Day Four of Tasmania Trip (24th December 2008)

Finally I've come back to update another day of the Tazzy trip... Technically I'm now super busy with work but bleh, I want to update this before it rots here. Hahahaha~! Good thing I have my travel notes so I'll more or less type whatever I wrote there..

Woke up at 7.30 am. Went to the kitchen to help mum with breakfast and lunch - french toast. [looks at notes] okkkk... the recipe for french toast was 3 eggs, 6 teaspoons of sugar, bread. [lol] lunch was omelette (onions and ham with mushrooms)

Had left the hostel. Dad had misplaced his handphone and stuff. was worried that he may have left it in the previous place. anyway, we went to Coles to buy white peaches and mineral water and also to check abalone prices (but coles didn't sell them) {note: what we didn't know was there was a ban / greatly reduce of sorts on sales of abalone because they were overfishing?? not sure... hahaha}
But yea... we were in the car when dad accidentallty backed the car into that green thing above. could see the tree but the green thing was in the blind spot... ~___~ we were all a bit >__<;; (aka "OH MY GOSH~! Is that what we think it is?" moment) Dad wasn't happy with the car thing and the handphone thing... in the slump of the moment, I was pulling out magazines from the back pocket of dad's seat when I saw his handphone. Quickly and triumphly returned the handphone to dad so the mood in the car was better. hehehe. good life-saver that one. moving on with the trip, we headed into the city centre (a few roads down) for the bank and to try to find the abalone. instead, mum and I bought perfumes (it was a steal - 2 for aud25. day before christmas sales marrr), nailclipper (mum... or was it dad's hang nail drove for this search) and clothes (all no more than aud16.95). We stopped over for lunch by the river.
Lunch. Pretty simple. bread with omelette + cheese + tomato Those are the fresh strawberries. [points excitedly to the punnet of strawberries]
Headed out of the city to Cradle Mountain, Devonport. We stopped at a few fruit / fresh food shops, looking for the abalone but no luck. In case you're wondering why we are looking for the abalone and stuff, apparently one of the places abalone was imported from was Tasmania... [shrugs]
But yea after the long drive (1.45 pm to 3.15pm) {in which I drove halfway, dad drove the rest}
At Cradle Mountain, we had to pay for the daypass again. The drive was pretty much one lane, so driving cautiously was a must, giving way to vehicles was important. (Impossible for Malaysian roads. [lol]). The condition of the road was good.
There were sections of the road that bottlenecks to force the driver to drive slowly (or that there isn't much space in the first place.)
When we got to Cradle mountain, it was pretty cloudy and nothing that spectacular... ooo, crow~! I think it's interesting that their yellow eyes stand out so much. =^__^=
Anyway, yea, nothing that great (compared to what we saw in New Zealand), so we didn't walk all the way in plus if we were to walk in, it would have taken us 2 hours to walk around Dove lake [points to the lake]

