Mid Semester Break Pt. 1 (Tasmania)

Well the mid semester break finally came! So that I didn't feel to overwhelmed when blogging about my awesome trip I wrote each portion at the end of the days and when I had free time. So sorry if I say the phrase "today we" too often! I decided to split it up into two portions so the posts are not too long. Here is the portion focused on Tasmania "A Land Way Under Down Under". Enjoy!

April 18th - Tasmania
We made it to Tasmania. The trip over was long and exhausting, but we managed! It started with an early bus ride to the Brisbane Airport where we flew out. There we are before we boarded the plane. Since it is still Passover I had a nice matzah and deli meat sandwich. Hopefully I didn't get too many strange looks in the airport. I mainly just got them from across the table. Lol. After getting to Launceton (it's pronounced like lawn-se-ton and I am still working on pronouncing it myself), we then (Thanks for the lesson Mrs. Lansky) took a taxi to the bus stop and then a 2 hour ride to the city of Hobart where our hostel was and our tour left from. We stayed at the "Pickled Frog." It was a nice green building with tons of paintings all over the walls, needless to say I loved it. It had such a wonderful atmosphere. I am sad we were only able to spend a night there. The next morning at 7:30am, we were picked up for our tour. We then drove out of Hobart and started our drive that ends up back in Launceton. We stopped at 3 national parks today. All were beautiful full of lakes, waterfalls, mountains, huge trees, and one Tasmanian Pademelon.

Tasmanian Pademelon or Red-bellied Pademelon are basically a smaller version of wallaby. They used to classify them as two distinct types of wallabies until they found other differences and decided to give them their own name. They are very rare on the mainland due to dingos and hunters, but are found all over Tasmania.

The Pademelon!!!

We saw many crazy lookout points and learned about Tasmania's wonderful history. We also stopped at a raspberry farm which had delicious raspberries (and I'm not usually a fan of them so they must have been good). At the raspberry farm, we saw a wallaby bouncing around. The tour guide and our fellow tourees (not sure if real word but it's my blog so I'll say what I want) are very nice. We had a group barbecue tonight which was delicious. Our tour guide's friend caught a Tasmanian salmon yesterday and he barbecued them. The rest of us made a salad and veggies as well. The salmon was actually amazing. (Aren't you proud of me mom and dad?!). That night I played a game called Bohnanza with my new French and Norwegian friends. It was a weird but fun game about collecting beans sprouts and I actually won my first time playing. I am so excited to see the rest of the tour and experience more of Tasmania.

In the raspberry field

April 19th

Today started with a 9km hike to Montezuma Falls, Tasmania's tallest waterfall. It was a long hike, but definitely worth it to see the waterfall. After our hike we went to a nice fishing town called Strahan. After our lunch stop, we went to Henty Dunes where we got to jump off of sand dunes. This was probably my favorite part of being in Tasmania. Not only did we get incredible jumping photos, but we also had a blast.

Tallest waterfall in Australia

Strahan

Pan Love at Henty Dunes

Preparing for the Jump

Our trusty Jump mobile

April 20th

We started the day with another hike. This one was slightly shorter and a little more scenic. The group had the option to do a hike around dove lake or hike up to Marion's lookout. I decided to do the dove lake route because it was a cloudy day and our tour guide said the view was not guaranteed because of this. My group had a good time hiking around the lake and looking up to Cradle Mountain. After the hike we headed to the beautiful incredible spectacular city of Sheffield. (I guess you can tell I really liked it by my use of adjectives) This town's nickname is the "town of murals." Every year during Easter time, the town holds a competition where they fly in artist from across the world to compete in a mural painting competition. It was awesome to see the artist painting and be able to talk to them about their work. The murals from past years are all around the city. There was also a store just for marbles that had really cool marble traps. After leaving Sheffield, we stopped at a honey farm and a salmon farm where we got to try samples. Some of the honey samples didn't even really taste like honey (which was fine with me). They had chocolate and hazelnut ones which I liked the best. The day ended with us heading back to Launceton to end the tour, we stopped at a park in the middle of the city before the tour ended and walked around. At the park, we saw at least 6 wallabies. After leaving the park, Laura, Erin, our friend from England, and I got dropped off at our hostel for the night. We got dinner at a spud place. I got a beef curry type spud that was delicious. We are now going to bed early to catch our early flight to Melbourne.

Wombat

Wallaby

Peacock

That is the end of my post for Tasmania. Since I never got to see a Tasmanian Devil, I at least posted a video about everyone's favorite devil. Check again for my next post on the rest of my trip and sorry that the pics are not in any particular order, I just got a little lazy! 

And that's all folks,

Erica