Australia: From Reef to Penguins

We're down to the final week of Claire's two week visit. Already we've covered Sydney over New Year and the iconic, beautiful Uluru. This week we're in Cairns where I hope not to have a panic attack while snorkelling and then moving on to Melbourne. Here's how it went.

Delicious kangaroo

We spent a chilled first day in Cairns. Partly because there isn't all that much to do in Cairns itself and partly because we woke up late. Still, we did manage to go for a walk down the Esplanade while Claire was catching Pokemon.

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And also visited the little regional art gallery, which had these amazing insect kaleidoscope things.

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And where I picked up a new journal, because I'm running out of pages in the current one and that was only supposed to be a temporary one while I found a nice one... babbling, sorry.

Finally, the supermarket where I really didn't feel like pasta again. So we picked a sweet potato, some salad and kangaroo steaks. Ah yes, kangaroo. One of the few red meats I really like. Delicious and lean. Best self-cooked tea I've had in a while.

Finding Nemo

On Sunday we boarded a boat to take us out on the Great Barrier Reef, which was pretty much the entire reason we were in Cairns. Last time I was in Australia I tried to do the same but had a panic attack almost as soon as I got in the water - I've never experienced anything quite like it and I didn't really want a repeat this time. So I paid close attention to the crew's instructions, donned my stinger suit, snorkel and flippers, grabbed a floatation noodle and took a deep breath.

Apparently I needn't have worried this time. Whether it was because there was little to no current around the boat or whether the noodle was reassuring, I don't know, but I actually got to see the reef from the water this time. Claire and I went halves on an underwater camera, so we also managed to get some good photos. I say we... the camera was hired in Claire's name, so she had to do all the photography. Here's Nemo.

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And here is a fish I have named the stripy pyjama fish. If someone can tell me what it actually is, that would be cool.

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And here is the obligatory stupid selfie. Well, it would be, but Claire told me I'm not allowed to post any of the photos of her, so here instead is a photo of me taken by Claire.

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Hamster face, much. We also took a trip on the semi-submersible, which was awesome. Claire left me in charge of the camera for that one, which is how come I managed to miss the one turtle we saw on this trip. I promise we saw a turtle. I thought I had it in a photo, but it must be camouflaged or out of shot because I can't find it now. Gah.

After a day in and out of the water, we were pretty knackered and Claire had managed to get sunburnt. So we trundled back to the hostel via Pie Face for tea. Nom.

Pancakes? Or Nandos?

An afternoon flight to Melbourne had us arrive just in time for tea. After raiding the info area at the hostel, Claire found some money off vouchers, including one for a pancake place that was apparently just down the road. So we went for a wander in search of pancakes. We found the mall. Couldn't find the pancake place. We were pretty much ready to give up when we spotted it and then decided we weren't really in the mood for pancakes.

We ended up at Nandos instead. That is as thrilling as our day got.

In other news, the hostel we booked is a money grabbing bastard. Anything it can charge for, it will - WiFi, luggage storage... yeah. Oh, and one plug socket for a room of four people? Not acceptable.

What time is it?

We had planned on getting up at a reasonable time so we could go and explore the city. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to account for the time change, so while I thought we were getting up around 9, it was actually an hour later. And by the time we'd stumbled around with breakfast, the original plan had to be adjusted. No worries.

First stop, Queen Victoria Market, just at the end of the road our hostel was on. It's a strange mix of Sunday market tat and really nice stalls. I spent far too long going through every single shot at a photographer's stall, especially when I realised he had some gorgeous photos of Tasmania. I may have gone back and bought one...

We headed next to Melbourne Museum, before I could buy more photos. The museum is pretty awesome and has an excellent collection of local Aboriginal artefacts and art.

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It also has dinosaurs and other, more recent megafauna, like Megalania, the biggest terrestrial lizard... ever, pretty much.

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I feel I should point out that dinosaurs and crocodiles aren't lizards, just in case someone plans on trying to correct me. If we're being pedantic, mosasaurs were lizards and they were bloody enormous even compared to Megalania. But they were aquatic.

Random aside aside, the museum also has a very cool geological collection, including this rock which contains zircons accepted to be among the oldest crystals on Earth.

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Most of the early crust has been recycled so many times that there's nothing left of the early surface and thus not much to use to determine the age of the Earth. Crystals like those zircons survive the melting process. They're a link to the very earliest days on this planet. I think that's pretty cool.

