Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Tasmania

Tasmania has a lot of scenery.  Lots and lots and lots of scenery.  Including...

A random field in somewhere in the state


Cradle Mountain


The seaside in Hobart


Bay of Fires


Freycinet National Park (but totes looks like Queensland)


Lighthouse at Freycinet National Park


Wineglass Bay


Bruny Island


Liffey Falls


Mount Wellington


Or Mount Beef Wellington as I call it, because I want some beef wellington and it's really hard to find, goddamn it.

Mount [Beef] Wellington is probably the coldest place in Australia.  I bet you could prove that.  It's a mountain overlooking Hobart, and when we were up there it was below freezing!  And blowing really hard.  Without that viewing shelter you see there it would be completely un-visitable.  It was our first and only below freezing experience, though there were a few other close calls.

Not only is there muchos scenery to be seen in Tassie, there are also super cute animals, including:

Tasmanian devils


Like a rat meets a teddy bear.  They are cute, but fierce.  They are scavengers and live off of dead carcasses (carci?).  They eat every shred of a dead animal, bones and all.  Their teeth and jaws are like nutcrackers, and sound like it, too!

Wombat


Probably my favorite Aussie animal, which I had never seen until I moved here.  They are incredibly soft and I can only assume cuddly, but they're diggers so have big-ass claws.

They are marsupials, so carry their young in a pouch.  Because of the aforementioned digging their pouch faces downward, towards their butt, instead of towards their head, so dirt doesn't get in while they're digging down.  Evolution is clever like that.

Seals


Don't let the cute, furry, fatness fool you.  These things stank.  Really, really bad.

Whatever this little kangaroo-type animal is


It lived in a parking lot and lives off the scraps of humans.  I will never tire of seeing these things.

Of course Tassie also offers a plethora of activities.  You can:

Go 'quad biking'


A.k.a. 4-wheeling.  I had never seen such a vehicle before, but this is a two-person 4-wheeler.  I love it!  It's like a Hot Wheels for grown-ups.  A fun way to cover a lot of (rough) terrain in a short period of time.

Visit a winery


I love my wine.  Drinking it in its natural habitat is only natural.

Go on a ghost tour


Even if it's not, ya know, scary.

Take a jet boat tour


It's not enough to simply enjoy nature at a leisurely pace when you can whip shitties through it instead.

I enjoyed our Tasmanian roadtrip and would recommend it to anybody who's got lots of time to spend traveling Australia.  If you're coming to Australia for a month or less whirlwind trip, though, I'd skip it.  There's just so much "typically Australian" stuff to see that I wouldn't recommend prioritizing this over that.  It seemed like most other tourists were mainland Australians, not foreigners, so I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.

I totally missed my favorite sign in my previous funny signs post.  Though it's not technically a sign it is hilarious, and worthy of international pointing and laughing.  I present to you the King of Pop:


Ain't no way I can top that so I'll leave it there and go out on top.  Forever magical!

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