Things I Have Learned in Tasmania

I am sad to say that I will be leaving Tasmania in the morning. It has been an amazing week and I am greatful that I was able to spend this time with Sue and her family. When I set out on my adventure, I had little doubt that Sue and I would get along fine. Now just 10 days later, I am leaving a dear friend whom I will deeply miss. Thank you Sue and Ken for welcoming me into your home.



I will not be leaving empty handed. Below are a few of the things I learned on my visit to Tasmania:






Sue has an apple tree in her backyard that yields over ten varieties of apples and a pear tree that yields at least two varieties of pears. You too can have such a tree and I can help you make it happen. All you need is one mature apple tree, branches off other apple trees, a box cutter and some tape. After gathering all of the necessary tools, simply slice one end off the a branch in the tree and slice one end off each of the branches you have collected. Make a groove cut in each so you can stick them together like a puzzle and tape the two pieces together.

Warning: Working with the box cutters can be dangerous and should only be attempted by a trained such as myself..

Pumpkins are not just for Halloween. Baked or mashed pumpkin is delicious and is available all year.

Lamington is a sponge cake cut into squares, dipped in chocolate and coconut.

Vegemite is a spread that is put on toast or crumpets. This strange spread is consumed daily and is considered a staple in the home of moat Australians. The only possible explanation for this is mass brainwashing of the children at a very young age.

Butter is another staple in the home of Australians. If you have a piece of bread, you put butter on It regardless of what else you intend to with the bread, You would never make a sandwich of any kind without spreading the butter on first. Unfortunately, I have found that I like this.




Chips can be either French fries or potato chips. If someone asked you to pick up $2worth of chips, you would know they meant fries. If they asked for a pack of chips, you would know they meant potato chips. Why you would know this, I have no idea, but you do. Apparently it is all in how you ask.




A hamburger with the lot, is a hamburger with a fried egg. This is a popular way to eat a hamburger in Australia.

Ice cream tastes best at 2:00 in the morning.

We Almost Died Today

Ok, maybe I was being a little dramatic, but I got your attention. Today was an amazing day. We had saved the best for last. Thursday doesn’t count because it is the do the laundry, re-pack, do all the little things you said you wanted to do before you left day. Today Ken took Sue and I out on the boat. He is either a very brave man or a very stupid one to go out with only the two of us as his crew. I guess it goes back to his laid back Australian way. If the boat flips it flips, no worries. Did you know they had penguins here? I didn’t until one popped up along side the boat. I tried to get a picture but the little fella was to quick for me. We saw a couple more but they were also to quick to get pictures. Pictures or not, it was very exciting.





We started out on very calm water, but it didn’t stay that way long. This is where the almost dying part comes in. We were traveling through swells. Ken explained how the swells were formed and why they were so bad today, but like everything else he has been so good at explaining, I don’t remember. I just know that they are scary and exciting and back to scary again.







At first, I wasn’t to worried. It was a little freaky watching the swell coming towards the boat and rocking us from side to side. but I kept telling myself that it must be safe or Sue and Ken wouldn’t be out here. Then, I made the mistake of looking at Sue and seeing the terror in her eyes. That is when I began to get a little concerned. Ken assured me we were very safe. Sue then whispered that Ken was a bit of a dare devil and Ken whispered that Sue was a bit of a sissy. Who do you believe? Regardless, it was an amazing ride and worrying that at any moment one of those waves could send us flying, made it that much better, in a sick sort of way.






After surviving the swells, we came across a couple of seals. They were a little easier to snap a picture of.










This is O'Possum bay. Believe it or not, some of these houses are considered shacks. Remember, a shack is a holiday home. At one time Possum Bay consisted mostly of shacks, but many of the shacks have been remodeled and turned into permanent homes.






We made it home safe and sound and I am classifying this as a best day ever.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Bright and early Monday morning, we left mum's and headed out on our next adventure. We were off to see the rain forest. The brush was so thick that I am pretty sure if Polly and I went hiking there we would never be heard from again. It was lovely









The most amazing part of the day was the weather. It rained and rained and rained, unless we got out of the car, then it would suddenly stop. The minute you got back in the car, it would start again. In the car rain, out of the car no rain. It was almost a candid camera type of thing. You knew someone was watching to see how you reacted. Sue said her dad was watching over us and turning the sprinkler off and on. At first I thought maybe mom was helping him, but she would have turned the sprinkler on while we were out of the car just to keep us on our toes. Regardless of who was in charge of the weather, it was lovely.