Science geekery aside, we moved on from the museum at kicking out time and hopped on the free City Circle tram. The commentary was hit and miss, but it was free, so musn't complain. Unfortunately, the tram stops at 6pm and instead of stopping somewhere in the centre, it stopped out in the Docklands. Really clever. No warning. Just. "we're terminating here. All change." Thanks, mate.

Fortunately, trams in the CBD are free, so we hopped on another and got off near the state parliament to have a look at St Patrick's Cathedral.

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And the lovely Fitzroy Gardens.

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And then back on another tram to take us back to the other end of the CBD where we had tea in a little Japanese place called Menya. I assume it to be good Japanese food, because there were a lot of Japanese people eating in there. The tonkatsu ramen was delicious.

Come in, we have wine!

The following morning, I awoke to Claire tugging on my duvet with a worried look on her face. My alarm was going off right next to my head and I'd been ignoring it. Apparently Claire was worried I was dead...

Not really with it, we piled out of the hostel and onto another bus with an overly chirpy guide. Yay... My mood improved a bit when we stopped for morning tea and I finally got some caffeine in me.

It improved even more when we got to Gibson Steps and finally hit the Great Ocean Road, which was the whole point of this day trip. Our guide was doing it in the opposite direction to most so that we'd avoid the crowds.

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Bit windy at Gibson Steps. It wasn't quite so bad at the Twelve Apostles, but then again there were bigger crowds there. Managed to get some all right photos though.

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From there to Loch Ard Gorge, named after the Loch Ard which struck rocks just outside the gorge and sank in the 1800s. Only two people survived and they took shelter in the gorge. It's a beautiful place if you can get rid of the people.

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Onwards down to Mait's Rest for a walk through the rainforest. Pretty trees - Eucalyptus regnans, some of these, the tallest flowering plants in the world. I think Tasmania lays claim to the tallest ones though.

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Next stop, Kennett River to go koala spotting. Very little effort involved - there's one in every other tree, although I think Claire spotted them easier than most of us.

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Still toddling onwards Next stop Fairhaven Beach. It's a beach. Nothing special.

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There's also the memorial arch to the men who built the road.

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Final stop of the day was at Torquay where it was pizza for tea. Delicious pizza. And then back to Melbourne. The Queen Victoria Night Market was on, so we had a wander through there in search of souvenirs and other delicious things. The night market is much more craft oriented than the main market, but we didn't find anything that interesting.

On the short walk back to the hostel we passed a sign advertising a garage sale. Slowing down to read it, we were accosted by a woman from inside who invited us in and offered us wine. Bizarre. Still, we had a look and, seriously, it was like we'd just fallen through the looking glass or something. We went in expecting to go, oh, right, garage sale and then sod off. But the place just kept going.

Turns out it's a studio space, so there was loads of art around and when we found an exit, we ended up in the Blender Lane Artist Market. I didn't end up buying anything, but I picked up plenty of cards - these guys are all on Etsy and the like and I fully intend to check them out properly when I get the chance.

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Pengwings

First stop of the day - State Library, where I once again started daydreaming of having a library like this.

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After that it was back to the hostel in time for our pick up. This time we were heading out to Phillip Island to see Little Penguins. Or pengwings, for which please refer to this clip from the BBC documentary South Pacific.

However, the penguins wouldn't be coming ashore until after 9pm, so we had plenty of time for other stops. First of these was Tooradin for lunch and also for watching very evil looking pelicans.

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There was also a ray of some sort, but I didn't get a photo. From Tooradin on to Maru Koala & Wildlife Park, where we got to feed some kangaroos. Not quite as clingy as the ones at Bonorong, but very sweet.

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Claire got bitten by a pony... And then on to Phillip Island itself where we stopped at Cape Woolamai beach for a while. It was hot. I drank tea.

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Then to Cowes for tea. What is it with stealing our place names, Australia? I've actually stayed in Cowes before - I spent the very short drive down the main road trying to remember where the holiday home was located. I failed. Tea was good though. Seafood box for me, souvlaki for Claire. Delicious. Filling.

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Stuffed with chips and seafood, we got back on the bus and drove down to the Nobbies, where we spotted our first penguins. These are the only ones I have photos of because there's a ban on photography at the landing site.

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The sun going down over the Nobbies was pretty spectacular as well.

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And finally on to the "Penguin Parade". This is a tourist trap, but for most people it's the only time they're going to see Little Penguins. The critters come ashore after sunset in little groups, hurry across the beach as fast as their little legs will carry them and then have to clamber up the hill to get to their nests. Considering their legs are only a few inches long, I think that's pretty impressive.

And so back to the bus and back to Melbourne, where I fell into bed.

