OZ8: Tasmania

Hobart
We were scheduled to land in the afternoon in Hobart and we already had a family lined up to stay with for the first five days or so. We caught the bus towards the center of town, where we called Angela and went to the corner where we were to meet her.  She was there within five minutes.

The lovely town of Hobart

Angela was a business-like woman, but very kind and pretty deep.  It is always a little scary meeting new people through helpx, but that may mostly be because I am an introvert and don’t look forward to meeting new people most of the time.

She wore boot high heels, a long skirt, and a chunky sweater.  She took us around town to show us a little before it got dark.  We also headed to a church where there was a ballet studio just behind, where her 15 year old daughter Felix was just about to finish ballet class.

Felix was nice—a little timid, but had obviously had a lot of experience with helpx-ers staying with their family.  She asked me a few polite questions and seemed to be very interested in what I had to say.

Their home was comfy.  It was an older home at the end of a street in a quaint neighborhood of Hobart.  It reminded me of the Craftsman houses you sometimes see in the States.  It had a hall with bedrooms on both sides and a living room at the end behind a door.  It was wicked cold.  They turned on the gas fireplace in the living room, but closed the door to the hall so that the heat stayed in the living room and kitchen.  Which meant that our room, which was usually used as the study, would be cold basically all the time.  Oh well.  She gave us warm blankets.

At dinner on the first night we met Maxim, Angela’s 17 year-old son.  Maxim was handsome, but a little shy as well.  This was not really a problem though, because Felix had started to warm up super fast to us and was now talking for everyone in the room.  It was amazing!  She talked so fast that she would forget the direction she was going in the conversation, and then just give up shortly after so she could plunge into talking about something else.

The deal for our work was to be cleaning the AirBnB houses that Angela managed (and she offered that we could use the washing machine there to do laundry), as well as cooking dinner for the family every night, and any other cleaning around the family home to make up the balance of time we would owe.  Angela cooked the first night, but not without Felix commenting that she was looking forward to having someone else cook, because her mom seemed to only make stir-frys and the whole family was bored.  Angela laughed at this and pretended to be offended, when you could really tell that she loved the bond between mother and daughter that was so apparent even through the slight insults.

We slept like rocks that night under warm blankets in a chilly room.  It was hard to get up in the morning.  In the late morning Angela took us to one of the houses, showed us around and explained what cleaning needed done, and left us to work.

The view of Hobart from an AirBnB

And we smashed it, if I do say so myself.  Joe did the kitchen/living room/dining area, while I did the bedrooms and bathrooms.  We cycled the laundry through and then did some of our own while we worked.  We scrubbed and dusted and polished and made beds and washed and vacuumed and hung to dry and mopped.  Joe did such an amazing job in his area, especially because in my opinion it is harder than bedrooms and bathrooms.

Angela came to pick us up in the afternoon and we went home, showered, and started on dinner.  There was a lot of pressure for this first meal since Felix was so down on her mom’s cooking.  :)  I think it was a hit though.

Nights with the family were fun because Angela was into talking about the deep stuff, and her kids are well-cultured and sensitive.  We learned that they had grown up in French-speaking Canada because their father was Canadian.  Angela and Bruno had run an art hostel there, and quite successfully.  Sadly, Bruno had developed bipolar disorder, gone downhill very quickly, and committed suicide shortly after they had moved back to Tasmania.  It was a very sad story.

While we were with them we also cleaned their house a bit, including windows (that looked a thousand times better once we had cleaned them), bathroom, and living room.  The bedrooms seemed pretty off-limits, as all of them would disappear into their own rooms at different times, so we didn’t ever vacuum or mop in there.

We took a quick (okay, long and laborious and downright windy and frozen!) hike up Mt. Wellington one day and looked over the entire gorgeous city of Hobart.

He is paying the due respects to Mt Wellington

A few days into our stay, we sought advice from Angela about what to see in Tasmania.  She suggested Freycinet National Park for some hiking, which sounded just perfect for us!  We checked the weather and found a few clear days amongst the rather grey weather and Angela offered to keep our stuff while we camped.

We had had to ditch our gas canister in the Melbourne airport (Joe actually forgot about it and then had a hell of a time getting rid of it, finally finding someone who would take it when no one was looking and promised to dispose of it properly), so when we found one for sale at a second-hand outdoor gear store, we bought it.  We also made sure to find a regular second-hand store where I found a hat and some leather gloves.  I didn’t really need leather gloves, but they were the only ones at the store that fit well and boy did they, well, fit like a glove.  It was nice to have a few new warm things.

