An island of a different color

I feel like I should start this post, the mother of all my blog posts, with a big AH-HEM and a toast. Basically I have more to say than I can possibly fit into one reasonably trimmed recount, so I'm going to go ahead and let the words flow. My apologies to those of you who fall asleep, faint, or simply lose interest while reading, but at least I forewarned you.

Why Tasmania?
Many of you may be wondering why. the hell. you would ever, ever, EVER go to Tasmania? The answer is simple: I have absolutely no idea. Early in the semester, I was discussing possible spring break with friends, and the usual destinations sprang up: Fiji, the Gold Coast, and the Whitsunday islands. None of us were too enthralled by these options, so Mallory suggested Tasmania offhand and we pounced on it. I had no idea, so I will mention for everyone's benefit, that Tasmania is an Australian state. It basically has a ton of national parks, hiking, and wildlife, and no people. It's about the size of West Virginia (roughly 25,000 sq miles), but Tasmania's population is about 500,000 and WV's is about 2 million. 40 percent of the entire population lives in one city, Hobart. These numbers more or less indicate the vast emptiness of the island. I use the word "bizarre" to describe it.

Pre-Departure Drama
Do we stay in hostels? Are there buses? What is there to actually DO? These were all important questions we researched the crap out of. It turns out Tasmania had quite a few hostels to offer, but most of them were in over-hyped towns or small cities that had little natural beauty to offer. Additionally, the roads in Tasmania are arguably the windiest and most remote on the planet, so a seemingly short drive from city to city can take an uncomfortable six hours. There is virtually no public transportation, and little in the way of civilized activity to partake in. About five days before our scheduled flight, we agreed renting a car and camping was the most cost-effective and sensible way to go. The great thing about Australia is that oftentimes it is cheaper to wait until the last minute to book vacations, unlike the USA. Our indecisiveness paid off! Not to mention a patch of dirt good enough for a tent is monumentally cheaper than a hotel room.

Day 1
I hopped out of bed at 5:30 am on Sunday, February 28 to catch an early flight to Hobart, which is in the Southeastern center of Tasmania. We landed at about 10:30 am and were greeted by the following sign at the airport:



We got a huge kick out of this, and knew immediately we would love Tasmanians!
The airport is almost as small as the one in Byron Bay, so after about a three second walk we found the car rental place and picked up the car. It was TINY! It's called a Nissan Tilda, and it's really meant for a set of parents with a maximum of two young kids. We stuffed that car to the brim, and were a little nervous about its ability to drive on unpaved roads, but it turned out to be okay. Well, not okay, but we managed to handle all the problems it gave us with relative ease. After purchasing a map at a nearby gas station, we started off for the Tasman National Park in the most Southeastern peninsula of the island.
The approximately two hour drive was smooth, and we were completely psyched and confident until we got to the park's "entrance." There was a sign bearing the name of our campsite, Fortescue Bay, so we turned onto the gravel road it indicated. Here's where we ran into some trouble. This gravel "road" was LONG. The going was SLOW. And there were about 50 turnoff points that may or may not have led to our destination. We maintained our faith in the existence of our campground, especially considering I had a printed confirmation of the booking we made, but were still extremely nervous until we stumbled on the "visitors centre" about 30 minutes later. We had lost cell phone service about an hour earlier, and hadn't minded until we entered the deserted park.
I should mention that at this point in the day it was about 2 pm and freezing cold. By freezing, I mean mildly chilly in Boston terms, but for five college kids with one backpack full of tee-shirts each, it was disconcerting. The woman in the "centre" was bundled up and had a fire going, and seemed as though she had suffered an extremely lonesome weekend. She told us we had pretty much free choice of any of the campsites, so we piled back into our car and picked the most homey mud patch. Here it is:



I know, it's beautiful, right? In all seriousness, though, we were all so excited for our first tent-pitching experience. This was also the only campsite we were spending two nights at, so it was great that it was one of the best.
After we had everything set up, we piled back into the car to visit Port Arthur. Port Arthur is the oldest historic convict site in Australia, and is Tasmania's biggest tourist attraction. It was only about 35 minutes from our campsite (25 of which were spent getting up the driveway), so we didn't mind the quick trip. We arrived about an hour before closing time, so Kate, Mal, and I paid a reduced price to get in while the boys went fishing nearby.
I have never been one to believe in ghosts or anything similar, but I will admit that I felt a haunting presence in Port Arthur. Though the day was clear for some of the time, the air felt thick and the buildings crowded, despite the fact that we were the only people on site. Here's a photo of the view from the grounds, which looks beautiful, but keep in mind it was the most brutal convict colony in the European world.