Such a child

And so came Friday and Claire's final day in Australia. We made the most of it, starting with a pancake breakfast using those money off vouchers Claire had picked up earlier in the week, before heading down to Federation Square to check out the ACMI - the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Last time I was there they had an amazing Disney exhibition. This time it was these guys.

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Yes, they're fish shaped helium balloons. We spent far too long punting them around, trying to race them, seeing how many we could get airborne at once and generally embracing our inner children. It was great fun. I'm sure there's supposed to be some sort of serious art message behind them, but mostly it was fun.

The permanent exhibition at the ACMI is big on the interactive stuff, which is always great. So we played around with video games - Claire relieved the 90s with Tomb Raider and I tried to get my head round the console controls for Minecraft. We also attempted to create a bullet time sequence a la The Matrix. Unfortunately, we had no idea what to do and completely mistimed it...

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Yeah... that didn't really work. From the ACMI we moved on to the Ian Potter Centre, part of the National Gallery of Victoria and home to its collection of Aboriginal Art. At least, I thought it was, but I couldn't find it.

Feeling peckish, we went in search of lunch via the souvenir shops, ending up at a little Vietnamese place where I introduced Claire to the joy of pho. I love pho. I can't wait to get to Vietnam and try it there.

After lunch we meandered back to the hostel, where all that was left to do was wait for Claire's shuttle back to the airport. We said our goodbyes and then I went in search of a tram to the bus station. And completely screwed it up. I ended up going back on myself and then still having to walk 10 minutes. Not sure how I managed that one...

And then I spent the best part of two hours sitting at the bus station, eating pie and being bored out of my tiny wee skull. Also dreading the bus journey. I'd opted to take the bus overnight from Melbourne to Adelaide. I've taken plenty of overnight buses on this trip, but the first one I ever took, back when I was studying in Tasmania, was the Greyhound from Adelaide to Melbourne and I didn't sleep at all. I really didn't want to do that again.

So bye-bye to Claire and hello again to solo travel. Next week I'm going to be in Adelaide before catching a flight to Perth. There's a few places I want to revisit in Adelaide itself, but more than anything I want to check out Kangaroo Island.

First I have to survive this bus journey...

Australia: Tasmania Coast to Coast

After spending a few days in Hobart, revisiting old favourites and a couple of new ones, I'd caught the bus up to Launceston in the north and planned on spending a few days exploring before heading over to the West Coast. Here's how that went.

So. Un. Fit.

On my first morning in Launceston, I woke up stupidly early and a little sleep deprived courtesy of the two snoring monsters in my dorm. This may explain my confusion when there was breakfast laid out in the kitchen despite me being pretty sure there wasn't free breakfast. Still, with no one else around to tell me otherwise, I helped myself to a couple of slices of bread and was just fishing them out of the toaster when someone appeared in the kitchen.

"That's for a private group," she said, giving me the evils. Sleep-deprived me apologised profusely but failed to point out that I could hardly return the now-toasted bread. Slightly more awake me thankfully kept her mouth shut, but really wanted to point out that there was no way for me to know that it wasn't part of the hostel services and there was no need to be giving me evils. Ugh.

Having avoided that argument, I clambered onto my minibus with Graeme, our guide and driver for the day. Scary ass driver.

We made it safely to Ross, which is a pretty little village with a rather elaborate convict-built bridge.

It also had an excellent bakery that sold scallop pies, so that was my tea sorted. 

Onwards! Down the winding road to the east coast. Whether it was because I hadn't slept much or because Graeme was a terrifying driver, I ended up feeling sick. 

Fortunately for me, I fell asleep for most of it and by the time I woke up we were coming up on the little town of Coles Bay, gateway to Freycinet National Park.

First stop, Cape Tourville Lighthouse. Glorious views, a very short walk and a rather disappointing lighthouse.

And back on the bus to Wineglass Bay, supposedly home to one of the world's best beaches. I had no intention of going down to the beach. I remembered the climb up to the lookout from 6 years ago and that seemed quite enough to me.

So I marched up to the lookout in less time than expected, scowled at people getting in the way of my photos and started the trek back down again. A few minutes down from the lookout I heard someone call me and turned to find a couple of American girls from my group beckoning for me to join them. Some scrambling later, I managed to clamber up onto the huge boulder by the path and enjoyed a nice, sociable lunch for a change. Lovely.

Back down at the bus, we headed back up the peninsula to Honeymoon Bay, actually a series of little bays scooped out of the gorgeous red rock. Not content with sitting around and enjoying the view, I embraced my inner child and went scrambling over the rocks in search of the third bay, away from the crowds. Here goes... One.

