This was my room the first night. Not the most interseting photo, but I did want to show that the accomodation on the trip was actually really nice. Adventure Tours owns houses in almost every town we stopped in, each one I could have happily stayed in for a week.
Outside the house Matt showed up a Huon Pine. Google it. It is probably the most interesting tree you could imagine. It is a natural bug replent, therefore is the best wood EVER to make boats out of. And thats what settlers did for a long long time. Making this tree almost extinct. Which is also a shame because it is the oldest tree foudn on earth as well as the longest living. They found one that was 10,000 years old. Its not illegal to cut down a Huon pine, but they still have some left over from harvesting it before (like 120 years ago) and they use the leftover wood to make crafts and gagets. They have enough Huon Pine to last 20 years, after that its tough luck, no Huon Pine for you. I would have bought everyone something made of Huon Pine, but its crazy expensive. As it turns out, I bought Dad something of Huon Pine, being the horticulturalist that he is...the problem is that I really like it, and may not be giving it up! It keeps bugs out of my room, smells nice, and holds my pens and pencils!!
Here is a close up of Huon Pine.
This is Strahan. They have a train. Trains and Huon Pine. Supposedly after the railway closed down from Queenstown to Strahan, the people asked for a road to connect the two cities. But the government said it would be too expensive because it would require a lot of bridges. Strahan asked if they paid for all the bridges, would the state build the road, the state said yes. The people of Strahan got together with maps and linked all the old mining roads from Queenstown to Strahan, therefore requiring no bridges. They got their road. And it is the windiest road in Australia.
Then we went to Ocean Beach. 7km on a dirt road to get here. No one else was here. And it was gorgeous. Even with the drizzle and ominous clouds...I think they made it even cooler. It definitely did feel like the edge of the world. This is the west coast of Tasmania, the closest land mass to the west is Argentina. Because of this they have the purest air and water in the world. They also have unpredictable and strong weather because there are no land masses to get in the way.
Proof that I was there, lol.
Marna at the edge of the world. I just really like this photo and wish that was me way out there.
Pavel from the Czech Republic, me, and Danielle from Denver
Henty Sand Dunes. (they are actually quite steep)
We were waiting our turn to go 4wheeling in the sun shining rain. By the time it was our turn the rain had stopped! Which was great cuz we got to dry off!
Can't they make flattering helmets?
Leaving the Henty Dunes we got stopped by loggers deforesting the area. They took about 4 trees down before letting us cross. Cool to watch, not cool to kill the forest though!
Matt was pointing out Wombat poop. No joke. There some story about it. It's square. Something to do with evolution.
Enchanted Forest walk.
This picture is one of my favorites. It barely shows how cool and mysterious the forest looked.
A wallaby. They were all over the place. After you see two they aren't that interesting and they kind of look like giant rats.
Tasmania Day 3!
I climbed a freaking mountain!
This is the beginning of Cradle Mountain. We went about 300m up. The summit is about 450m. We didn't go all the way up because the rain made it dangerous, slowed us down, and we wouldn't be able to see through the clouds anyway. 300m was high enough!
The views were great, and this was only about a 1/4 of the way up.
Wombat Pool, not big enough to be a lake. There were dozens of lakes around.
At this point we're thinking "we're going where? Oh why didn't we take the exit route?!"
Caitlin is from Jefferson Park!!! About a mile or less from my apartment in the City!
This part was flat so we flew past it trying to not lose sight of the others in front of us in the cloud. I was really giddy at this point thinking in my head, "I'm in a cloud, on a mountain, in Tasmania! I rock!" Even my thoughts aren't modest :)
Filling our water bottles from the mountain spring. Which is plain awesome. The water is soo clean! Matt made sure we didn't fill our water bottles until we got to top..no worries, no one was polluting our water source!
We were the last of the group. me, Caitlin, Pavel, and Melissa. There was some great team work, and Pavel was our perfect Czech gentleman always going in front and guiding us through. Maybe I should try to find me a Czech man?!
That strip of land on between the lakes is where we started.
Very very steep and wet
Straight down! Nothing to hold but the chain. And its was super windy!
But no worries, I'm all chillaxed.
Not so much from that angle, lol.
After the rocks, we were suddenly in a rain forest. Crazy Tasmanian mountain!
The view from the bottom :)
Climbing Cradle Mountain is by far the coolest and most rewarding thing I have ever done! And I owe a lot to Melissa who convinced me that I could do it (after Matt put the fear of God into us). I kind of feel like now that I've done that I can do anything (though I learned that that is not true after my ocean misadventures this past weekend).
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