You might notice the rainbow in the photo, which acts as a convenient segue into my next topic. The weather in Tasmania, but specifically Port Arthur, was unbelievably wild! As I mentioned, it was chilly and sunny when we first arrived. Within 20 minutes of being at Port Arthur, it started to pour rain. This quickly turned into hail, which was blown away by strong winds before the sun came out again! It was surreal. Even more strange, the boys were only 15 minutes away fishing and said it stayed sunny where they were the whole evening! How weird! We asked a woman at the front desk if this was normal, and she said Tasmania is known as the land of four seasons in a day. This made us slightly nervous for the week ahead, but other than a few rain showers this was the most inclement weather we faced.
When we met up with the boys a little while later, our plans to return to camp and eat dinner were temporarily forgotten. We were shocked to see one of our tires was completely flat, and the others were all losing air quickly. We had noticed that the tires were bald when we left the parking lot, but the mechanic at the Budget stand assured us they were safe for the week. He was WRONG! We called Budget from the front desk at Port Arthur, and learned we were basically on our own unless we wanted to backtrack to Hobart and swap cars at the airport. So, we slapped the spare tire on the car and prayed we made it to camp in one piece.
After a slow, bouncy ride to camp, we built a fire and shared soup and beans. We all shuffled to sleep early after the long day of traveling, excited for the next day of exploring.

Day 2, Cape Hauy and A Wallaby Attack
As I mentioned, we were spending two nights at Fortiscue Bay, so Monday was the only day that didn't begin with a scramble to pack up our tents. We visited a mechanic shop quickly in the morning to see about a new tire, but the only mechanic on site had taken off for the day, much to the confusion of his saleswoman.
Tasman National Park offers several trails, ranging from extreme beginner to expert, so we picked one somewhere in the middle that started near our campsite. It ended up taking us about six hours roundtrip after we added several detours. The trail ran along the coast for about a quarter of a mile, then turned inland as it climbed upwards. At a lookout point somewhere in the middle, the trail veered almost 90 degrees left and steeply down. We shrugged this change in direction off as nothing, not realizing that we would have to go up again to get to our final destination. Needless to say, we all got a good workout that day!
The hike was beautiful. As many of you can attest to, it's hard to describe experiences like this in words, so here are a few photos that do a better job of illustrating the day than I can articulate...







As you can see, the sights were amazing, and we had a fantastic day. It was sunny and about 80 F all day, so we really lucked out. When we descended back to our campsite, we decided to dive in the ocean for a bit to cool down. What we were not expecting was to freeze in the absolutely bitter cold water! We forgot that the part of Tasmania we were in was the closest piece of land to Antarctica, so the ocean is notoriously cold there. Oops! We had a great time swimming around to stay warm, despite the risk of hypothermia. After that little jaunt we were in desperate need of a shower and fire, so we "showered" in a water faucet (which was just as cold as the ocean) and then bundled up by the fire. It was almost a full moon, too, so we walked down to where we swam when the sun set to see the moon and stars. It was amazing.

Day 3
After surviving a midnight wallaby attack, we quickly packed up our tents and sleeping bags to head to our next destination: Freycinet National Park. Freycinet is about two and a half hours North of Tasman, and on the coast as well, so the drive was quite scenic and pleasant. We managed a detour to the airport, where we swapped cars after insisting ours was not safe to drive. Luckily, the second mechanic we dealt with was extremely kind and accommodating, so we barely lost any time.
We passed numerous beautiful beaches on our drive North and tried to stop for a quick swim, but it was harder to find a pullover spot than we expected. Finally, we slipped into a tiny parking lot and found ourselves inches away from a completely empty, clean, beautiful beach. The water was still cold here, but much more bearable during the day and brilliant sunshine. I went for a run along the sand and then played around in the water with the others for about 30 minutes. We finally realized we were on our way to another beach at our campsite, so we were less sad to desert the random paradise and pile back into the car for the last hour.
Most of Freycinet's campgrounds are beachside. Our reserved sand patch was on Richardson's Beach, which is located in a quiet little bay on the Western coast of the park's peninsula. The grounds were very clean and much more populous than Tasman National Park's, which was great because we felt less nervous about potential death by animal attack.
Ramsey and I swam for about 20 minutes along the coast while the others collected rocks. It was a beautiful, warm day, and the beach was quiet despite the presence of several other campers and caravans in the surrounding area. As evening neared, the boys started to get antsy and decided they were in desperate need of meat for dinner, so they took the car and drove back towards a grocery store we had stopped at earlier. They promised us they would be gone for a maximum of 45 minutes, so, naturally, they were gone for about two hours. When they returned, we noticed the car was splattered with something. Sadly, that something turned out to be quail guts. The boys took the car for two short hours and managed to hit a quail. Needless to say, we were glad it rained the next day to wash away the "residue." After we took absolutely FREEZING cold showers, we heated up the meat they found and had a lovely steak and beans dinner. It was a very clear night, so we sat on the beach star gazing for a while before we turned in and burrowed into our sleeping bags.