Last stop of the day, Hastings Caves. Apparently the rest of the world wasn’t having as good of luck with the weather as we were. The place was practically deserted and we were the only two on the tour. It was kind of spooky. The tour guide told us to walk down to the bottom while he went and shut the door. We were left all alone and for a brief moment we were concerned that we would never see the light of day again. He returned a few minutes later and we felt a little better . We were almost relaxed when suddenly I could feel a fourth person behind us. About the same time all of the lights were turned off and the feeling of doom returned.








Eventually we relaxed and were able to enjoy the tour. Since it was only the two of us, the tour guide was able to spend more time explaining the cave which thrilled him. He was very passionate about caving and with only the two of us on the tour he had more time to explore the cave. It was like he was seeing it for the first time, which made you wonder if he was really a tour guide, which gave you that creepy feeling again.... Every once in a while we would ask a question just to remind him we were there. He really was very informative. It is such a shame that neither of us remember a word he said.






Have you ever seen the end of a rainbow? I did today and it was lovely. Unfortunately, someone beat me to the pot of gold.

Sunday was a lovely day

First order pf business today was buying a camera. This is the first picture taken with my new camera while we were still in the store.






Once the camera was taken care of we were off to the Salamanca Market. It is a big Farmers Market that they have every Saturday in the Salamanca District. I think all of Tasmania must congregate there. I found out how small Tasmania really is while at the market because everytime we turned a corner there was someone Sue knew. I am sure you are thinking that I have lost track of the days. I haven’t. The Salamanca Market was changed from Saturday to Sunday this week in observance of ANZAC day.







Our last stop of the day was Glen Huon. This is the town where Sue grew up and her mum and many of her family still live. We were there to attend her nieces’ pre-wedding party or what we would call a wedding shower complete with games, presents and lots of food.






After the party, Sue and I settled in at mum's for the night. It was a quiet but lovely day. Yes, lovely will be my new word when I return home.

Do you know what these phrases/words mean?

Sue and I are spending the night at mum's tonight, so I will not have access to the interent until tomorrow evening. While I am out of reach, you can try to figure out what the following works and phrases mean. Some are easy and others you will never guess. Have fun!




A chop short of the Barbie
Call in
Girls blouse
Blew him
Fairdinkum
Mozzies
Morning tea/ afternoon tea
Budgie Smugglers
Sparrow fart
Dogs breakfast
Dear
Back of burke
Beyond the black stump
Flat out like a lizard drinking
Who opened their lunch
Dummy - pacifier
Spit the dummy
Plonk
Rubbish
Come a gutsar
Ear bashing
Money market
Hole in the wall

Lazy Day

Today was Anzac Day which stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corp. This is the day in 1915 that the Australians landed on Gallipoli. It is celebrated much like our Memorial day complete with parades. Most stores opened at noon and some remained closed all day. Sue and I decided that between the rain and the holiday, this would be our lazy day.






We do lazy days very well. We began our lazy day with a latte. You all will be thrilled to know that I have refrained from offending the Australian’s by telling them how to make my latte. I just ask for a skinny latte and take what they give me. The fact that everyone here automatically makes a latte the way they should be made, extra hot with a thin layer of foam, helps.




Since my camera is cactus, we decided this would be a good day to look for a new one. We did some looking, but finding the perfect camera was to stressful for a lazy day. We will resume our search tomorrow.







Today was our wine tasting day. Sue is not a big wine drinker so she had asked her daughter and son-in-law to join us so I wouldn’t have to drink alone. Gabriella and Andrew met us at Moorilla Winery, which is just a short distance from Sue’s house. In fact, the winery is part of that wonderful view I mentioned on my first day. The wine was nice and the tasting was free. In addition to making wine. Moorilla also brews their own beer that you can also taste for $5. I actually liked the beer more that the wine.


In keeping with this is our lazy day, we were home by 4:00 and have been bums all afternoon. I’m loving every minute of it.

Port Arthur

Sue and I started our morning much like we would have if I had been home, chatting on line. I was on my computer in my bedroom finishing updating yesterday’s blog when she got up and logged onto her computer. Not wanting to be rude, but being to lazy to get out of bed, (it was only 5:00AM) I sent her a message and we visited via msn until I felt like getting out of bed. What can I say, some habits are hard to break. When I finally decided it was time to get up, we adjourned to the patio for tea and crumpets. What a way to start the morning.






