East Coast Tasmanian Road Trip: December 26th-29th, 2006

On Boxing Day Gai drove us into town so we could pick up our newly rented car, which we named Ernie. Ernie was a bit of a sketchy lass, as she made funny noises and her fuel gage didn't work. However, we figured she would do the trick and we were on our way!

First Stop: Port Arthur.
Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula. It is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction. From the 1833 until the 1850s, it was a destination for the hardest of convicted British criminals, those who were secondary offenders having re-offended after their arrival in Australia.

We arrived at P.A. around 5pm on Boxing Day, and after setting up camp, we made our way over to the P.A historic site where we took part in an evening Ghost Tour. It was a bit freaky the stories we heard, and we left the place feeling a bit spooked!

We returned the next morning for a day tour and harbour tour, and to take a stroll around the place ourselves. Very interesting history, and we enjoyed it very much.

Second Stop: Remarkable Cave
From P.A we headed south to check out another tourist attraction, the Remarkable Cave. This is a cave that has been formed by erosion from the ocean. It was...remarkable.

Next Stop: Coles Bay
We arrived in Coles Bay on the evening of the 27th. The next morning Ernie decided to blow her water pump as we were making our way up to a lookout point. As a result, she had to get towed to the next town to get fixed. We arrived back in C.B. around five, and spent the rest of the evening checking out the Wineglass Bay lookout. It was a fantastic view, and we greatly enjoyed the climb up to see it.

The next morning we took part in a morning Kayak, with Frecinet Adventures. We had a great time out on the water, and learned some more history about the area as well.

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone who reads this is having/has had a wonderful Christmas! It has been a very different one for us, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Because of the mild weather, it's been a bit difficult to get in the Christmas spirit. However, on Christmas Eve we made a trip to the grocery store and picked up the ingredients for our traditional Christmas Morning Wife Saver. This is a breakfast dish containing bread, ham, cheese, and an egg mixture, that both of our families happen to eat on Christmas morning. So after a lovely supper with Gai and Jon, we cranked up some Christmas tunes and put together our Wife Saver!

It's currently 5:30 pm on Christmas day, and we've had quite a lovely day. Jon and Gai had 15 people, including Brin and I, over to open presents and have a Christmas morning brunch. Because Brin and I don't really have any extra room in our bags, we ended up doing our Chistmas shopping for each other at the grocery store! Brin got me dried mango and white chocolate (two things I love!) and a new pair of tweezers; I got Brin a couple of her favourite chocolate bars and a variety pack of cereal (Brin loves cereal and yogurt but we never buy cereal because it's too expensive!) We were both quite happy with our Christmas gifts - it's amazing that food can bring such joy when you're travelling! Jon and Gai also gave us a box of chocolate and candies, as well as a homemade box full of other chocolates and goodies! Now for brunch: it was a wonderful meal of Christmas Morning Wife Saver (the best part of course), fruit, yogurt, croissants, waffles, sausage, bacon, and dried fruit marinated and cooked in orange juice (we're going to bring this one back to Canada with us!).

After brunch most of the guests left (which was mostly family - their children and children's partners) and Brin and I settled into a wonderful afternoon of eating chocolate and candy and reading! We're not quite sure what the evening has in store yet, but there's sure to be some warmed up Wife Saver!

Oh and did I mention the weather yet? It's been raining on and off all day, and about 15 degrees. Not exactly your hot, tropical, Christmas day!

Update From Tassie

On December 21st Brin and I packed our bags and went to stay with Jon and Gai Bath, and their wonderful family on Nelson Road. They live in a beautiful home, which Jon built, and after a few days of staying with them they extended their invite to us and welcomed us to stay for Christmas.
We graciously accepted their invite, as Hobart seemed to have shut down for Christmas anyhow.

It's been a wonderful stay at Jon and Gai's. Not only have we had plenty of time to read and relax, but we've been able to get some plans underway for the remainder of our time here in Tassie. We've decided to get bus passes for the Tassie Link tour bus, and visit several sights from the 27th to the 29th. On the 23rd Brin and I scored tickets on Ebay for the Falls Festival, which is a big outdoor music festival on the 30th and 31st of December. It's a super popular way to spend New Year's Eve, so we're very excited to be going. So on the 29th we'll return to Jon and Gai's, where we'll catch a ride to Falls with Gai's daughter, Megan, and her boyfriend, Joe. After Falls we're either going to work for a bit, or fly to Sydney - this is yet to be decided.

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Well folks, I'm afraid there's not all that much to report. We flew from Melbourne to Hobart late Friday night, and since then we've basically been surfing couches and looking for jobs - ie being bums.

We're currently staying with a 58 year old, and he's been absolutly wonderful. He's offered to let us stay until the 23rd, so depending on if we get jobs or not, we might take him up on it!

Not sure what we're doing for Christmas yet, but I'm sure it'll be unlike any other Christmas we've ever had!

And we're back!

We had an absolutly amazing bike trip up the Great Ocean Road, and the pics are up so you can see for yourself! Some highlights/things we won't forget:

1. The flies. They were horribly annoying, and were with us whenever we climbed a hill, were near cattle, or were biking really slowly.

