The big trip: Melbourne and Tazmania

Melbourne. City of... stuff. Like Europe transplanted to the other side of the world and made slightly cleaner and a little bit friendlier. Nice parks. Good food. Apparently some Indians students have been attacked recently, but no one has been anything other than nice to me. Then again, I'm not a student. (I'm not really Indian either but I don't think its relevant since there aren't really any physical differences) Anyway, the Aussies all went to the Indian restaurants in a 'Vindaloo Against Violence' protest as a gesture of solidarity.

So that's all right then...

We started off by taking advantage of being in a country that is both developed and English speaking and went to the cinema. Avatar in IMAX 3-D. Cool. Then we went to the bookshops where I indulged in a large selection of english language books, without being limited to a single shelf of battered second hand traveller books. This shelf is the same in every country in Asia by the way... it consists of The Alchemist, Eat Pray Love, some kind of women's erotic fiction (possibly with a horse on the cover for some reason), and a one of the books of the Dune series (usually something like book 3 so that if you already like Dune you have probably read it already, and if you don't you won't be starting at book 3 anyway...). The larger collections will also have something by Terry Pratchett (which I have probably read already) and something written by the Dalai Lama (which I occasionally will read when I'm in a mood with the requisite concentration span).

We hooked up with Fiona, our friend from Tibet, who took us around the town centre and showed us some of her favorite haunts in the city, and even took us to her parents house for dinner (lovely people). All francophiles as well. We then went to the countryside and had lunch with Michelle, another friend from Tibet.

We took an internal flight to Tazmania for a week, where we hired a car (a cheeky little Hyundai Getz) and drove ourselves around. This was easier for me than Emmie since its on the right (as in left...) side of the road for me, but she was fine anyway, if slightly hugging the curb from time to time. Tazzy roads are pretty empty. We landed in Launceston and took the road up to St Helens in the northeast. We were warned by the Tazzy locals that this road is a bit busy with heavy traffic. I think I saw 3 cars in the 3 hour drive... that's the Tazmanian definition of heavy traffic. We listened to Hamish and Andy on the radio (its a bit like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's unscripted comedy dialogue Derek and Clive, in the format of a radio show. With listeners calling in. And with long advert breaks. And less vulgar. Ok, not that similar really but they are both unscripted at least...) We listened to 'The Duke' (Duke Sharp, from Nong Khai, see last english blog entry) in the CD player, whose country stylings were a nice complement to the rolling hills and plains of a completely different part of the world from Montana. We dodged a lot of road kill, and at the end we treated ourselves to the best fish and chips south of the equator.

We explored the white sand beaches and red rocks of the Bay of Fires. Apparently its Lonely Planet's #1 destination of 2009. Not sure I agree with that, given some of the things we've seen on this trip (like Tibet, and Yakushima in Japan), but it was pretty damn cool nonetheless.

We then hit the road again and drove down to Bicheno, where we stayed at a backpacker hostel run by a white guy with brown dreadlocks, and his giant dog, who also had brown dreadlocks. Both of them were equally welcoming and friendly. We met a Melbournite (Melbournian, Melbie?...) family there, and spent some time chatting to the young mother Roz, who was keen to relive her days backpacking around Asia. We used Bicheno as a base to visit Freycinet national park, where we did some trekking, got to see some wallabies (our first native australian animal), and went down to Wineglass bay. We then went to Hobart for one evening before flying back into Melbourne.

Back in Melbourne, Fiona met us at the airport and took us on a day trip to meet up with Michelle (its was Australia day so they both had the day off) and together they drove us to Phillip Island, where we got to see the Koala sanctuary. We went back to Michelle's place for a while, made a authentic Australian barbie (I had kangaroo meat. Takes like beef but more red and less fatty), and went for a walk along the beach with her slightly crazy but very friendly dog, Rudi. At sunset we just made it to see the antartic penguins arriving. It is amazing that any animal would have evolved to come to land, and yet be so clumsy and awkward in a 'bless their cotton socks' kind of way. Mind you, I should try looking at myself trying to swim.

Arriving back in town at midnight (with many thanks to Fiona and Michelle for staying up so late to drive us around despite having to go to work the next day), we stayed the night at a youth hostel that was partying in the common room in a kind of pseudo-hippy student way. We were pretty tired so the details are a bit foggy but I'm sure bean bags and larva lamps features prominently. The next day I flew to Sydney for my Vipassana meditation experience. More on that in the next post.

Tazmanian Wallaby