Day 4, Part 1
Freycinet National Park has tons of amazing hiking options, so we woke up early to take advantage before we had to move on to the next park. We opted to take the Wineglass Bay circuit hike, which takes you up to a lookout point and then down towards Wineglass Bay. The Bay is named for its shape, and it is widely known to have some of the clearest water and fine, white sand. This hike was much more challenging than we anticipated, so it took us a bit longer than we'd hoped. However, it ended up working out great that we were delayed, because we ran into a wallaby in the parking lot and became friends with him! Yes, by wallaby I mean small kangaroo. And yes, by friends, I mean we hung out with him for a solid 30 minutes and only left because we were pressed for time. Here are photos of the bay and our new friend...





We said goodbye to our wallaby and clambered into the car at about noon. The next national park we were headed to was supposedly only 30 minutes away, so we were quite excited to get there and continue trekking. About 45 minutes into our drive, we started to grow concerned. About an hour into our drive, we concluded Mapquest was probably wrong, because, after all, we were in the middle of Tasmania. After two hours, we started thinking we should ask somebody where we were. I should mention that the "highway" we had been on for 60 km was dirt. By dirt, I mean dirt. So the going was slow, at best. At around two and a half hours, we had the sense to pull over when we saw the first human we had seen since we left the campground. The farmer we spoke to was exceptionally friendly, and was probably very helpful, but sadly his accent prevented any understanding on our part. He waved his arms around and said something about Elephant Pass, which was new to us, but finally pointed back where we had come from and said we needed to backtrack at least two hours. So, bummed but amused, we loaded in the car again and proceeded onwards, or at least backwards.
To make a long story short, it took us five hours to get to a place that was, in fact, only 30 minutes away from our initial launch point.

Day 4, Part 2
Douglas-Apsley National Park is the most remote place on Earth. I am confident in making this statement, especially after visiting two other national parks in Tasmania. We had experienced serious isolation and three days without cell phone service, but the amount of nothing and no one in Douglas-Apsley was ridiculous. There were literally three, yes THREE, other humans in the entire park. This was the only free campsite we stayed at, and the most (you guessed it) isolated. All of the other campsites had space to park cars and caravans in each individual campsite, but here the car park was a solid ten minute walk away from the designated clearing. We had to walk back and forth several times to stow food and other items that would potentially attract wallabies in the car. Technically, fires were restricted in this park, but the other three people we ran into assured us there was nobody around to yell at us if we decided to bend the rules, so, we did. There was also a "watering hole" about five minutes down the path from our tent with fresh water. It wasn't drinkable, but it was extremely refreshing (read:freezing) to be out of salt water. We sat around the fire eating chicken sandwiches and sharing music and stories before falling asleep. We were woken up in the middle of the night by wolves or dingoes howling, but they sounded fairly far away so we shrugged and went back to sleep.

Day 5
Thursday, March 4 began as the average day in Tasmania did: alarms sounded at 8, we woke up at 9. We ate granola bars, brushed our teeth and spat in a bush, and packed our car to bursting point. I felt content in a way that only stems from a quiet morning in nature. It's fitting that this was the start to the day my Grandpa passed away.

Day 6
After much see-sawing between wanting to stay in Tasmania and wanting to fly home to the States immediately, I realized my Grandpa would want nothing more in the world than for me to enjoy the rest of my time in Tassie- a place he would have loved with every fiber of his being. So, on Friday morning, I leaned on my wonderful friends and headed to Cradle Mountain National Park to enjoy one last day and night in the wild.
Cradle Mountain is Tasmania's most famous hiking spot. The park is located in the island's Northwest center, and is one of the biggest. Its popularity was evident by the presence of other people in the visitors centre. In fact, I reckon we saw more people in the Cradle Mountain National Park Visitors Centre than we did at the Hobart International Airport. Not to mention we passed about thirty other people on our hike, which surpassed the amount of travelers we saw on all our other hikes combined. The park offers several walking trails and hiking circuits for explorers of all levels, so we chose a 2-3 hour circuit around Dove Lake.
It was a beautiful day: not too sunny, but not overly cloudy. We trudged slowly around the lake, pausing often to take in the views and breathe the clean air. I haven't mentioned this yet, but Tasmania has the world's cleanest air. We tried to absorb as much as possible since the likelihood we'll return is, sadly, small. The lake's perimeter was spotted with pebbly beaches, so after a long bout of walking, we found one we liked and relaxed there for a couple of hours, sharing stories. Ramsey and Daniel cast a few fishing lines, but the lake was so quiet that it seemed unlikely any creatures lived there at all. We finished the circuit late in the afternoon.

We camped in the park that night, got soaking wet inside our sleeping bags despite our tent's rain cover, and woke up early the next morning to drive five hours back to Hobart and the airport. We were fortunate to find vacancy in a hostel for the night, so after we checked in there we walked around the city and opted to see a movie. Sunday morning, we flew back to Sydney. We were sore, exhausted, and probably smelled terrible, but all that paled in the wake of our unforgettable time in the wilderness.

So to Tasmania: you are weird, you are empty, and you are beautiful. We thank you for a great week. And to my readers: thanks for staying interested. I appreciate your attention more than I can say, and I hope you are able to experience Tasmania someday for yourselves!

Dedicated to Peter Bowles O'Brien