Two.

Three.

Success. The water was the most amazing colour and so clear. At that point, Honeymoon Bay shifted somewhere near the top of my favourite places list.

From there, a short stop at Richardson's Beach, where I claimed the sand for New New Grimsby, as per New Zealand roadtrip tradition.

And so onwards, back out of the park to the Devil's Corner Lookout. Not much of a lookout - I think the haze was messing things up. The cafe did nice muffins though as well as a sorely needed cuppa.

Then an uneventful ride back to Launceston, where I scoffed my delicious scallop pie with some new potatoes and an enormous cup of tea. I needed it.

I can see the mountain!

Another early start beckoned on the Sunday morning. Dragging myself out of bed, I boarded the minibus and found that my driver for the day was once again crazy Graeme. Awesome.

First stop, the little bakery cafe at Elizabeth Town where I picked up a couple of bits of deliciousness. From there, on down the back roads to Sheffield, town of murals. I recall visiting there last time I was in northern Tasmania, but I missed most of the murals. Besides, there's some new ones now, including this one with Tim Minchin on it.

This resulted in me getting Tim Minchin's songs stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Worse things have happened. Aside from the murals, Sheffield doesn't have much going for it, so then it was off to Cradle Mountain, the main destination for the day.

Last time I went there, accompanied by one of my lovely housemates, it pissed it down with rain the entire day and we didn't actually see the mountain because of the cloud. We could barely see Dove Lake, which sits at the bottom of it.

This time the sky was cloudy but bright and the view was amazing.

I toddled off on a lovely 2 hour walk around the lake, during which I wandered through a fragment of ancient forest that made me feel like I'd stumbled into Mirkwood.

And then I made friends with a Black Currawong that was clearly trying to creep up on me and steal my lunch. Clever little buggers.

With another hour or more to kill, I took a very short side trip down to Lake Lilla, pondering whether to tackle the hill up to Wombat Pool. I made it to Lake Lilla.

One look at the track up to Wombat Pool made me turn around and head back to Dove Lake. I haven't done enough walking so far on this trip and I didn't really fancy the steep slope. Wuss.

Sitting by Dove Lake, admiring the beautiful view and the (almost) peace and quiet, was rudely interrupted by a guy sitting a few metres away who suddenly shot up shouting that there was a snake. I want to see a snake. I've never seen a like snake. Still, the urge to tick something off my mental wildlife-spotting list couldn't quite override the basic human instinct to stay as far away from the bitey animal as possible.

From Dove Lake we headed back up the road a little way to Ronny Creek, where there are wombats. I have a love-hate relationship with wombats. On the one hand they're sort of cute and appealing. On the other, I got chased by one while on a field trip in Narawntapu National Park. So I wasn't entirely happy with how close Graeme was leading us to this guy.

Fortunately, this wombat was far more interested in getting away from the nebbing tourists than chasing us off. A quick stop at Waldheim, home of the guy who first suggested Cradle Mountain should be a national park and then we were off again.

And I saw my second echidna of the day, but given that I always seem to spot echidna from moving vehicles, I have no photos. Guh. Cute little buggers.

Final stop for the day was Ashgrove Farm which produces the most delicious cheese I've had in months. So of course I decided to treat myself to some. They also had cider. I haven't had cider since I was in Canada and that wasn't great. Outside the UK, cider just doesn't seem to exist. But I was willing to give this one a try.

Back home at the hostel after a glorious day of walking and wildlife, I cracked into the bottle. Best cider I've had since leaving home. Not as good as Henney's, but good enough. Yum.

Yes, I am a child

I started Monday with a glorious lie in after two days of early starts. JOY. Then I had a productive morning of bus booking and grocery shopping before heading across the road to the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (QVMAG). I was far too happy to find that all of the interactive displays from 6 years ago were still there and spent far too long indulging my inner child.

There's also a surprisingly good collection of dinos for such a small museum, plus a fascinating display about the wreck of the Sydney Cove. This ship foundered on an island off Tasmania's north coast and while there's some interesting artefacts from both the wreck and its cargo, I think the most amazing bit was this.

On the left is a bottle of ale recovered from the wreck. The seal held, so the ale in there hasn't been contaminated by the seawater. Scientists were able to extract yeast from these bottles and use it to brew a new batch of ale over a century after the ship went down. That's what the bottle on the right is. That's some great science there.

