Hobart, Tasmania - Kangaroos, wallabies, Tasmanian devils, and a whole lotta stuff!

After recovering from our hike up Cradle Mountain (well, Talia was recovering, Rony was doing great), we woke up early the next morning to go to Cataract Gorge, which is in Launceston and just a few minutes away. It's their Central Park, only wilder. Of course, as we do every place we go - we brought the rain. So we plopped ourselves at the free Wi-fi place, known to the rest of the world as McDonald's, and McSurfed for an hour and a half until it cleared up. We needed to get more stuff arranged for the rest of the trip, so this wasn't a complete McWaste of time.

By the way, the internet prices here are very expensive. If you don't intend on staying 6 months in Australia and buy a USB stick for the Internet, plan everything from home. Unless you want to spend hours in McDonald's, you won't find free Internet anywhere accessible - even paid wireless is hard to find. An hour on the internet is between 6 and 8 dollars, almost everywhere.

Cataract Gorge was exactly what we needed. Nature and some hiking, but not too much - about an hour or so. It's absolutely beautiful, and we saw all kinds of random animals like a gorgeous peacock (accidentally when we were escaping a really loud family), and another native animal whose name we can't remember.

We took the easy route one way and what is called Zig Zag Route on the way back, so called because you zig zag between life and death as you climb, at least I (Talia) did. Luckily for me, I have a very supportive man who kept cheering me on. The 30-min (10-min for normal people) climb had multiple conversations that sounded something like this:

Rony: Come on! You can do it!
Talia: I'm gonna DIE
Rony: You're doing great!
Talia: I'm gonna DIE
Rony: You're almost at the top! From there it gets easier!

Clearly, I made it, but just barely. Just kidding, it wasn't that bad, just my knees were still hurting a bit from the climb down the day before.

After Cataract Gorge, we drove back to Hobart and took the ocean road so that we could stop at Freycinet Park, which is supposed to be gorgeous. Gorgeous is was, but we didn't actually end up going in because it was - you guessed it! - RAINING. Well, we would've driven through the park itself, if it weren't so expensive! The visit wasn't a total loss, however, as we learned of the existence of a marvelous beverage, hitherto known as "Hot Chocolate in a Can."

We had to buy it (it comes in Latte too, but this is the one we wanted). You remove this sticker at the bottom, press in a button, and shake the can for 20 seconds until you feel it start getting warm. Then you wait for 3 minutes, open it up, and voila! Hot chocolate in a can. It actually tasted pretty good! It was like when you put too much water and not enough milk in your cocoa, but it was definitely tasty and we would definitely buy it if we were camping. And it's the same price as a hot chocolate at a cafe.

We were couchsurfing in Hobart as well. We arrived in the late evening, which was perfect timing for our host because she works at ABC (Australia's station) news station in Hobart. She actually lives about 30 minutes outside of Hobart, but wow, her place is amazing.

Brigitta has a farm with chickens and horses, including a foal, a baby horse that is 6 weeks old. They are absolutely stunning, and of course we had a great time with them, especially Rony. Her house is in the mountains on a hill. We arrived at night and it was very dark, so we were a bit unsecured, but this is Tasmania, so it was all good.

Rony giving the foal a massage

The moment we got to her (gorgeous and designed by her) house, she came downstairs and was just sweet as can be. After settling in at her place and having a cup of coffee, she found out we hadn't seen any wallabies yet (like kangaroos, but smaller), so she suggested we get into our car and drive around her area a bit (it was 10 pm already) because they are nocturnal animals.

So we went off on this awesome impromptu safari, and sure enough we saw all kinds of awesome animals - potaroos, possums, and we're pretty sure we also saw a wallaby.

We went to sleep and got up early the next morning. The sun rises at about 5 am, and as much as you close the curtains, you can't help but wake up early. Plus it was REALLY cold (according to Talia)(whatever, Rony was so way under the covers he didn't know it was cold).

After getting some great advice from Brigitta, we set off towards Port Arthur. We first made a small detour to Marion Bay, which is this gorgeous beach that apparently no one goes to and no one knows of. It is also a refuge for birds that come as far as Siberia! Had Brigitta not told us about it, we would have never stopped there. As it turned out, it was the highlight of our day.

At Marion Bay

There were only 4 other people there, a family, 2 sisters and their daughters (one of whom was named Talia!) with their dog. Other than that - no one. It was so peaceful and beautiful and the sea was a gorgeous color, so we just ended up walking up and down the beach a bit, until the dog came close to Rony, and then we stopped walking and Rony played catch with the dog. :-)

After about an hour at the beach, we returned to the route we were going to take and drove to the Blowhole, a really pretty, natural cave that had collapsed. Unexpectedly, there was a random van there that was selling fish and chips and other food, and as it was lunch time, we decided to try it out. What a great decision! It was absolutely delicious!!! (Or Doo-licious, according to the place's name) We then walked around the blowhole and went on to the next stop - Devil's Kitchen.

As we were driving there, we drove through a town called Doo Town. They have this thing where they each have some random saying on their homes that have the word Doo in it, like Doo Come In, and Just Doo It. By the time we caught on, we missed a few of the good signs, but we took pics of some of the others.

Devil's Kitchen and Tasman's Arch are also caves that were made a bazillion years ago, and they were also gorgeous. This area has a few landmarks, and it's one of those places where you meet people at one of the tourist attractions, and keep running into them throughout the day, so it's like you make friends, but you have no responsibility towards them. You do, however, have people to take your picture for you :-)

Devil's Kitchen

A few minutes drive from there, at Taranna, there is a conservation park for Tasmanian Devils. As it turns out, Tasmanian Devils are now an endangered species. 10 years ago, a mysterious contagious cancer started to spread among the devils, and it affects their mouth and neck. When it arrives to the point where their mouth and neck is so deformed that they can not eat, they die of starvation.

