Pascal in Tasmania

More of Pascal's travel adventures

An earlier post provided photos and email excerpts from Pascal, regarding his term break travels in New Zealand. Last weekend, he traveled with friends to Tasmania, and reported on his adventures by email.

Pascal is a junior, majoring in economics, at the University of British Columbia. He is spending this term at the University of Melbourne, supposedly to enrich his studies in economics. I suspect that, this term, it will be mainly his parents, back home in Sonoma, CA, who get the lessons in economics. (Just kidding, Pascal, you're a smart, hard working guy and have more than earned all the fun you're having now.)

(I've added a few paragraph breaks, to make the post more readable.)
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Hey guys! Here's a little recap of my trip to Tasmania this past weekend! So we arrive in Hobart at around 10:30ish and take a shuttle to our hostel. Our hostel was really cool - this really big old house that they just turned into a hostel. So it was really old and funky. That night we decided to check out Hobart's night life! So we roamed the streets at around 12 AM and it was DESERTED! Nothing was going on except for one bar that had some show that cost more than we were willing to pay. But it was still fun to walk around and check stuff out.

The next morning some of us went to get the car (oh right, there were 5 of us all together). Then we drove up to this mountain that overlooked the city. Holy moly! Fantastic view! You could see for miles and miles! We had great weather! After that we just drove and drove and would stop at little towns along the way to see waterfalls or lakes etc. Very pretty scenery. That night we were looking for a campsite... that never seemed to come. We looked and looked... and then looked down at the gas gage and realized that we were on empty!!! Oh boy... the next 20 mins to the closest town consisted of us going very slowly up hills... and then shifting into neutral on the downhills to save as much gas as possible! Hahahaha... it was pretty hilarious looking back on it... but at the time we were really quite scared of being stranded in the middle of no-where!

But alas, we did make it to the town and got some much needed gas and relief! We drove back to the campsite (which we located, but wanted to get gas first) and had a great night of vodka and campfires! The stars were fantastic! Southern cross was out in force. The next morning we drove to Cradle Mountain. The drive there was pretty much alllllll fog! We were so worried that when we got there we'd hike through the fog... to see spectacular views of... fog! BUT... as we drew closer it all cleared up and we were left with yet another beautiful day! The hike was in this national park and we had to take a shuttle to get out to the trail head. We did this hike that was really nice, not too hard, but still a good work out. We hiked up to this awesome lookout at cradle mountain. Found this little spot up there with an awesome view.

That night we drove and drove and after eating pizza in a park and playing frisbee in the dark we drove some more. We were looking for this campsite near this town called Fingal. Well... we couldn't find it so we stopped in at the local pub, which was the only thing open mind you, and Aaron along with Kaye went in to ask for directions. Hahaha, they came out laughing hysterically. They reported that after not finding any bar tender they asked some lady at the bar. She said that we should just camp in her front yard! She was really serious and gave us directions and everything! So we drove round and round the tiny town looking for her place.

Eventually we found it and decided that we were really gonna do this. So we set up the tent... and then we heard dogs barking and an old man showed up in the next plot of land. We had to explain to us that we weren't terrorists and that Karen had told us we could camp there.
Bahahaha.... we proceeded to drink quite a lot of Vodka (that we bought on our NZ trip) and headed down to the pub! Oh man.... gong show! We had sooooo much fun! First thing they make us do is sign our name on the wall of the bar! I left my everlasting mark on the bar in Fingal! Oh man... then we just drank a lot of beer and got to know the locals! I think my pictures speak for themselves. I went a little trigger happy. By the end (or probably half way through) people were probably so tired of me taking pictures! Hahaha... there was arm wrestling, pool playing, story telling... the whole lot! And then after the bar closed we took the party back to Karen's house! Baaaaaaaahahhaha... oh man. So much fun. This town was so incredibly red-neck... you have no idea. Karen, the very nice lady who's house we stayed at, she had her first kid when she was 15! NO JOKE! But everyone was very nice and we all had a great time.

The next morning we said our farewells and took off to Wineglass Bay on the East Coast. Once there we took off on a hike up to this fantastic viewpoint. The hike up consisted of us scrambling up rocks and boulders basically making our own way up while following some yellow arrows. It was pretty much my ideal hike! Love boulder hopping! So this was great! Once up on top we looked down on Wineglass Bay on the other side and we were completely blown away! It was gorgeous. The color of the water was this deep turquoise blue and the sand was incredibly white. It was so worth the hike up! Well actually the hike was worth it alone! That evening we stopped off at a beach and went swimming in the Tasman Sea just to say we had. It was FREEEEEEZING! We all sprinted in at the same time and then ran out screaming out heads off. Aaron and I proceeded to sprint down the mile long beach to catch the tail end of the sunset. It was a fantastic time! That night we drove back to Hobart and after looking around for a campsite... decided that a park on the outskirts of town would do just fine, so we set up camp and woke up at 6:30 to catch our 8:30 flight the next morning!

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All I knew about Tasmania is that's where the Tasmanian devil is found. According to Wikipedia, "It is characterised by its black fur, offensive odour when stressed, extremely loud and disturbing screech, and viciousness when feeding. It is known to both hunt prey and scavenge carrion and although it is usually solitary, it sometimes eats with other devils." Reminds me of some people I know.

Pascal didn't see any. They apparently are dying out from some devil disease.