Joe had purchased a great jacket and rain jacket in Canberra on super sale, and I had found some very decent quick-dry hiking pants.  They were a bit too long, so I found some hem tape, used Angela’s iron, and hemmed the pants just a bit, which worked out PERFECTLY.  I am a new believer in hem tape.

The morning we headed towards Freycinet, we walked toward the place where the bus would depart from.  On the way I desperately wanted to have a coffee and cookie deal that was so delicious at Subway.  Subway ended up taking FOREVER, and we RAN to get on the bus, only to have the driver slightly rudely tell us we weren’t allowed to eat or drink on the bus.  Fair enough.  He didn’t need to be rude about it.

So we were off to Freycinet with our gear.  It felt nice to get out on an adventure again.  We made it to the turn-off where the bus could drop us off, and we unloaded there.  We didn’t have much cell service and weren’t sure what the bus schedule would be like.  It was not TOO far to the beginning of the park, so we decided we would try to hitchhike and if we weren’t successful we could stay at the first campsite only a few kilometers down the road.

But we didn’t need to because the first thumb we stuck out, we got a ride.  It was with this pleasant Asian couple who lived in Sydney and they were nice.  They were more white-bread sorts of people than we were used to hitchhiking with.  We have found in the past that our thumbs attract the slightly crazy, interesting, and deep people, which we think is closer to what we are.  Hitchhiking tends to be a self-selected group of people who have just a little bit off in the head, which I would like to think makes us more deep and compassionate.  This seemed like the first time they had done this and while they weren’t totally boring, we seemed to be very different sorts of travelers (they had a rental car and were staying in a resort).

We made the mistake of having them drop us closer to the park, only then realizing that we would need to go to the grocery store a couple of kilometers back for supplies before starting the journey.  So we walked back.

We bought plenty of supplies, but I realized after we left the small grocery store that I probably should have bought water.  Joe said, nah, don’t bother, we have our own water bottles and there will be rainwater tanks along the way.  That would prove to bite us in the ass, but oh well.

We walked the road towards the park for a second time, but it was getting to be late in the afternoon and we didn’t think we would make it to a campsite before dark, so we stopped at a campground outside the park and paid a small fee for a spot.  They assigned us a site, but when we got there, a tent was already set up in our spot, but no one was around to ask about it.  We waited for a bit, but eventually just decided to set up and see what happened.

A car pulled in a little while later and you could see their sour faces from the first moment.  I was friendly and polite, but right off the bat they were a bit nasty to us, even though we had every right to be set up there, since our permit said that spot precisely.  The woman looked at me and said, “You shouldn’t have even set up here.”

As soon as Joe got back, we silently moved the tent to another spot and proceeded to ignore them because they had been just a bit nasty.  We played Farkle, made dinner, ate, and then read for a while once the sun had gone down.  We slept easily.

We were up early the next morning.  Joe packed up while I got our water bottles filled up.  We took off.  We had a long hike ahead of us, as we were planning to skip the first campsite and stay at the second.

We met a young man at the beginning of a long stretch of beach.  He was German and had just finished a feast of scallops with lemon and garlic and he told us that we could find the scallops that had washed up on the shore and eat them ourselves.  He said he had learned this trick from another older man who had already left in the same direction as we were going.

As we walked down the beach, we found scallop after scallop after scallop.  We had to eventually stop picking them up because we were getting too many and it was seriously adding to our weight.  We were cutting it close with the sunshine, but we finally made it to the other side of the beach and the second campsite.

Here we found the man that the German had gotten the scallop idea from.  He was maybe my dad’s age or a little younger, and he was very kind.  His equipment was old, like he had had it since the 70’s.  He seemed a little jealous of our Jetboil, our easy tent, and our modern packs.  But to be fair, we were a little jealous of some of his things as well.  He had a stove that used methylated spirits, which, while not as efficient or hot as our Jetboil, it was cheap and simple.  The Jetboil is amazing, but try frying an egg or meat on it and the flames are way too hot and can’t be turned down.  And there is something to be said about having a pack that old, because it means it has really, really stood the test of time.