The museum also has a great WWI exhibition, including a somewhat terrifying sound and light simulation of what the men in the trenches would have heard. It's loud. Scarily loud. I think my sister will appreciate the Siegfried Sassoon poem at the end of the experience.

And then I rounded out my day with a solo trip to the cinema to see Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, which was rather better than I expected.

I think I had a plastic one of those...

After another glorious lie in, I spent the morning reading my new Pratchett book and generally being a lazy mare. I made up for it by heading back to QVMAG in the afternoon to check out the bits of the museum I'd missed the day before, including a great temporary exhibition about the Permian era. It's not something I see covered that often even in natural history museums, so I had to have a look.

The Permian is the geological period just before the Triassic and therefore just before the age of dinosaurs. Evolution was doing some interesting things at this time, with a whole host of bizarre looking critters floating about, including this nightmare possible-shark called Helicoprion.

As far as I'm aware, it's only known from the fossilised tooth-whorl and has been colloquially known as the buzzsaw shark for obvious reasons. Very odd. The Permian was also the period during which mammal-like reptiles flourished. Mammals themselves wouldn't evolve until after the end-Permian extinction event, but there were some early precursors running around before then. Like these little guys whose name is escaping me... bad scientist. Google tells me it's either a dicynodont or a cynodont (the latter being mammal ancestors).

Still, I think Dimetrodon is my favourite Permian critter. Big and ungainly with a huge sail down its back.

I had a plastic one as a child. I think that says something about how far back my geekery goes. I wonder if it's still in the tub at my nanna's?

Paleontology fix achieved, I decided to go and geek out about locomotives instead. See this shiny red train, built in Launceston.

The whole museum actually takes up what used to be Launceston's engine yard and workshops and they've kept a few of the original features including this bench.

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This is not some sort of modern art. The guys who used to paint the trains and signs and what not just used to leave their brushes and whatnot to drip here instead of cleaning them. I think this is somewhat more interesting than most of the stuff in the Tate Modern...

With another early start beckoning in the morning I decided to get to bed early...

I haven't been on one of these in 8 years...

Unfortunately, early night plan was once again foiled by the snoring bastards. Great. Anyways, I stumped down to the bus station and hopped on the bus. Somehow I didn't fall asleep again all the way to Cradle Mountain. There I got to have an hour off the bus, which would have been much more fun if I hadn't had to keep an eye on my bags and actually been able to go for a walk...

From Cradle Mountain an entire three people hopped on the little minibus that would take us out to Queenstown on the West Coast. It was a beautiful drive, entering the temperate rainforest that blankets a large part of Tasmania's west and is part of the reason that most of it is protected under the Tasmanian Wildnerness World Heritage Site. Did you know, the Tasmanian Wilderness ticks 7 of the 10 criteria to be named a World Heritage Site? There's not many that hit that many and only 35 from over 1000 sites that qualify under both natural and cultural criteria. The Tasmanian Wilderness is special.

I digress. At Queenstown we all trooped off the bus. Our driver pointed me and the sole remaining passenger in the direction of toilets and cafe and assured us he'd be back in a bit with the bus for Strahan. Only at this point did either of us realise that the bus to Strahan was the local school bus. Hm.

After whiling away our little break with cake and chat in the cafe, we hopped back on the bus with a warning from Terence the driver that the kids could be a bit rowdy. I haven't been on a school bus in more than 8 years, but I was pretty sure I knew what to expect.

As it was, the kids were pretty well behaved and the little ones at the front were fascinated by the presence of English and French girls on their bus. I'm not good with kids. I did a lot of smiling and nodding and "oh, really?" It seemed to work.

After depositing all the kids around the town at Strahan and my fellow backpacker at the YHA, I had a chat with Terence while he drove me to my destination. Nice chap. Even carried my bags to the door which was sweet and entirely unnecessary.

Yeah... I treated myself to another night in a hotel. This time it was because the YHA was fully booked for the night and what with the funny bus timetables, I rather had to arrive in Strahan that day or spend more time back in Launceston and less time in the West. Still, I'd booked the cheapest room the hotel had going and given the lack of sleep I'd been getting in Launnie I was looking forward to having space.

Bliss like having an exceptionally long shower, filching ALL the free toiletries and then spending the evening watching Tomb Raider. Because why not?

What day is it?

The following morning I waited until I absolutely had to check out and then tramped off in search of the YHA. I had a vague idea where it was, having seen where the French girl had been dropped off the previous day, but somehow I managed to get totally confused and had to summon up the courage to ask for directions. Turns out I just hadn't walked far enough down the road. It was literally just across the road from where I'd given up looking. Duh.