And 3 days to walk up to Cradle mountain [points to the mountain in the background]
Imagine 3 days out in the bush country with all the wallabies and other bush animals... I saw some people with big backpacks and hiking sticks. I'm like "wor~!"
(Just a photo of evidence that I was there - interestingly for a cloudy day... the shot was a bit over-exposed... [shrugs])
Photo spam 1~!
Photo spam 2~! Oh you have no idea just have many shots of this tree I took... I thought it looked lovely highlighted like that against the dark Cradle Mountain. =^____^=
Photo spam 3~!
Photo spam 4~! If only the road to Mordor was pathed like this, I think Frodo and the fellowship might have reached there a little sooner...
Photo spam 5~! Hop, Hop, Hop Mr Crow.
We did walk a little closer to the lake's edge at least. [lol] There's only so much that the tele lens can zoom. hahahhahahha~!
photo spam 7~! Mum and I walked a little bit further to get photo spam 2 one... hahah~! Sorry if the order of the photos are a little out of order. I'm a little miffed that the system I used to sort the order was a little messed up... that's what you get from using 2 cameras... [sigh]
I got a photo of Dad taking photo but decided not to add it since that would increase the amount of spamming. hahahah~!
Anyway we went to Pencil Pine Creek. Average waterfall.. about 10 - 20 minutes walk...
Went to Enchanted walk. about 20 minutes walk. River shot.
Another River shot. heheheh~! I'm wondering just how cold is the water....
More photo spam 1~!
I saw this sign board and went "dry fly fishing"? OKkkkkk...
There was a lodge out here at the semi-mountains area. Guess it's like a getaway of sorts...
More river photo spam~! Had to be careful not to lose our footing...
Some photos of the bush plants...
Close up of the lovely flowers.
So we were walking along the enchanted walk path and saw this composition. I thought it was interesting and dad and I did a series of shots actually.
But what I liked best was this one. Hahaha~ I just post the winnning shot.
then another composition came into play.
got mum to model this time. hahahah~!
I like this one best though. heheheh~!
Oh this one is of dad selecting "the rock".
He does consider pretty hard which one is best.... the photo is just evidence of that. [lol]
Oh this shot was pretty funny because mum was waving her jacket to shoo the flies away. [snicker]
My parents are very sporting people. serious. we are also pretty random, in a good way since it's makes for interesting shots like this one. we were like oooo... footprint. would be fun to pose as if we step on it.
Oh. that was mum's shoe. [snicker]
Dad's idea of dramatic shot. ^_^ it's like a "we conquered Cradle Mountain" kind of shot... though there's the absence of Cradle Mountain... [lol] fun to play with shadows.
Left cradle moutain national park (it's a world heritage by the way) at 6.29m Heading back to Launcester.
One reason why one should be alert when driving on the road... you never know when cows decide to cross the road? hahahah~!
But yea, I slept most of the way back (dad driver) {of course I took these photos before sleeping} Slepth only after finishing the cherries that is... (they were beginning to be black-ish and turning soft).
Photo spam x~! {I lost count... hahah~! plus I'm lazy to scroll up... XD)
Photo spam y~! I love how the trees are so white... looks great against the blue blue sky~!
Reached the Country Club at 8.30pm. Settled to eat some food at Watergarden Restaurant. Our pre-christmas dinner. Had porterhouse steak, roast of the day (lamb) and chicken kiev. Waiting number 77. Went to play casino. Not lucky... happens.

wait for mum and dad, they were playing roulette (don't get the game) {interesting note: i was playing a trivia game recently, and there was a question that asked what was the total number you get if you add all the numbers on the roulette table; 666.}

anyway, we went home at 10.30pm. took shower and helped mum to cut vegetables for lunch and breakfast the next day (lunch - spaghetti, pasta sauce, diced mushroom, sliced hot dogs, diced tomotoes; breakfast - fruit cake (from coles), coffee, tim times, German spice cake (lovely) and strawberries. finished at 1am...



Phew~! done with one more day of the long overdue Tazzy trip. hahahah~! Can you believe that it's already mid-year and I'm still working on things back in December last year... hahaha~! oh well. That's the way the cookies crumbles... ooo cookie. [munch munch] Cheers~!

Day Three of Tasmania Trip (23rd December 2008)

Woke up at 7.30am. Ants in the toilet, had gone there barefooted... hahaha~! Went down to the kitchen. Had coffee and egg sandwiches for breakfast. Pulled out pillow cases and bedsheets and check out from the backpackers.

Reached Richmond at 9am. According to our broucher, it says it's the oldest town around. Walked into a woodcraft shop. There, we were told that there were some trees that only grow in Australia; Blackwood and Sassafrass for example.
The roads in Richmond was pretty quiet...
We drove to see one of the oldest Catholic Church. [read notes] oh wait, it is the oldest church in Australia. You'll excuse me if I say that the church was very simple indeed... Nothing like the renaissance-gothic style of church that I like. You'll forgive me for not knowing the name of the style... hahahha~!
There was however this lovely tree outside the church...
Anyway, went to the Richmond Bridge.
As you can see, we fed the ducks, seagulls and sparrows with some bread. Mum suddenly reminded me of the Goose Girl. XD hehehe~! We later headed off to Campania... Let me say it was a long drive (thank goodness I was napping behind). Apparently in my nap, we past Swansea. [shrugs]
We arrived at Freycinet National Park, the lookout point was lovely. To gain access into the National Park was interesting. I'll start by saying that we were technically in the middle of nowhere... there was this little wooden building. It's a self-service sort of thing. You take the car sticker from the envelope and stick in the car, you put money into the envelope and put in into the box. People are trusted to be honest.

