Road Trip! (Part One)

I've just got back from the road trip. It was further than I thought, but good fun. Getting up early on Saturday morning, however, wasn't fun, and after packing up what I thought I'd need and bundling it all into the car, we set off.

Our destination was Stanley - a town on the north-west tip of Tasmania. We started in Hobart, the city on the south-east tip of Tasmania. From looking at maps of Australia, Tassie's just a small little island off the south coast, so going from one end to the other shouldn't take long. I suppose I was thinking of it like looking at the Isle of Man in comparison to England. Sadly, Australia's a little bit bigger than England. After setting off at 8am on Saturday morning, we eventually arrived in the picturesque town of Stanley at about 3 in the afternoon. Admitedly this was with a few stops along the way for ice cream and lunch, but it was a bit of a trek, and it was good to eventually get there.

The journey itself I could talk about, as it was visually stunning driving through the heart of a beautiful state, but after a few hours, all of the trees, waterfalls and rock formations blend into one. Also, I slept through much of it, so I don't really remember many details. We did stop off in the coastal town of Burnie, which I was awake for and remember vividly (well, it was only yesterday). It was an old fashioned kind of quiet beach town, but there were some modern buildings and really good restaurants. We plumped for a fish restaurant right on the beach, and I had my new favourite Tassie meal of battered breadcrumbed scallops, on a Caesar salad. See, healthy. Ish. I then went for a nice walk along the beach while Colette and Rachel read the papers. My previous Aussie beach experience was Bondi in Sydney, where there must have been hundreds of thousands of people (slight exaggeration, but there were a few). Burnie beach was so empty that the lifeguards were playing cricket, as there wasn't actually anyone's life that needed saving. Sadly when I wandered out onto the beach they finished up, which was a shame as I would have no doubt shown skills which saw England win the Ashes (and by skills I mean really bad left arm spin and inconsistent slogging).

Anyway, as we approached Stanley, there was something that dominated the view in for the last few hours. The Nut is a massive rock that sits right on the coast, and due to some geographic reason that I don't know, has risen to miles higher than anything else nearby, and dominates the skyline like Olympus. (Here's the picture of it on Wikipedia)So the only sane thing to do within the first 10 minutes of arriving in Stanley was to climb it. Despite my calls for us to go up by the cable car, I was coerced into scaling the steep sides of it, and reaching the top of the 145 metre rock. Words don't really do the views from it justice, so here are some pictures.



After going up the Nut, and doing a tour of the top (giving us great views over loads of small towns and beaches), we were alerted to two small wallabies. Naww cute! They're the first actual interesting piece of wildlife (other than like insects) that I've seen in Aus, so I had to take loads of pictures. There were two of them - a large mum and a small baby. If you see my Facebook album, you'll see me with a Tasmanian Devil. I'm stroking it and it seems quite placid. That's because it's not real - an actual Tassie devil would have my hand off. But the model in The Nut gift shop was a nice photo opportunity!

As we were out in the middle of nowhere, we had to make our own entertainment. After walking to the local pub, Rachel broke out her favourite game, Scrabble Scramble. I played a bit of Scrabble with Colette and Rachel in Sydney (they play religiously), and Rachel is a Scrabble ninja. While I'd be coming out with 'Nap' or 'Pan', she'd come out with some seven letter masterpieces, almost always on triple word scores. Scrabble Scramble is a quickfire game, you roll these letter dices, and you have a minute to make words out of the letters you're given. First to 200 wins. So when Rachel was miles ahead of Colette and I, and with victory in sight, there was no real surprise. Until, from nowhere, I found 'Heard' on a triple word score. I was suddenly given 51 points, and catapulted to 195 points. Rachel couldn't overtake me, before I got the five points needed for a famous victory. After a lovely pub dinner of chicken parmigianni (the meal of Australia - chicken breast with deep fried cheese on it and smothered in tomato sauce with chips) we returned back to our cabin for the night to play Monopoly.

Monopoly is where I come into my own. While I may have fluked my first ever Scrabble win earlier, I am unbeaten at Monopoly. The plan was to play a couple of hours then, and to keep going each night this week. The game lasted 90 minutes. I destroyed them. My tactics were superb, buying the stations early, before trading my way to a few sets, sticking on some houses (which became hotels very quickly after) and watching the money roll in. Colette was the first to fall, and after I swept up her money and properties, Rachel didn't last much longer. Her resistance was better, mainly as she had a couple of houses on the purples, but resistance was futile. Only 90 minutes and £60,000 (I counted it all up just to check) after starting, I wrapped up a convincing win, to cement my position as the King of Monopoly. If anyone wants to challenge my status, pick a time, pick a place. Because I'll beat you.

Sunday morning, and we went for a nice walk down the beach. After playing a bit of catch with Colette, as well as taking some pictures from the sea, we set back off for home. The journey back seemed longer if anything (as I didn't sleep through it) but I was able to listen to the cricket on the radio (and have a KFC) so it wasn't too bad. After getting home, Colette and Rachel went straight out to see an act they like at MOFO, leaving me to stay home and watch the cricket!

Come on England! Will

(I wanted to put some pictures up on the blog, but Blogger won't let me upload. So here's the link to my Facebook album, as they're all up there anyway!)