Time out in Tazzie

Whilst waiting for my business visa, I have spent the last week and a bit out in Tazmania taking in the sights. I also took lots of photos which I'll link into this post when I have uploaded them, and as always provide an album link in the "links" panel.

In my brief week I hired a Mazda "fun top" - a silly little car with a pointless convertible roof (it drizzles here daily). But it has a good set of speakers and a tape player for me to play my iPods tunes through using an adaptor, so it met my criteria.

I headed first to the old convict prison of Port Arthur to learn about all the nastyness that went on there. Then I went up the East coast and walked through Freyginuet (sp?) National park, and saw the beatiful wineglass bay. Onwards up the coast, I stopped off in a winery and then into Lanceston to restock on city stuff like food, pizza and pants.

Making use of the great weather I was getting I went via a caving tour onto Cradle mountain, which provided a great full-days walk, with lots of tricky bouldering in icy snow at the summit climb. This kind of strained my ankle, so the next two days involved a boat cruise around Strauhn and the west-coast Huon pine fields + Sarah Island, and some other short walks in the South-West National parks.

Finally, back in Hobart, I've gone on an "Airwalk", wandering around rainforests suspended 30m in the air on walkways, and tomorrow I visit the Cascade brewery before flying back home.

It's been nice to travel and recharge the batteries. I've met lots of cool people on the travels, and with Tazzie being so small, you keep meeting people again and again which is really nice. Plenty of Boags and Cascade (the local brews) has been consumed, although not too much as I've been starting out around 8am most days to make use of the limited sunshine (by 6pm it's pitch black) and opening hours.

The only regretable news is I discovered exactly where the legendary beer drinking pig (pay $1, feed the pig a beer!) was when I had driven over 250km past it. I debated a return journey, but prehaps it was best left as a myth or legend... reality sometimes doesn't live up to expectation !

Anyhow, look back in a few days to see an edited, photed up version of this post ! Back to work soon, assuming the work visa finally gets approved...

eternal turmoil of the spotted mind

And so it was, that as I hurried to complete my business visa paperwork, fighting the red tape of beaurocracy, that another option occured to me. The option was promoted by the messages for so many people at home announcing weddings, social plans or wanting to know when I'll be back. And the option was to throw it all in and come home next month.

I was basically at the point of emotion collapse this afternoon as I worked through the issues. It seems the job market at home is pretty good right now, so no problem there, and it also seems the snowboarding season plan may be not happening now, hence no immediate need for extra savings. However, there is so much of Australia to see I decided that I will stay on (therefore getting a new plane ticket, rather than being tied down to the 20th June expiry on my prev. ticket). Note to RTW travellers, buy a one-way ticket to Oz, and then another to get home - costs a little more, give you lots more flexability !

So all that remains is for my business visa to be approved by Monday. Except the application probably won't even be submitted by then ! So I have booked a one-week trip over to Tazmania, to brave the cold windy isle and see some real outdoor stuff again. Hopefully I'll team up with some backpackers over there, and hire a car to travel and see the sights (roadtrip !). Might need to get a working camera though - I'll have a go at mine tonight, but my tool selection is quite limited...

Anyhow - what have I been up to otherwise...

Recent fun has included lots of AMAZING films - "Enternal sunshine of the spotless mind" and "The barbarian invasions" are two of the best movies I've seen in ages (since Donnie Darko, I reckon). Also saw "Elephant", which was very good but quite hard watching, and "Tais Toi!" which was kinda stupid but funny.

Aside for my film habit, I've been indluging my drinking habit. Some afterwork drinks of Coopers beer (a mere 5.8%) on an empty stomach led to a befuddled walk home, followed by a brief spot of memory loss (whoops) and then a conversation with some nice policemen. They seemd very insistent on giving me a ride, and I was very politley insistent that I was prefectly capabale of walking home without there kind assistance. Not sure how I came to be talking to the nice policemen (that's part of the memory loss) but I eventually submitted to a nice ride in there nice car (my parents will be soooo proud) to my home address (and not the drunk tank as I expeceted).

The only small final snag is for some reason I've since forgotten, I decided to lie about my address (clever, huh !) So I ended up pretend to walk up to the house until the police had gone away, and then quickly and stealthily I made my way to the hostel (only 2-3 blocks away, by some miracle). Somehow I doubt my actual progress was the ninja-like effort I thought it was, but I woke up in my own bed, hungover and feeling stupid. But slightly amused too :)