After our leisurely breakfast out on the patio, we headed out on our adventure of the day. Port Arthur is an old penal station that was established in 1830. It was a punishment station for repeat offenders from all of the Australian colonies. The grounds the penitentiary were built on are lovely. We were a little concerned about the weather, but we were fortunate and only got sprinkled on towards the end of the tour.







We left Port Arthur and headed for the Blow Hole. We arrived there only to find seven police cars and police tape blocking off the entrance . A surfboarder had drowned earlier in the day and they were waiting for the ambulance to pick up the body. However, it wasn’t a total loss. There was a snack cart selling ice cream with berries on top. We could tell that the drowning had been bad for business so felt compelled to buy some ice cream just to help out. You know me, always thinking of others.









On the way to the Blow Hole, we passed Doo Town. What is Doo Town you ask? Well, I’m still not quite sure but it appears that everyone has a “Doo” word on their shack. What is a shack you ask? That is a holiday (vacation) home. The practice of putting “Doo” on these houses was established in 1935. Some of the Doo’s we saw were Dr. Doolittle, Doo Nothing, Doo Me, Doo I, Doo Us, Gonna Doo and this Will Doo. If your curiosity has been peaked, you can google Doo Town , Port Arthur and read all about it.

The Walk

Sue lives in the perfect neighborhood . Lovely houses, very quiet, great view and lots of hills for walking. This morning I learned to be careful what you ask for. I had told Sue that I needed some exercise and wanted to take a good walk. I figured it was going to be a slow easy walk because Sue said she wasn’t a walker. Was I ever surprised. I wasn’t sure if this belonged on the hiking blog or the vacation blog. Sue may not be a walker, but she was determined to make sure I had a good walk. She had our walking route already picked out and I am pretty sure that she picked out the steepest route she could find. It was one of those up hill both ways walks. I loved it. So did Sue, I just hope that by morning she is ready to admit that. She never let on during the entire walk that she was struggling. I had no idea until we walked into the house, she laid on the floor and announced to her husband that she was going to die. He of course had no sympathy. He told he she knew I was a walker before I got there and she should have started getting in shape two weeks before I arrived. It couldn’t have been that bad because she has already started looking for different places to walk. She just plans on bringing her phone next time in case she needs to call in for a helicopter rescue her.








After Sue recovered from our walk, we took a drive up to the top of Mt. Wellington. Sue had said I could hike to the top of and she would drive and pick me up at the top. Luckily I declined. She had failed to mention that I would have frozen to death before I got to the top. There was a lovely view of Hobart from the top of the mountain, but I was to cold to take a picture so you will just have to take my word for it.









I had been told that Australians were very laid back and less excitable than Americans. I don't know about all Australians, but that is very true of Sue's husband Ken. While driving back down Mt. Wellington, he stopped along the side of the road to get me a drink of spring water. While he was across the street getting the water, I noticed the car was beginning to roll down hill. I trying not to panic, let Sue and Ken know that the car was beginning to roll. I immediately jumped into action and step in front of the car planning to stop it with my super strength. Sue takes a more practical approach and jumps in the car and pulls the hand brake. Ken looks calmly at the car and says "yes I suppose it is, I mustn't have set the hand brake tight enough," and calmly returns to his task of getting me water. I am not sure that his response would have been any different had the car plummeted down the side of the mountain.







Our next stop was for lunch and to meet mum and Sue's sisters. I believe it was my final inspection and I passed. The family is now confident that while I may be a little odd, at least I am not the axe murderer they had first suspected that I was.

I'm Here

After traveling for what seems forever, I am finally here. This is just the first day of my vacation and I already feel like I have had an adventure, Luckily I am a go with the flow type of person and am not prone to getting upset when someone messes up. If I weren’t, I would be upset with myself all of the time. My departure from San Francisco went off without a hitch. Karen and I spent the day shopping in the Bay Area. She dropped me off at the airport about 3 and a half hours before my flight took off. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Too bad I wasn’t as cautious with the rest of my travel plans.

