WWOOFING

just landed our first WWOOFING Gig, if you dont kno what that is... it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. we are pumped go Nick for working this one through and landing it for us baby!!! am pumped becuse this place and dude sounds like a chilla, and looks like its going to be lots of fun, his daughter is a Yert builder?? and he sounds like minded!
we land at blackjack vally in 2 weeks, after the wooden boat festival @ Hobart, so will keep you updated!

Some highlights so far have been this amazing 15km walk we did through beautiful world heritage listed land, at bird gate bridge down near Queenstown.

 We followed an old railway track, through really boggy ground, having to hop over bits of wood at some parts of the track. It was this amazing rainforest with tall tree ferns and moss growing everywhere right next to this gorgeous flowing river that you could probably go white water rafting down. Took us about 4 hours return and at the end of the walk was this abandoned ghost town. Was in ruins but we saw a few old chimney stacks and the old jetty among other relics. I ended up with a few leeches on my leg, don’t know how they got there under my jeans, but it was pretty full on terrain. 

When we were leaving we passed these fellows who were going out canoeing, they left pretty much behind us carrying canoes each with little wheels.  On a few parts of the walk (that had been washed away by landslides etc) we wondered how they could possibly get through. About ¼ the way back we passed them and were amazed at their sheer persistence with hauling these canoes so far, through such difficult terrain. We had already been walking a good 2-3 hours, stopped shared stories then kept going. When we were about ¾ the way back, so a good hour or so had passed, one of the canoe man caught up with us covered in sweat. His mate did not want to haul the canoes back through this and asked if we could drive his car back to his wife at Queenstown and ask her to pick them up from Straun the next day. Needless to say Eleanore and I were pumped as we got to cruise around in a new Subaru Forrester.

 

We had look at the Wall (it’s a huge hand carved Huon Pine story line) just out of Derwent Bridge. Carved by Mr Duncan. He has been at it since 2005 and expected to finish in 2015. Don’t think he will make his deadline, cus he still has a lot to do…. Cost $10 to get in each, then we bought a tasting honey beer each ( not really worth it) and a nip of single malt whiskey. The biggest highlight for Eleanore and I was the toilet, with running water hand soap, and paper towel. After 6 days of full on camping it was the perfect opportunity to scrub up a little. If he makes it by his deadline, I will buy the book, which Luke suggested we take into the loos and take photos of as cameras weren’t allowed, it was an expensive book and we wernt that impressed…. Yet!.

 

Smashed a crazy drive thru to Hobart and slept in the middle of suburbia was a bit weird, but we had no trouble from the locals and we really wanted to get our zzz’s on.

Checked out Salamanca markets, which was cool. Way way too many people and not much fun when ur lookin and can’t buy because of our limited space in our snail rig. Did stock up on some produce and bought a pendant of some cool vendor who had turned his pictured into cool jewelry. Eleanore and I have matching ones. Nick funs dome amazing bread and funnily enough so did Eleanore (the exact same loaf). Bailed off Salamanca and headed to MONA!!

Here is where it gets cool. MONA  Wow this place is amazing!!!! It’s a totally different spin on a museum and its just heaps of fun. Its quite adult and we often wondered about parents toting their kids around, particularly through some of the exhibits, there were even cautions up, and lots of signs for parents to use their discretion. We missed out on the wall of Fannys, disappointing, but it’s one thing that is apparently very popular at MONA and you can even buy soaps named after the subject in the gift shop ??? WTF??  We all found something that interested us. Luke, Eleanore , Nick and I loved it and had a blast there! Could have easily spent a few days looking through some of this stuff there were some really confronting exhibits. Like one of lethal injections (for euthanasia) but there was also some traditional museum pieces, like tapestries and mummies. I really liked this spinning head. That when you looked in you saw all these different elements spun together, like when you flip through a book with picture. There was a cool little market on out the front too, and that just added to the vibe.

 

Cruised over to the Beautiful Bruny Island after this on the ferry, and met this hell funny tour guide named Jolly and every second word that came out of his mouth was FuQ, was really funny to then see him later with his group that he trashed to us, being very professional and smiley etc.

 Wow!!!! Could live here, just don’t think we would be able to afford it!!! Luke and Nick had and amazing day on the Kayaks. They left adventure bay round 11 am and only got back round 5ish, 10 km in total and came home with 1 crayfish/ lobster 1 salmon and 1 flathead . They ventured out to the Tasman sea, if they kept going they would have ended up at Antarctica.  Eleanore and I ate and drank the local produce (awesome but pricey cheese and wine). Then set up a shelter, after a few go’s, and chilled out on the beach, had some naps and talked crap all arvo. As soon as they boys got back they messed with the shade and it fell apart, help up all arvo, but wasn’t good enough for them. We decided to chill out there for the night. We Moved on the next day to this spot one of the locals, ‘Packo”, had told us about. The boys had a field day picking up oysters and mussles, and scoffed themselves silly. Ele and I wernt hungry. But Sahara loved cooked oysters and had a feast on cleaning out the shells.  Woke up the next morning early as, to a naked Luke holding himself, bangin’ on our rig saying ” get up, there is smoke round” so we scrambled out of bed, was really strange. There was a lot of smoke around but couldn’t tell where it was coming from, we were on a sketchy bit of the rd and there was only left or right, and we had no idea where the flames where, so we booted up the internet, yes we actually had reception there, listened to AM- ABC and made our bushfire evac plan, which was to drive straight ahead (through the ferns and plants etc) and get to the ocean, where we would poor water over our cars. As we were discussing this bits of Ash started to fall on us, then they got bigger. Luckily we didn’t have to activate our plan but we stayed where we were and the boys ate more oysters, and Sahara cleaned up the extras.