Strahan being on Tasmania's notoriously wet West Coast, I decided to make the most of the short breaks in the rain. First stop, post office to offload those postcards I'd been carrying around all week. There was a dog on the counter, so of course I had to make friends. Friendly chaps in the post office too. Then via the information office for ideas of trips. Lots of leaflets were acquired and I decided I'd go on one of the wilderness cruises and maybe on the railway, since there's some really interesting engineering history around that.

So I booked my day cruise and then set off in search of the train station to see about booking that. The views over the harbour were pretty nice, despite the weather.

Unfortunately, I'd completely muddled up what day it was and the rail trip I had planned on taking would only be running on the day I'd booked the cruise. Clever me. Oh well. I saw the station at least...

Instead I tramped back to the very small town centre and went to Banjos for lunch, once again indulging my love of the Tasmanian pie chain. With the weather not looking set to improve, I spent the rest of the day in the hostel, trying very hard to be social, which was a partial success until it got a bit busier later in the evening and I promptly ran away.

CHEESE

After that day of laziness, Friday in Strahan was far more adventure packed. Cruise time! A nice leisurely sail around Macquarie Harbour and up the Gordon River, in fact.

First stop, the aptly named Hell's Gates. This is the narrow entrance into Macquarie Harbour and was so named by the convicts who were sent to the Sarah Island Penal Settlement within the Harbour. Technically, the entrance to the harbour is quite wide, but more than half of it is far too shallow and riddled with sand banks for any ship to navigate. Instead they have to pass between Entrance Island and the mainland. And just getting that far must have been hard enough. The seas are notorious down the West Coast. I was told later that there are wave height buoys just offshore and one recently broke from its anchor. The cord used to attach it should have been good up to 20m. Just to give you an idea of the swells around here...

Back through into the Harbour, our next stop was a quick look at the fish farms. Tasmanian produces a lot of salmon and I think most of it is from places like this.

And so on to the infamous Sarah Island, considered hell on earth and perhaps the worst of Australia's convict establishments. Most of those sent to Sarah Island had already been transported to another penal colony, subsequently re-offended and been, effectively, banished here.

In the first few years of its existence, the commandant dealt out thousands of lashes for seemingly minor offences, conditions were said to be hellish and escape attempts common. We were led around the island by Chris from the Round Earth Theatre Company and he had some interesting additions to make to the conventional narrative.

Plus, he was easily the most engaging guide I've had in months. Anyway, common knowledge would have you believe that Sarah Island really was hell on earth and for those first few years, it probably was. But then something changed. A new commandant arrived, prisoner behaviour improved, far fewer punishments were doled out and the shipbuilding, which used the convicts as forced labour, thrived.

Still, that didn't stop one final escape on the last boat built by the convicts, but more on that in the next post.

Thoroughly entertained and planning on reading up on Tasmania's convict history, I re-boarded the boat for a gentle trip down the Gordon River, through beautiful temperate forests, largely untouched by people.

Oh, and lunch, during which I ate far too much cheese, potato and bread because if there's food included I will make the most of it.

After lunch, we moored at Heritage Landing and took a short walk through the forest, admiring centuries-old Huon Pines.

That was our last stop for the day, so off we went back to slightly damp Strahan where I promptly booked onto another boat trip for that evening.

After a brief return to the hostel where I managed to be somewhat more sociable courtesy of discovering a shared love of Minecraft, I hopped back on another, rather smaller boat, this time to head out to Bonnet Island in search of Little Penguins.

My notes remind me that our guide was called Errol and that he had to stress he was no relation to famous Tassie Errol Flynn...

Anyway, off we went back out to Hell's Gates, which felt a lot more powerful in a little motor boat instead of the big catamaran I'd been out on earlier in the day.

Then I got fed again, with delicious Ashgrove Farm cheese and biscuits and other yummy things, before we climbed onto tiny Bonnet Island to await the penguins.

Armed with red-light torches so as not to scare or hurt the penguins, we crept quietly along the short path, peering under bushes and down the steep slope to the harbour.

In the end, we spotted about half a dozen of the little things, but it being night and not being able to use flash for fear of hurting their sensitive eyes, this is the best photo I got.

I know there's a penguin there and I can see the feet and a vague outline of the body. Not sure if anyone else can...

When I finally got back to the hostel at gone 11pm, I mostly just wanted to fall into bed and go to sleep. That plan was thwarted first by a couple of noisy Swiss guys and then, again at some point in the night when the French guys from the other end of the room suddenly kicked off and starting swearing at the Swiss guys. I honestly thought I was going to have to break up a fight.