The only way to stop it is to isolate the healthy animals and try to breed them. And if possible, breed genetically resistant animals. That's what they try to do in this center. And, as much as possible, with devils from the east coast, since their DNA is different, and researchers think that the problem is partially from not having enough different DNA. The entry price is high, but we know that it will serve a good purpose.

So we saw the devil. Not so frightening after all. And doesn't look like the one in the cartoons :) They are quite cute actually. Other than Tasmanian devils, they also have wallabies and kangaroos there, and Talia had the chance to feed them. Reminded us of our stay in WFFT.

Cute little devil :-)

Talia feeding a kangaroo

When we were done seeing the local attractions, all of which were gorgeous, we proceeded to drive towards Port Arthur, an old convict colony. When we got there, however, it was - you guessed it! - raining, and we were really tired (it was a really long drive from Hobart). The price was insane - about $30 - so we decided to forego Port Arthur, as much as Talia wanted to see it, and head back to Hobart, which was about a 3 hour drive away.

We stopped in a town close to Hobart to use the free Wi-fi at McDonald's (do you see a McTheme here?) to get more of our stuff organized - we are already getting Japan arranged - and we called Brigitta for recommendations for a seafood restaurant since we were craving seafood. She gave us a couple, and at around 8 pm we looked online to see where they are located - and didn't bother going.

They closed at 9!! It's something completely odd in this country, everything is closed by 8 or 9! We were about a half hour drive away, so there was no use in going anymore. We were really tired anyway, so we just headed back home and called it a night.

The following morning we slept in - until 9! We'd been getting up around 6:30 or 7 almost every morning, except those mornings that we had to get up at 5 am, so we really needed to sleep. In real life - you have weekends. We haven't taken any in the month and a half that we've been traveling.

At Brigitta's (awesome) advice, we took the morning to drive up Mount Wellington, which gives you a spectacular view of Hobart and the surroundings. The drive itself was really nice (though long cause it's a high mountain), and again we started making friends along the way (there are several great lookouts). As we drove up the mountain, it got colder and colder, and every time we passed people riding their bicycles up the mountain (dude?!?!?!), we were in awe. Of course, once we started getting out of the car it started to - wait for it! - RAIN! Woo hoo!

Talia dying of the cold and Rony loving every moment of it

We made it to the top, where it was approximately 347583075 degrees below zero (you can pick Celcius, Fahrenheit, or Calvin), and whatever we were wearing wasn't enough. Especially Talia who didn't think to bring Rony's coat that he generously offered her to take (guess who's writing this line ;))

Talia: OMIGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! It's FREEZING!!!!
Rony: WOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess it's true. Opposites DO attract.

The view was spectacular, but even though it wasn't incredibly cloudy, it was dark enough that the pictures didn't turn out the great, but our memories (before The Freeze shocked Talia's system) are beautiful. Of course, we once again exchanged picture-taking opportunities with the family that we had met below, and then we were off to meet Brigitta for lunch at the seafood restaurant we couldn't go to the night before cause they're weird.

After a nice lunch, we went with Brigitta to her news station so Talia could see what it's like there. It was Rony's first time in a TV station, so while we both got different experiences out of the visit, it was really cool for both of us. When we were leaving the restaurant, Brigitta told us how to get to the station, and told us to turn at the Baha'i center. Rony's ears IMMEDIATELY perked up - "Baha'i? In Hobart, Tasmania?" Talia didn't know, but apparently the center in Haifa is THE center of the religion.

After the visit at the station, we went to visit the Baha'i center. It's built with beautiful architecture, and we were only going to go for 10 minutes, but they ended up giving us a tour, which was great, but it wasn't the 10 minutes the lady promised, but more like 30 minutes.

After admiring the gorgeous building, and learning a bit about the faith, we headed back home. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up some groceries, and as a thanks we cooked Brigitta dinner. Talia dropped Rony at home to cook, and rushed back to the news station to watch the nightly newcast. It couldn't have been more different than where she worked. It was so quiet!

After the newscast, the girls got home and had the dinner Rony cooked (Talia helped with the salad...) Even though Brigitta loved the food (duh, Rony's a great cook!), we think we had more fun by cooking and having a homey meal. A few of our hosts had made us dinner, but this one was our type of food,

Rony made a Quiche LorRony, so named because it was technically a Quiche Lorraine, but Rony added some vegetables to it, and it was DELICIOUS. He also made schnitzel, and that way we had made a meal that was both French and Israeli. We topped it off with one of Rony's great salad's with feta cheese - overall, it was a great meal.

We turned in for the night, and the next morning we went with Brigitta to a - wait for it! - dog Christmas party. For real. The dogs were mostly adorable, and lots of them had ornaments or shirts on them - some even had reindeer ears! It was so funny. And of course we had to hear the poem dedicated to the event read by the party's host. That is not something we would have seen at home.

After the party, we said our farewell to Brigitta (and her two gorgeous Great Danes, who were as big as her foal), and went to the Salamanca market. It's basically just like every other market - arts and crafts and other stuff - but they had different things that the ones in Israel. But like the markets in Israel, Thailand, and probably everywhere else, after 10 minutes you keep seeing the same stuff again and again. To be honest, they had some really awesome things there that Talia probably would have bought had we been going home after Australia, but the thought of carrying it for 2 more months pretty much put an end to the need for retail therapy.

And that was Tasmania! We went straight to the airport to fly back to Melbourne on a flight that was surprisingly not delayed, and headed to our hostel. More about Melbourne in our next post!

Pics from Hobart and surroundings:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=585488&id=906005363&l=0917e188c7