Sadly he couldn’t get his stove hot enough to cook the scallops, so we cooked a few for him.  We didn’t even need to crack them open!  We just put them on top of the Jetboil on high and as they cooked inside their own shell, they slowly opened and you could smell the pleasant mild scent of seafood cooking in its own seawater.

Cooking wild scallops in ocean water right in their own shell

We were not as prepared as the German with garlic and lemon, so we just ate them as they were.  They were amazing and it was an awesome way to get free protein, but they really would have been better in a buttery pasta sauce.  Oh well.  We enjoyed them anyway.

We talked with our new friend for a bit (I can’t remember his name now) and learned that he was semi-retired, meaning that he and his wife had realized that the stress of their fairly successful construction business was not worth the money.  They decided to live on less money, be able to see more of nature, and work only if necessary or in case of boredom.

We set up our tent and part of the way through, another couple of guys approached and took the spot next to us.  They were handsome and intelligent.  One of them was a guide at Cradle Mountain, where we would go before we flew back to Melbourne out of Launceston.  The other was a scientist of some sort, though what I can’t remember now.  All I remember was that his work was super technical and very interesting.  We talked to them for a while.

As we talked, something moved behind us and we realized it was a wombat!  The boys were sort of like, cool, but I was so excited!  My first wombat!  I went to say hello.  He was so cute.  They are sort of like miniature black polar bears or close-cut ewoks.  He was so cute.  I followed him down the beach a bit and watched him munch on grass.  What a cute creature.

We went to bed, but in the morning we were the only ones still left at the campsite.  We felt so lazy getting up so late!  We had breakfast, packed up, filled water bottles, and took off.

It wasn’t that long before we caught up with the older guy.  He was taking a break in the middle of a particularly difficult part and we stopped to chat, snack, and take a few sips (but only a few sips, since the next campsite had no water tanks!).  When we stood to go, Joe sort of stalled a tiny bit when he noticed that the guy was leaving garbage behind.  But he didn’t pick it up.  Once they had both turned to go, I picked it up and put it in the side pocket of my pack.  We couldn’t believe that he was just going to ditch it, especially since he was outdoorsy!  Who does that?

We were a little faster than him, so we went ahead for a while.  When we came to the place on the trail where we could go up Mt Freycinet, we took it, but stashed our packs in the bushes so we didn’t have to heave them up the seriously steep trail.  We hopped like mountain goats (clumsy and out-of-shape mountain goats) up the trail of boulders and twisted trees.  We were drawing sharp breaths by the top, but the view was incredible.  We could see the whole peninsula.

Atop Mt Freycinet

Joe-joe conquered the mountain!

We got back down to our packs and reluctantly put them on again.  Unfortunately, we didn’t know that the next long chunk of track was the hardest yet, and took us up Mt Amos anyway, where we probably had just as good of a view.  The track went through what appeared to be a deep-cut creek bed.  It was very steep and soggy.  And we were already running low on water, so we rationed ourselves pretty hard.

We caught up to our new friend again (he had passed us when we went up Mt Freycinet), and he suggested as we hiked past a creek that we fill up with water while we could, if only for boiling to make noodles or something.  Joe took down our bottle and filled it up.  We would be very glad later that he suggested this.

It was a much longer day than the day before, and definitely much harder.  I was exhausted.  We found a spot that was raised above the beach but still looking out onto Wineglass Bay, one of the prettiest places on earth.  I was hangry, so I started to put together what little we had.  I boiled the water and then made some tea, but then dropped the tea almost right away.  I burst into tears out of frustration and exhaustion.  Joe patiently calmed me down and finished what I was doing.  We cooked with the last of our water and fell wearily into bed.

Made it to Wineglass Bay with a tiny bit of light still!

But then the sun sank quickly

Getting out of my sleeping bag was haaard the next morning

My camping clothes had started to smell, since I was wearing the same thing day and night, so I changed them in the morning after a quick wet-wipe shower.  I didn’t have much to wear, however, which meant that I was wearing a flowy-hippie skirt with leggings underneath and hiking boots with socks pulled up over the leggings.  I felt ugly as crap, but at least I felt a little cleaner.

Such a lovely view from the tent

We set off after a small dry snack for breakfast.  The beach was hot even though the air was cold.  It made me thirsty.  I think I shouldn’t have been so focused on not having water because it made the problem that much worse.  The beach was surprisingly long, but when we got to the other side, we saw day-hikers coming to explore.  I felt at once super ugly in my awful outfit, but also super cool and rugged having come from a few nights in the wilderness.