Turns out on of the drunk Swiss guys had pissed on one of the French guys' stuff. Disgusting bastard. Still, I'd have appreciated getting a full night's sleep...

Next week I'm heading back to Hobart to finish up my three weeks in Tassie. Maybe it'll be the Huon Valley, a part of Tassie I've never seen. We'll see.

And if I can spot some more wildlife, all the better...

Peru: Ancient cultures and altitude problems

Woo! I'm only... less than a week late with this one. This time I am blaming being super busy with adventurous things. And the fact that WiFi at my hostels hasn't been the best. Also, I'm just generally bad at remembering to post these things, evidently.

My second week in Peru went something like this.

Chocolate tea... chocolate buttons... chocolate pisco?

I decided to spend the day making use of my Cusco Tourist Ticket. I'd bought it to get into the ruins at Ollantaytambo, but it gave me access to a whole host of other sites in Cusco and the surrounding area.

Including, to my delight, some museums. I figured I'd spend the day working my way through the three included Cusco museums. Contrary to the information on the ticket, the contemporary art museum appeared to be closed, so I headed across the plaza to the Museo Historico Regional instead.

It's quite a small museum and the entire upper floor is dedicated to the Colonial era. Interesting, but not as interesting as the pre-Columbian section downstairs. And when I say pre-Columbian... well, this was the first room.

That's a glyptodont fossil. They're basically huge, prehistoric armadillos. Definitely pre-Columbian. In the next few rooms, though, were a whole host of pre-Incan artefacts, including this somewhat rude figurine, probably used as a fertility symbol.

Also, this delightful display of the various potato varieties grown around Cusco. I am reliably informed by multiple guides that Peru has over 3000 varieties of potato. I have tried some of them. They are delicious.

Following on from the regional museum, I decided to check out the ChocoMuseo, which isn't a museum as much as a marketing ploy. It is, however, delicious. And free. I'm not going to turn my nose up at free chocolate. So, our guide first explained to us about Peruvian chocolate and that you can tell where the cacao beans come from by the taste. At which point we all ate a cacao bean.

Cacao beans taste chocolatey, but also bitter and to me at least, quite earthy. Not bad, but not something I want to be munching on a regular basis. Fortunately, after the bean, we got to try a whole host of other chocalatey goodness while our guide explained the process of turning the beans into chocolate.

Soooo... I had cacao tea (better than the chocolate tea I've had before), hot chocolate (YUM), chocolate buttons flavoured with coca, sea salt, various fruits and a really nice white chocolate, chocolate and fruit jams and, possibly my favourite, pisco flavoured with chocolate and fruit. Passionfruit chocolate pisco is delicious. I could happily have worked my way through the entire line of piscos.

Of course, this is all clearly a big con to draw you in and get you to buy something and I'm not ashamed to say that it worked on me. I bought a couple of bars of delicious dark chocolate, one with sea salt and one with mango. Om nom nom. Not the cheapest, but it's so rich that it'll last me ages. Trying to save it for NaNoWriMo - I'm going to need the kick.

Following the chocolate overload, I headed away from the historic centre to see the site of Qorikancha, the Inca sun temple. However, I found the entrance to the museum blocked by an enormous school group and really didn't fancy dealing with the crowd, so I toddled back to the hostel instead.

Where I wrote something like 3,500 words of planning for the aforementioned NaNoWriMo. I'm a little bit obsessive about world building.

Fortunately, my attention was drawn away from doing any more writing by a nice evening of chat with other folks at the hostel. That and another couple of pisco sours. Well, if the hostel bar insists on having them on 2 for S/. 18 during Happy Hour, who am I to argue? After all, that's about £4. Om. Nom. Nom.

Pottery, pottery everywhere

My final day in Cusco I had a gloriously lazy morning (not due to hangover, I might add) during which I wrote ALL THE WORDS of intricate worldbuilding, and then toddled off in search of some way to spend my afternoon. The contemporary art museum was still closed, this time because it was a Sunday, so instead I made my way to the Museo del Arte Precolombino, just up from the Plaza de Armas.

The place wasn't included in my tourist ticket, but it was worth the entrance fee. It approaches pre-Columbian art from an artist's perspective as opposed to history, which was a little bit of a disappointment, but the pieces they have there are beautiful. The native cultures of South America produced some amazing art.

For example, this is a Chimu or Chancay vase. It looks like modern art to me, but dates from around 1200-1400AD, if my memory serves correctly.

