All posts by Sara

Ahoy Tassie

Travel

Many companies shutdown completely over Christmas in Australia. When I found out my company would be closed from 21 December through 3 January, Jon and I started planning a trip. We’d heard nothing but positive things about Tasmania so that became our focus. After some research, Jon proposed we take the ferry over because we could bring ourselves and our car for less than it would cost to fly and rent a car. It sounded like a great idea at the time.Ferry

The trip did not get off to a smooth start when we went to drive to the ferry only to find ourselves stuck in a long line of traffic to get to the port. According to the rules, we needed to be checked in at 8:15 am, but we were still barely moving forward at 8:15. Luckily (sort of), the boat did not leave without us. We settled in for our 9+ hour cruise over to Tassie. I found much of the trip nauseating and spent lots of time head down, eyes closed, trying to get through the rough parts. Luckily, I felt much better toward the end of the trip
and was able to enjoy our arrival.

We drove off the ship around 7 pm and headed to Sheffield, our first destination, arriving just before 8 pm. It seemed like a good time to get settled in and then head out for dinner. It stays light until after 9 pm and 8 pm doesn’t seem all that late anyway, but when we got
to the hotel, the manager advised that we get dinner straight away before everything closed imminently. Sheesh. We managed to get some really good Chinese take away and then got settled in at the hotel.

The next day we headed to Cradle Mountain, planning to hike to the summit. After some initial confusion, we caught a bus to the start of the hike.

Bus Pass

We thought it would be best if we could drive straight to the car park where the hike starts, but there is a weird metering system that lets cars into the park in a seemingly random fashion. We were so glad we ended up catching the bus though because the road past
the metering gate is basically one lane with some areas for moving over perilously if a car or bus happens along going the other way.

The hike starts at Dove Lake with a lovely path around the lake. Dove Lake

About half way around, we turned off to start the upward ascent and kept going up and going up further with a few reprieves. The path started to get a bit more treacherous and I started to get a bit (read: a lot!) more anxious as we got closer to the summit. After I tried to scramble up a rock the length of me, I decided I’d had enough and told Jon to go on to the summit without me.

 

Cradle Mountain Trail Cradle Mountain trail Cradle MountainCradle Mountain Views

There were plenty of people on the trail so it seemed safe enough to split up for just a bit. Jon, being the overachiever that he is, made it to the summit and back in just a bit more time than it took me to get back to a good sitting rock area. He reported that it only got worse the rest of the way so I’d made a good decision to stop when I did. Phew. I really enjoyed vast majority of the hike and the views throughout were really amazing.

Cradle Mountain Views Cradle Mountain Views

That night we checked out the Sheffield Hotel and indulged in some extra healthy parmas. In Australia, a common bar food is chicken parmesan. BUT it isn’t the chicken parm Americans are used to with red sauce and cheese and pasta on the side. It comes in all sorts of varieties and it is always served with chips (fries). Jon’s parma had bacon, egg, cheese, and bbq sauce. Mine was topped with prawns and scallops in a cream sauce. Yum. The restaurant had a salad bar too… that’s right a salad bar! I haven’t seen a salad bar in a restaurant in ages, but someone did warn me if the perception is that Australia is generally 10 – 20 years behind the US then Tassie is at least 30 years behind.

Our evening entertainment for the rest of the trip was determined that night as we caught the Big Bash League on TV. It’s a format of cricket called T-20 (the first T stands for 20) which turns the game into something that lasts a few hours with lots of action. Some Aussies seem to like it, but lots of people tsk tsk that isn’t not the way the game is meant to be. I think it’s great, but I suspect that’s because it’s being Americanized.

Stay tuned for more on Tassie next time when we head to Hobart…

What we did when not blogging

Random Musings

You may have noticed that it took us a bit of time to get our vacation blog posts completed. We’ve been settling into Melbourne much more and actually, gasp!, had plans that kept us busy. Or maybe it’s just that we’re kind of slow about writing sometimes – as IT nerds, neither Jon nor I are particularly natural writers! But we try and here is my attempt at capturing some highlights from recent weeks…

John Oliver at the Palais Theater 
Just getting to see this show at all was a relief because just after I found out John Oliver was coming to Melbourne, I found out that the two scheduled shows were sold out. Luckily, he added a third show and we snapped up tickets. It felt odd when he made a few jokes that assumed everyone in the audience was an Aussie, which makes sense, but just felt odd since I’m not.

#86tramcrawl
We met some super fun people at a 4th of July event and they invited us to tag along on a bar crawl. They’d planned this interesting route to a bunch of bars along the 86 tram with a schedule of when they’d be where and everything. It was so great to get to enjoy the hard work of a well planned afternoon without doing any of the hard work myself! Jon and I just rocked up to the first bar, the Racoon Club, and moseyed our way along the tram route with an increasingly festive group of people. In general, I am a terrible day drinker since I feel like napping after a beer or two in the afternoon, but I gave myself a pep talk and was able to stay out until after dark (aka all hours!).

Classic Cinemas
Both Jon and I really enjoyed Aussie film classic The Castle and thought that the lead actor Michael Caton was great. When we saw he was starring in a new movie, “Last Cab to Darwin”, we knew we had to see it. I found out it was playing at a theater nearby and the theater ended up being fantastic. I am not generally a huge fan of seeing movies in the theater, especially if they are more than 2 hours long, but then I don’t think any movies need to be longer than 2 hours, but that’s a whole other rant. Anyway, Classic Cinemas is an older theater that has been refurbished (somewhat) and has numerous screens with small theaters that feel like you stepped into the theater room in a house on Cribs. It didn’t hurt that they have a decent beer selection.

St Kilda Bowls
We continue to consider joining the St Kilda Bowls club where some friends are members. For a festive Friday evening, we met up with our pals for dinner at shockingly good Mexican place, shocking because not only are we super far from Mexico, but most Mexican food here is not good. Then we all headed to the Bowls club afterward for drinks and footy watching.

Speaking of footy, in Melbourne, footy fever is in full swing. It’s the second to last week of the AFL playoffs or finals as they are actually called here. Jon’s team, North, is still in the mix after an underdog win over the Sydney Swans. Lucky for us, Victoria decided to make the day before the grand final a public holiday just this year so we get an unexpected day off next Friday. Woohoo.