Just strutting down the beach, no big deal

The climb up and out of Wineglass Bay was steep and seemed long, that much longer without water.  We made it to the top of the hill, took a few quick pictures, and then headed down the other side.

Not our most attractive look,
but hike accomplished nonetheless

A half hour later we finally got to water.  The faucet said it was rainwater and was maybe safe, but should be boiled as a precaution.  We were so thirsty that we decided not to wait and we drank long and deep, despite getting a few looks.

We started the walk out of the park, but again got a ride within the first time sticking our thumbs out.  Tasmania is the place to hitchhike!

This couple was a little older than us, but not by much.  I don’t remember where they came from, but they had just done quite a few days on the Overland Track, something we had wanted to do but didn’t have time for.  They were impressed by our hiking in Freycinet, which was nice.  They seemed a little nervous about picking us up, so they started by saying they could at least take us to town, and then as we got close to town and we talked more, they offered to take us a little farther.  As they got comfortable with us, they offered to take us all the way to the main road where we had first hitchhiked from.  They were very kind and really cool.

Once we got to that spot, we were trying to decide if we should try hitching all the way back to Hobart or if we should get the bus.  I wanted to tray hitching first, but I checked the bus schedule to see when it would be going by in case we had no luck.  The schedule said the last bus of the day would pass in a matter of four minutes.  We took the bus.  It was nice to have a warm place to sit for the ride back.

Angela had tried to call us multiple times while we were away, just to check in to see when we were returning, because she needed a house cleaned in preparation for a guest and she wouldn’t have time to do it herself.  Luckily we would be home in time to help with that.

We also had a couple of messages from someone that we had been communicating with who was willing to have us along as a rideshare up through the Red Center of Australia.  We had originally intended to go up to Perth and do the west coast, but this opportunity came up and we jumped on it.  The guy wanted to leave a day earlier than we would be getting back to the mainland, but he was willing to postpone a day or two, so that was nice.  We would meet him somewhere between Melbourne and Adelaide and we would get there by train.  I was psyched about this.

When we finally made it back to Hobart, we were starving.  We didn’t want to expect to be fed on a day that we didn’t do any work for them, so we stopped in at a Subway and got some dinner before making the long trek uphill to Angela’s house.

We were so tired that we went to bed pretty early that night.  It was really nice to have left their house for a few days and then come back because it felt like we had accomplished something for ourselves without putting them out.  The house was much the same and the family was welcoming as always.

Angela took us the next morning to the same house we had cleaned before.  We had a much tighter schedule for this one, but Joe and I were pros already.  We whipped it out in no time, which Angela was impressed by.

We cooked dinner again that night.  I don’t remember what it was that I made, but I remember that it turned out amazing.  Our other meal highlight while we were with them was Joe’s jambalaya, which he was exceedingly proud of, and as well he should have been.

We had sort of hinted that we were going to leave the next day, but that night as we were cooking Angela came in and told us what was happening the next day, since their schedules were tight.  This plan included us cleaning another house for her.  It wasn’t really a BIG deal for us, but you could sort of tell that her laying out the plan like that was a way of her saying without saying that she needed us to stay.

The next day Felix, Joe and I went to the other house that Angela managed for AirBnB.  Its view was amazing, just like the other house.  We cleaned the whole thing pretty fast, but then Angela wasn’t ready to pick us up, so we sat and ate a little bit of food that was around and played Cranium, only we had to modify it since we didn't have enough players to make teams.  Felix was very talkative, of course.

We learned over the week that we stayed with them that Maxim had taken on his father’s personality, and not really for the best sometimes.  He slept most of the day and when he was awake, he hid in his room and played video games until all hours of the morning.  He had been six when his father had committed suicide, so he remembered.  One morning he was supposed to be up and out the door for a test, but I caught his eye as he was leaving and realized he was not going to school.  Angela went after him after a half hour or so, found him wandering the streets, and sent him to bed.  He had had an anxiety attack about the test.  He had scared himself.  I can’t imagine what that must feel like.

I have a hard time knowing if it is okay to talk to people about things like that.  Since I have had a history myself of depression, I always feel at once like I want to comfort the person and tell them they’re not alone in the fight, but I also don’t want to butt into something that is not my business.  Thus far, I have kept out of their business, but I still worry for Maxim.  He seems like a good-hearted boy.  I grieve for Maxim.  All my life I think I will grieve for people who struggle with depression.