2. Our first glimpse of the ocean from the road - the Bay of Islands. Utterly breathtaking.

3. Getting to Port Campbell after our first day of riding - 73.10km.

4. Our first night in our new tent, and getting to put our new headlamps to good use!

5. Falling asleep to the sound of the ocean waves.

6. Reaching Lavers Hill after a 19.1km super steep climb. We thought we'd never make it!

7. The change in scenery: farmland, coast, countryside, rainforest, more coast.

8. A 10km side trip to Johanna Beach, 10km outside Lavers Hill. Beautiful beach, and super relaxing.

9. The sandwiches we created with peanut butter: pb and apple, pb and cucumber, pb and tuna. It's amazing what you'll eat when you're on a budget!

10. Missing the 12 Apostles. Don't ask how, but we did. Then, instead of riding back, we hid our bikes in an old shed and hitch-hiked our way back to them.

11.Getting to Apollo Bay and hitting up the grocery store and buying $20 worth of fruit and vegetables. So good!!

12. Seeing our first koala bears in Kennett River.

13. Meeting a German couple who had to have been in their late 50s and are doing the same thing we are. However, they've already ridden 3000km - they came to the Great Ocean Road all the way from Perth!

All in all it was a fantastic trip, and now we're off to Tasmania (which is part of Australia, but located south - it's an island) to do some more cycling and maybe land a job!

And we're off!

We went and visited James, a friend of Keith's, at his work today and he gave us all of our camping gear at cost + 10%! So we've got everything we need now, and we'll be departing Melbourne by train tomorrow (Saturday the 9th) to Warrnambool.

From Warrnambool we will begin our 5 day, 281.4km journey of The Great Ocean Road: one of Australia's - and one of the world's- greatest coastal routes. Our cycling guide tells us the landscape ranges from stunning coastal cliffs to beautiful beaches, with spectacular camping grounds to rest our weary heads each night. This has us very excited, to say the least!

Our journey ends in Geelong, and from Geelong we'll train back into Melbourne. Upon returning to Melbourne, we'll come back to Dave's before departing for Tasmania by plane on Friday, December 15th.

We're planning to stay in Tasmania from the 15th of December up until about the 17th of January. We fly into Hobart, and our plan is to cycle up the east coast to Launceston, and then work for the remainder of our time in Tasmania. Then it'll be off to New Zealand to meet up with our good buddy Paul!

Pictures are up!!!

Unfortunately, putting pictures up on our blog wasn't going to work how we wanted it to, so we uploaded them onto a separate website instead:

http://www.imagestation.com/members/brinandmegan

Enjoy!

BIKES!!!

We picked up bikes yesterday, so now we're almost ready to go! We're just waiting on one of Keith's friends to hook us up with some camping gear. He works at a camping store, and he's offered to give us everything at cost + 10%. So hopefully we'll have everything in the next couple days, and then we can be on our merry way!
And the bikes are awesome, and loaded down with all the accessories we could ask for: lights, waterproof saddle bags, odometers...you name it! We'll post some pics up as soon as we have some!

Update from Melbourne

Well, it's been a week that we've been in Australia and time continues to fly by! We had a great time at Keith's, and here are some highlights from the past week:

1. Went out with Keith and his friends to Extreme Kareoke. We did you all proud be belting out "Summer of 69" at the top of our lungs with true Canadian pride. We also sang "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" and somewhat regreted it after remembering how long the song is! Lastly, we did a duet with Keith -"The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing - and it was quite comical.

2. Visited Melbourne's version of Value Village and had a blast!

3. Met more of Keith's friends on Saturday. A few of them took us out to a party at Eureka Tower -the tallest reidential building in the world- which just opened on October 11th of this year. The building is 297.2m in height (300m above sea level), with 91 storeys above ground plus one basement level. It is one of only six buildings in the world with 90 or more storeys. It was a crazy experience - our ears popped in the elevator on the way up - and the view from the top was spectacular!

4. We decided that we're going to invest in bikes and camping gear and tour the country on two wheels! So the majority of the past week has been spent pricing out bikes and camping gear, and trying to get the best deal for our dollar! We want to tour the Great Ocean Road, Tasmania, and the East Coast. We'll do as much as we can on bike, and take buses when the weather's not in our favour.

5. One of Keith's freinds, James, has a beach house along the Great Ocean Road and he's offered to let us stay there on our tour, which should be pretty awesome!

6. Another one of Keith's friends, Dave, has taken us into his home and we've been here for the past two days. He lives with his parents, and they've been treating us like gold! We each have, not only our own bed, but our own room, and we've been told to help ourselves to anything we can get our hands on. His mom makes us supper every night, and last night was kangaroo!! It was really good, and tasted very similar to beek steaks. Funny thing about it was they'd never cooked it before, and Dave had never eaten it before - they only bought it so we could try it! They also GAVE us a cell phone! All we had to do was buy a SIM card!

Anyhow, that brings you pretty much up to date. We're hoping to buy our bikes today, and start our tour of the Great Ocean Road by the end of the week!