I arrived in Sydney at 6:30 in the morning. My flight to Hobart didn’t leave until 8:40. Two hours and ten minutes. Plenty of time to make a connection, unless of course you make some serious mistakes along the way. After standing in line for 30 minutes for my turn to get that much coveted stamp in my passport, the young woman assisting me looks at me strangely and asks if I use any name other than what is shown on my passport. I tell her no, Houser is the only name I use. She then says you don’t use any name that has an “ee” in it? I explained that my maiden name was Keen but that I hadn’t used that name in 36 years. Wrong she says. You used it a couple of months ago when you applied for your visa. OOPS! Well, being a firm believer in the if you are going to laugh about if later you may as well laugh about it now philosophy, I chuckled. She, not finding the humor in my situation, said my visa had to be in the same name as my passport. The line behind me was getting longer and the people in that line were getting a little annoyed. I chose to believe they were annoyed with her for giving me a hard time, however, it is probably more accurate to say they were annoyed with me. After redirecting the poor, annoyed people to another line, she called an immigration officer who was in my opinion too eager to accept the fact that I wasn’t hiding anything, I was just stupid. I was beginning to worry that I was going to be like Tom Hanks in the movie "The Terminal" where he was stuck in the airport for months, but after 30 minutes I was free to go.

After my close call with customs, I gathered my luggage and headed towards ground transportation . I had arrived at terminal 1 and was leaving from terminal 2. When I located the transfer bus they wanted 5.50 AUD to let me on. Who ever heard of having to pay to transfer terminals? This is where mistake number 2 comes in. I didn’t have any AUD. I was planning on getting it at an ATM when I arrived. Knowing that I was already cutting it close, I ran back in and asked where the closest ATM was. I easily located the machine only to see a “sorry, the machine is out of order” sign. No problem, it was a big airport, there had to be another ATM. There was and it was wearing the same sign. I was once again starting to think I would be spending the night at the airport. Just before panic set in, I found one of those currency exchange places and converted the entire 77 .00 USD that I had brought with me to 94.00 AUD. The guy that worked there was a little perplexed that I arrived in Australia with only $77.00. I had to assure him that if I could just get out of the airport, I would be fine.

Once I got the money, I ran for the transfer bus. It is now 8:00, only 40 minutes until my plane would take off without me. I asked the bus driver if she thought I would make my 8:40 flight and her response was “no worries”. Well of course she wasn’t worried, she wasn’t the one who was going to be spending the night at the airport. Terminal 2 is a long way from terminal 1. It is possible that it is even in another city. I arrived at my gate at 8:55. No worries though, my plane had been delayed 20 minutes so I had 5 minutes to spare.

When I got off the plane in Tasmania, there was Sue and Ken waiting to greet me. What a wonderful sight that was. Sue and I have been gabbing ever since. Her daughters have all come by to check out the axe murderer. I think I passed the test, but I believe they are going wine tasting with us anyway, just to be on the safe side.

AUSTRALIA BOUND

The long awaited day is finally here. I am on my way to Australia to spend eight fun filled days with my friend Sue. Sue and I have been friends for about a year, however, we have never actually met. We chat online. So why am I flying thousands of miles to spend a week with someone I've never met? That's easy, because she invited me and because I have a passport just begging for another stamp.  

When I first made the decision to go on this adventure, our children were a little apprehensive. Mine were concerned that she was a pervert luring me to a foreign country and her children were concerned that she had invited an axe murderer into their home. It had never occurred to either of us that we really didn’t know each other. By the time that realization sank in, I had my ticket and was already making plans for the adventure of a life time. Sue and I have no doubt that we are going to get along great. After all, what's not to like about us?  However, in the unlikely event that we take an instant dislike for each other, her daughters sound like a lot of fun or I bet mum would love to hang out with me.  

After spending eight days in Tasmania, I will be off to Cairns to meet up with Dana and her family. Those of you that follow my “Best Day Ever” blog have already met Dana. The rest of you will get to know her very soon. While in Cairns I will be sharing a house with Dana, her husband, sister and father.  Dana has been the activities director for this portion of my vacation.   I am not sure what all she has planned, but I do know she has been doing the happy dance at work all week, so it must be good.

My final destination is Brisbane.  While there I plan on visiting Steve Irwin's zoo on behalf of my sister.  A few years ago Polly had a secret crush on him.  I think she may have even had a Steve Irwin doll sitting on her nightstand.  However,  that may have just been a nasty rumor that I started.  The second day I plan on surprising myself with a super fun activity.  That is code for I can't decide what I am going to do.  So much to do, so little time.  I just hope I tell myself what the surprise is so I don't miss it.