It was soooo interesting to have Angela talk to us about all of this.  I felt super honored that she was so willing to open up to us.  It was extra impressive that she opened up because Joe was such a good conversationalist.

We got a final picture with Felix and Angela, but sadly Maxim was out for the day, so we missed his presence.  We loaded our bags into Angela’s car, but then headed down the road toward town, where we would hit the Saturday market before leaving.  We got a little something to eat, enjoyed the small-town feel of the market, listened to a really nice band with a lovely violin part, and then headed out to where we would get picked up by Angela and Felix, who would bring us and our bags to the bus station.  We said very fond goodbyes and sat down to wait for our bus as we watched the black Subaru turn the corner and Felix’s waving hand disappear in traffic.

Group photo!  Angela, Felix, Joe and I

Launceston:

I had last-minute found a woman on Couchsurfing who had a mountain of references and a giant smile.  I messaged her and one other person, in case one fell through.  “Ange” messaged back within minutes and seemed so enthusiastic that I knew why she had such a huge amount of positive reviews.  She told us she would pick us up where the bus would drop us off, which was so kind.  I never like to inconvenience hosts because I've been inconvenienced myself and hate it.  So I knew how kind of a gesture it was.

When the bus reached Launceston, we waited in the terminal for a few minutes, but then an old campervan pulled up and a woman jumped out and came towards me.  I was nervous that the van looked a little like a beater, just in case it was drug-related or something like that, but I extended my hand and she took it and flashed the giant smile.  We loaded our bags in the back and hopped in the front with her.

She was chatty, but strangely so, with nervous giggle-laughs punctuating her sentences.  She seemed really nice.  The van was a friend's who had gone overseas, but it had the most seats in it, so she needed to pick us up with it.

Her home was tucked away on a hill neighborhood, and immediately when we pulled up, her beagles bounded to the edge of the fence, obviously happy to see her.  Ange's profile on Couchsurfing did not use her name, but the username hinted at crazy dogs.  The exuberant hello confirmed where the name had come from!

Ange showed us the simple guest room where we would be sleeping and then invited us to the kitchen, which was her main room, with a couch and a recliner and a wood-burning fireplace.  She offered us drinks, which we gladly accepted, and then asked if Joe would mind helping to bring in some wood and mentioned that maybe he could help chop a few pieces later.  Joe said of course, but also told her that I love chopping wood and would be ecstatic to get to do some of that.  All three of us went out behind the house and grabbed some wood to bring in.

We settled back in as Ange built up the fire, which was heating the house like gangbusters.  We told a bit about ourselves, talked about the dogs, and asked Ange about herself.  Our conversation was friendly at first, but it got personal surprisingly fast, but definitely in a good way.  She told us that she struggled with depression, something I could connect with her on.  I always love people who are willing to talk about those things, because it means I have a kindred spirit.  She warmed to me very fast.

But she we pleased by Joe too.  Joe is an empathetic human being who is willing to talk about the meaning of life, life's struggles, and everything in between.  She seemed to genuinely enjoy talking to us, which is a great experience.  I have had Couchsurfers before with whom I just did not connect, and it makes hosting the person inconvenient and even a little detrimental, so I loved that she was so pleased to have us, and I loved that we had found such a pleasant host.  Joe is an especially great guest because he likes to go above and beyond, chopping and carrying extra wood in and offering to do the dishes (and not taking a polite no for an answer).

She suggested that since the weather was a little drizzly that we try a wine-tasting the next day.  She would take us out and go to the first wine-tasting with us and watch our driving, to make sure we could handle it on our own.  We would drop her off and continue on by ourselves, joining her later in the evening for a dinner with her uncle at the house.

We discovered that her parents used to be involved in the wine-making of the area, so the vineyards had a particularly personal feel for her.  We tasted the wines, but I took it easy on it, since I was driving next.  We both did very well driving.

We did well enough that Ange decided we were trustworthy.  She offered the use of the campervan so we could take it up to Cradle Mountain, which we had wanted to see, but weren't sure it would be a feasible goal with the amount of time we had left and our limited budget.  It was beautiful!  She told us that her friend who owned the campervan had given her permission to lend it to people that she really trusted, and we had made that cut.  It was very flattering.

We dropped her off at home.  We were able to find one more vineyard open, but another couple that we checked were closed or had no one attending the tasting room.  We took it pretty easy on the wines though, since we were driving someone else's vehicle.

