Monday, February 19, 2007

Cadbury's, Convicts and Chinese New Year

Tasmania - home to the worst of Australia's convicts, a chocolate factory, an extinct tiger-striped marsupial and the Devil.

Yes, I did finally leave the horse farm (sniff sniff). It was with sadness that I said my goodbyes to the McInnes family after 4 weeks of wonderful rest & relaxation and only a little bit of horse poo shovelling. After a brief stopover in Melbourne I made my way to Tasmania and met up with Sara in Hobart.


Sidenote: It seems I've become quite senile as I left my precious makeup bag at the horse farm and my 'Essentials notebook' with all my flight details and, yep, addresses at the hostel in Melbourne. So..um..yeah..no one will be getting postcards for awhile, except immediate family :)

Anyhoo, upon meeting up with Sara we were greeted by our Couchsurfing hostess, Gai. What is couchsurfing you might ask...and if I were able to work on this new freaking Blogger I'd just put the hyperlink here, but instead I will direct you to www.couchsurfing.com. Gai and her husband live on Mt Nelson - between the two of them they have six children in their late teens and early twenties. The house they've built is amazing - wood and brick throughout. They've built a HOUSE for one of their sons and his Canadian girlfriend (good taste there!) and two of their other sons have a barn-type house to themselves with a loft and pool table and kitchen.My guess is they won't be in any hurry to leave the nest.

Friday we headed off for a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate factory. Yes...that's right - a chocolate factory and they were going to let ME loose in it :) So for one day and one day only I gave up my New Year's Resolution regarding 'No Sweets'. At the beginning and end there were free samples and there was also a bargain shop with big slabs of chocolate and 'seconds'. WEll, the funny thing...after eating only a few of the samples I felt quite queasy and, to be honest, I really wasn't loving the taste. Of course, Cadbury's here is nothing like it is in the UK so that might have been part of it, but in any case I left the bargain shop with a measly bag of mini-eggs and a small pack of jelly beans. And I didn't even finish those off!

Back in the city centre, Sara and I wandered around Hobart's waterfront,which is picturesque, with mountains in the distance and houses stacked on the hills surrounding. I had a wonderful meal of Tasmanian salmon and then we waited for a bus back to Mt Nelson. We waited in a stunning thunderstorm, which also brought rain down in bucketfuls. The bus didn't come and we eventually had to get a taxi with a few other stranded travellers. I swear...me and taxis while travelling..it's like Austria all over again.

Hmmm...well I guess this will have to be Part ONE of a post because Sara is lying here beside me waiting to go to sleep with her sleeping mask on her forehead and her eyes closed. Hint hint.

I will write again asap. Oh - and I booked my ticket home :)

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