 

We said our goodbyes to Ele and Luke then and let them push on with the rest of their trip, and we just hung back and started taking it slow.

 

We ended up down at Dover and Southport once we got off Bruny Island. Met some interesting characters there, the locals in Dover all have matching dogs and are a bit strange, and some were happy with us camping on the beach others told us to get off crown land.

The next day nick and I decided we needed a shower bad, this may have been why the people in Dover were a bit funny to us. So we headed down to Hastings Caves and Thermal pools. Where we paid $5 each, had a swim in the thermal pool, and had the bestest, longest, hottest showers in history !!!

We then found heaps of free camps along this way but ended u finding what we thought was the best camp at Catamaran boat ramp. Once we were set up and cookin dins we got swamped by mossies and had to spend the rest of the evening inside. We decided to high tail it and got some “tourist photos” next to Australias most southerly street etc etc.

We decided to check out Mt Wellington, and we were impressed at how much of Hobart you could see. Found an awesome little honesty box system loaded  up and scored heaps of fresh organic produce.  Needless to say we ate well on the top of Mt Wellington that night, camped in a carpark  at the base of a look out. Unfortunately for us we got got woken up early by all these enthusiastic people who go downhill mountain bike riding (thinking of you Matt) who decided to piss off the tourists and park right next to us, now this car park was a decent sized car park, so there really was no need ‘cept to piss us off, as I said. Did not sleep so well anyways as the gals woke us up round midnight, sniffing and pawing at the door. Woke up in the morning not only to the “friendly” bike riders but found that our rubbish bag had been raided by some crazy possum creature and had to pick up all our crap from the ground.

We met up with Geoff who I have the pleasure of working with and his lovely wife Carol and booked into our first real caravan park at Richmond, which is a lovely historic little town with the oldest bridge in Australia located there. At 20 bucks we decided to only stay one night and after sharing a great evening of stories and laughs planned to meet up at the Launceston Beer Festival the next weekend. Tell you didn’t take much convincing.

We decided that we really needed to spend a few days relaxing and drove around the “high country” and saw some of the devastation that the recent bushfires had done. We drove all the way up these mountains to find that they are filled with water and run huge hydro- electric plants.

 

It was great to actually find somewhere that was green and had life around at Penstock Lagoon. Full of fly fishers, had a close call when I was doing my morning business and looked over and saw a fly fisher about 15 m away looking in my direction?? Had a great chill out there, ran into more possums, woke up after the first night to a stench of possum piss all over our chairs, outside table and cooker. So we decided that its fair game and instead of trying Sahara and Delta up at night we let them be dogs, they bailed a couple up, and the possums made these crazy noises, probably fearing for their lives, (when really I think our girls would have a panic attack if they even got close to one) and choose the smallest trees to climb up when there are amazing big gums all around us. Had to pick up the rubbish again, but at least we had no more possum piss problems, thanks girls.

Decided to move on and get closer to Launceston for this Beer Festival and found a camp spot at Clarence Point at these “breakwaters”.  Sahara and Delts loved it, full of little bunnies for their adventure. Needless to say we didn’t see them the whole time we were there.

Nick found some oysters as the sun was setting and pulled a few up, opened them up ,about to bog in, and saw that they were fluorescent green. The last thing we need is for an attack of the shits while we are free camping, so we are very careful about what we eat. These did not pass the test.

BEER FESTIVAL………….. AMAZING………… so much to share so little recollection. Another great night with Carol and Geoff, met his cool cousin Danny who offered us a couple nights accom and a job for me and got on famously with nick. Drinking and tasting amazing beers and finding my all time favorite cider…. Kopperberg ,elderberry with a twist of lime. Tried a strawberry blond beer, nick hit up the stouts and we loved the ales!!!

Do remember finding some funny locals and following them back to their local pub (which was a bit like the crown and anchor in Adelaide,) drinking some terrible local beer on tap, staying till led zeppelin stairway to heaven came on, which translated to the last drinks call and watching a crazy fight where this dude ended up pissing blood front a crack to the head.

 

We did have the all time amazing park, next to the river, so we could walk the girls and stumble back to car that night. All in all great night. We had a fantastic time and felt right at home.