We joined her again at the house to find that her uncle was already there.  Conversation with him was significantly more difficult than with her.  She seemed to put up with his negativity, but it was also obvious that she had to exercise a great deal of self-confidence to not get swept up in his harsh unsolicited opinions.

Some of the personal history that we had discussed our first evening with her (history that I will leave unexplained out of respect for her privacy) came up while her uncle was there.  He flat-out told her he thought she was being stupid and making a big mistake, even though it was obvious that she had put a lot of thought and work into the matter.  I found it hard to engage in conversation with someone who would be so unsupportive to a niece who had been making every effort at healing herself.  I was glad that dishes needed done so I could excuse myself from the living room where we were eating and talking.  Joe watched me leave with a jealous look in his eye, but he boldly kept trying to make friendly conversation with the man, which is the reason that Joe is a better human being than myself.  :)

We slept well and headed off the next morning to Cradle Mountain.  Ange had given us suggestions for places to stop along the way, which was really nice.  We set out in the beater, happy as clams.  We stopped at the fudge shop, which was incidentally run by a Washingtonian!

Parking to get some fudge and coffee

We got coffees and fudge.  Along the way we also saw the town that had built its image around topiary shapes.  There are a thousand tiny towns in Australia that think of quirky little ways to attract tourists.  We drove through another town that was known for its elaborate mailboxes.

We arrived at Cradle Mountain at mid-afternoon, while there was still a bit of light.  We were bummed that we would not get a full day at the place, but then I found out that tickets were sold by 24-hour basis!  Which meant we could go in that afternoon, but then again in the morning before we had to leave to get back to Ange's.  We were leaving Tasmania the next night, so we had to make it back to her place to grab the rest of our stuff and have her drop us at the airport (another super kind offer of hers!).

So we bought 24-hour tickets.  The Cradle Mountain area had a shuttle that you could take, since they discouraged cars for the last 10 miles getting to the park.  We would soon learn why, since the road was TINY and the shuttle bus drivers had to radio each other constantly so they knew when they would have to squeeze into a slightly wider section of road to pass each other in opposite directions.  Plus, there was an arm across the road that allowed only so many cars in at once.  While this wasn't bad in the afternoon, we would find in the morning that cars would line up quite a ways behind the arm, waiting for a car to come out so they could enter.

So we gladly took the shuttle.  There was a little bit of snow on the ground and Joe and I were wrapped in our warmest clothes.

Frozen, but loving the hike

The view was breathtaking.  We took to walking around the lake.  We verged off the trail at one point to take some photos from a tiny peninsula and in the process we saw a platypus!  We hadn't been expecting it and it was such a welcome surprise!  Those things are hard to photograph, but we considered ourselves very lucky to have seen one.  Close to the trail too, we saw a glimpse of a wombat, a cute little dude bumbling around and munching on undergrowth.

On the way back to the shuttle, we started talking only in Spanish and discussing ideas on business, which was amazing and pleasant.  I had forgotten how lovely it was to speak Spanish.

We got on one of the last buses out for the evening, which drove out the windy road as the sun was beginning to sink.  It was already getting cold.  We got back to the campervan and took off to find a free campsite.  WikiCamps barely worked there, but we got a general idea of where we might be able to go and headed off.

We went off on a side road.  It was a little steep and rocky, and made us nervous that we would get stuck, but once we got into the trees, we found a place that had obviously been used to park a campervan before.  We parked the thing and got bundled up again to go for a dusk walk, which apparently is the best time to see wildlife, including the elusive Tasmanian Devil.  Thank goodness Ange had been thoughtful enough to send us with a coat from her to keep me warm.  It was very big and I looked like a toddler in it, but it was so warm and probably almost literally saved my life.

While we were out, however, we saw nothing more than a wallaby, which may sound exotic back home, but in Australia it's like seeing a squirrel or chipmunk.  In fact, in Tasmania we had noticed a much, much higher occurrence of wallaby roadkill.  There were at least a few remnants of wallaby friends every mile or so.

We got back to the campervan, by this time being really, really cold.  We made a quick dinner with our camp stove, ate, and then set up an array of layers in which to sleep, including our new sleeping bag liners, our very warm sleeping bags, and a down comforter over top.  Even wearing pants and long sleeves to bed, we were still just a bit cold.  I have trouble falling asleep if I am a little cold, so I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to get past the cold that seemed so permanent in my feet.