The day pass was about aud22.
Anyway, we are honest people. And we got to this beach... Friendly Beach. I kid you not, it's named that. I raised my eyebrow when dad said the name of the beach...
The lookout point was so beautiful that we quickly made our way to...
The beach itself~!

I would have frolicked happily in the beach...
But it was terribly windy and really very chilly.
Initially we wanted to eat our lunch out at the beach but it really was so cold that we ate near our car... It was so funny that we were more or less huddled in spots that weren't windy...

(The corn was so sweet that you've probably never tasted one as sweet as the one we did, hotdogs, egg sandwiches + zucchini, peach, apricot, boiled cauliflower)

We did meet some wild bush animals; above is a wallaby. So yea, wallabies (2 playful ones), porcupine, gila monster
It was a lovely drive down. I think that's Cradle Mt in the distance there.
Passing by Coles Bay (I think that where this was). I got daddykins to stop the camera for me to take some photos.
We were heading to Wineglass Bay lookout... though along the way, we did stop at this ermmm camping areas...
Yea, you get to rent campsite area that has direct access to the beach. We stopped at one of the areas. Ok, we technically took a wrong turn. Hahahah~! But seriously, it's like getting your very own private beach...
Anyway, back to Wineglass Bay lookout... Don't mind me, I tend to go snap-crazy when I see wild animals...
They were close enough to touch...
Though I didn't since they said not to (since it's wild and all)
Right, just to get to the lookout....
We had to take this tedious, uphill sandy walk up. It took us 45 minutes to walk just to the lookout...
It was no joke man... Of course, there were signs that gave the estimate time of the walks. Plus advice like wearing good shoes and having bottles of water, use hat and sunscreen...
You know... that sort of thing. The 45 minutes was a killer... and that was just to the lookout...
But it was a lovely view. It looked like a wineglass which holds blue cocktail with green / yellow in the bowl of the wineglass. To take this shot, I had to stand as far back as I could and tilt the camera (like duh~!). Of course, the shape would have been more obvious if we had taken the helicopter trip but.... yea, we're not the kind to spend money like that.
Anyways, then began the walk down... bleh. We took the boulderpass instead of the scenic route we took (where we could see coles bay lookout, richardson beach) thinking it was shorter... I believe it was longer... I had slipped twice on the slippery sands. Nothing serious, just scrapes on the right arm but we did make it down by 4.30pm... (think we started at 2.40pm)

Spotted this Brunnett Wallaby in the bush.

We made a quick stop to the lodge nearby; Freycinet Lodge. Lovely pier and stuff. Drove towards Laucester (4.53pm). I took over the driving for a while and then napped some more after someone else took over the driving. hahaha~! Drove to Perth (Haha, not that Perth we all know and love, but rather there's another Perth down in Tasmania, as well as a Richmond)
Reached Laucester backpackers. It was certainly an upgrade from Pickled Frog. A room to ourselves, no creaking floorboards, no shaky beds, no ant-infested floors, spacious rooms, clean kitchen. We paid aud22 per person per night for this triple bedroom. Note it's still a single room.

Anyway, we showered and hanged our clothes out to dry. Walked to a Shanghai Restaurant for dinner. Had fried rice, small charsiew and Mongolian lamb. Dinner was fabulous, though it did come up to aud60+

After dinner, we went to Coles to buy groceries. We went back to the room and dropped off the groceries... And made our way to the Country Club.... Casino. hahahha. Random; Mum and I aren't happy to drive at night... so dad normally drives at night plus in the city. XD the directions to the casino on the broucher wasn't clear so we made a big u-turn before getting here... it was smaller than Wrest Point (only 3 tables; 2 blackjack and 1 roulette table). No luck for me... hahaha we arrived back at the room at 12.47am and slept.