of Canberra. A total of 600+ kms of walking over the peaks and crests of the mountain ranges, which isn't too bad, until you hear that he's planning on doing it in the quickest time possible (around 20 days) and that the track this year is labelled as extreme alpine conditions with most of the track being covered in deep snow. While he has had experience navigating through the snow and climbing in that environment I (very rationally I thought) bowed out and opted not to go with him. I really want to spend the rest of my time here in Melbourne and see what this city really has to offer. I want to enjoy my last month in Aus and couldn't really see myself enjoying camping in the snow on a freezing mountain, living off dried food and burying my poo in the ground while being blasted with 100km/h icy winds and rain. But I know the views will be unbelievable. I would definitely look into doing the hike during the summer months but middle of winter is too much and frankly quite dangerous. Tom enjoys that though. And the more risk the better in his eyes. I told him he shouldn't do it on his own but he just laughs and refuses to admit things will go wrong. I won't lie, I'm kind of worried since this hike is something he'd only recently started looking in to. Plenty of people have had to be rescued from the track within the past month, including a German backpacker who thought he was up to it...and even an experienced long distance walker had to be rescued. Part of me thinks he will be fine and will get it done safely but a bigger part of me thinks he will run into danger or difficulty at some point or other and I just hope he'll be alright.
Anyway, I'll keep you updated on all that but first we're going to have a awesome week and a half in to Melbourne together before he plans of taking off. We know we'll have a great time. Even more so as our friend from Sydney, Kristian, has moved to Melbourne while we were on the farms so he should know loads of cool places to go and things to do!
Bye for now.
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