I had to use the bathroom before I got all snuggled in, but I didn't want to venture very far out into the cold and dark.  But almost right away, there was a sound nearby.  I turned my phone's flashlight on and saw only a few feet from me a pair of eyes!  There was a fuzzy little possum walking straight at me.  Like most possums I have seen, they are more curious than they are afraid.  He sort of circled around me a bit, and then lumbered off slowly to the base of a young tree, which he climbed until he got to its newest leaves, which he proceeded to munch on.  He was cute.

My little possum friend

I got back in the car and told Joe about the possum friend and then climbed into my cocoon, where I battled with the cold.  A little before I fell asleep, I heard a strange noise.  It was sort of like a high-pitched growl.  This was the sound of a Tazzy Devil!  We learned that this sound was the reason they were called “devils,” because they sounded like they were demons running around in the night.  If we didn't get to SEE a devil, I was really happy to HEAR one.  Maybe that contentment was what helped me fall asleep, though I sort of doubt that because the sound really was disturbing—the kind of noise you wait for holding your breath because what if it's the boogie man?

The next morning we woke pretty early, with the early morning light hitting some of the taller trees around us.  We realized just how cold it had been the night before when we saw that my liter water bottle that had been inside the car with us was FROZEN SOLID.

A quick cup of tea and then we had to melt that windshield!

We had some cookies for breakfast, but wanted to get on the way to the lake so we would have the opportunity to photograph the place with the early light and the heavy frost that lay on everything.  We maneuvered the van down to where it could get sunlight on the windshield, which was still mostly frosted.

We arrived and got on a shuttle fairly quickly and were up to the lake we had seen the day before.

What a view

It was so cold, but the ice added a ton of character to the rocks and trees and plants.

Ice crystals in the sun

I had all my layers on, plus Ange's coat.

We smile at the camera and squint at the sun

We walked all the way around the lake this time.  I eventually got tired of having to stop and wait for Joe to catch up, which happens a LOT because he has to take a picture of everything.  So I grabbed the key from him in case I caught an earlier shuttle, and I kept walking at a very moderate pace.  I really enjoy quiet mornings, so it was nice for me.

The boat-house, lake, and Cradle Mountain

I went to the bathroom at the car park and then hopped on a shuttle bus.  As it was turning around in the parking lot, I saw Joe, but he wasn't going fast enough and missed the bus.  No matter.  When I got back to the main car park, I started the van and pulled it up to where the shuttle bus would be, got the heaters blaring, and was ready to go when he arrived.  I drove for a little while.

We went up through the port town of Devonport, which is where you take the ferry if you cross by boat.  We made it to Ange's with plenty of time to spare, so we cleaned out the van very well, got our stuff packed up, and then got a couple of loads into the house for Ange.  When she came home, we were ready to go.  We were even smart this time and left our gas canister in the campervan for some other Couchsurfer to use if they had our type of stove.  That way we didn't have to hand it off to someone at the airport all shady-like!

Ange took us to the airport in plenty of time and our goodbyes were really heartfelt.  She was maybe the best Couchsurfing host we had ever had!  Sadly, we never thought to get a photo with her to remember our time by.  I do have one heart-felt token from our time--she had crocheted a tiny stuffed wombat for me!  It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever given me, just because she was so in tune to me and my over-fondness for animals.  I don't know how to describe how sweet the gift was.

We checked in, dropped bags, and then got on the plane back to Melbourne.  I booked a hostel near the train station for the night, since we would be leaving early the next morning.  Joe went to eat dinner, but I wasn't hungry and so stayed behind in the dorm room.  Four French guys came in sounding like cultured gangsters (how else would you describe French frat boys? like, the French made them sound exotic or trendy or something, but you could tell they were talking about tits or marijuana or something thuggish).  They talked to me some, but I was glad when Joe came back in so I didn't have to pretend to be cool anymore.  I had my person by my side and I ceased caring whether I sounded cool enough.  :)  Nerdy love, I know.

We slept well and got up super early.  I think the cultured gangsters had gone out to party and hadn't come home until like four in the morning, which was an hour or two before we were up and getting ready to go.  Our eyes were foggy and our brains groggy, but we eventually found the right train, boarded, and headed to Horsham, where we would be joining Johannes, the person whose car we would share going through the Red Center of Australia.