This beautiful Moche piece, which is in imitation of a cactus, obviously.

The Moche pieces in particular were fascinating - they often created ceramics in the shape of plants and animals, so that part of the collection also includes this.

It's a potato. Clearly that crop was already important all the way back in the first millenium AD.

Enough of the pottery though. I'm sure most folks aren't quite as fascinated by these things as me and I'll admit that I was taking photos of prett much anything so that I could draw inspiration for various fictional cultures in my writing. Not a geek...

Following the awesome of that museum, I thought I'd make another attempt at getting into the Qorikancha site museum. This time I succeeded. Unfortunately, while there are some really interesting pieces in there, no photography was allowed. And the entire museum, which took me about 20 minutes to go through, all felt rather dated.

In addition, to see the remains of the Qorikancha sun temple, you have to pay an additional fee to the convent that's built on top of it. I figured I'd spent enough money on museums for the day and, knowing that I would be seeing more amazing sites over the next week or so, gave it a miss.

So I ended up back at the hostel where I spent far too long repacking my bags, before writing MOAR WORDS and finally ending my stay with a delicious Philly Cheesesteak, pisco sour and the US Presidential Debate. Interesting combination. The pisco sour was definitely required to deal with the ridiculousness of the debate.

Skull squish museum

On the Monday morning I dragged myself out of bed at stupid o'clock in the morning, had a minor freak out when my pre-booked taxi was 15 minutes late and made very bad small talk in even worse Spanish with the driver.

Fortunately, I still made it to my bus in time. Being really paranoid about getting places on time will do that. Struggling to stay awake, I mumbled a goodbye to a rather soggy looking Cusco as the bus set off higher into the Andes towards the town of Puno.

Now, I could have taken the cheaper option and gone straight from Cusco to Puno. But why would I do that when I could pay a few dollars more (OK, so more than a few. Still cheap) and make some stops along the way? Why on earth would I sit on a bus for 8 hours without seeing the amazing things I was passing?

First stop, the small town of Andahuaylillas, which is as hard to spell as it is to pronounce. Its star attraction is the 16th century church of San Pedro, known as the Sistine Chapel of the Americas.

Unfortunately, I only have exterior shots, because photography isn't allowed inside. I do have a disc which the staff gave out which apparently has interior shots, but given that I have no disc drive... yeah. You'll just have to take my word that it is amazing. For someone more used to English, plain old Anglican churches, it looks a bit tacky - it's all gold and shiny and covered in paintings. Very cool.

We made a second stop in Andahuaylillas at the tiny Museo Ritos Andinos. Courtesy of its large selection of deformed skulls, this has been immortalised in my memory as the skull squish museum. Yup. Look, a skelly with a squished skull.

The entire museum can be done in 10 minutes, absolute max, and that's as much because half the info is in Spanish only and it took me that long to translate enough to understand what it meant.

From Andahuaylillas we headed on south down the road, got stuck for a good half hour because of what looked like a pretty serious crash and finally made it to the little village of Checacupe, home to a suspension bridge.

Capilano, eat your heart art. Supposedly there's been a suspension bridge at this location since Inca times, although the current bridge is a bit of a cheat because it uses cables instead of the rope that would have been used traditionally. Still, there were plenty of people in my group who seemed hesitant to cross it. Be amazed - I was nice and resisted the urge to jump up and down and make it bounce.

The next stop was at Raqchi, also awkward to spell, site of the Incan Temple of Wiracocha, among an impressive array of ruins.

Wiracocha was the creator god of the Incas, and if the various guides I've had are to be believed, the only "god" - all other worshipped entities can be considered spirits of a sort, in line with an animist belief system. The site is also home to a lot of circular structures, thought to be storehouses. The sole reconstructed one proved to be very useful when it started bucketing down with rain.

Onwards down the road, we stopped again at Marangani, this time for lunch. I may have stuffed my face with soup and chicken and rice and sweet potato and pudding. And drunk large quantities of tea. Hey, it was included in the bus ticket, I had to make the most of it.

Climbing higher into the Andes, en route to the Altiplano, we stopped at La Raya, the highest point on the road and the border bewteen the departments of Cusco and Puno. Harold popped out for a minute just to prove he's still around.

And still it rained. From La Raya we had a somewhat boring ride out of the mountains and onto the Altiplano. It rained some more.

We finally stopped at Pukara to visit another little museum. Again, no photography allowed. What is it with this no photography thing? It's very annoying. Especially when there were some very cool pieces in that museum - both Inca and pre-Inca, including what I think were some Tiwanaku artefacts, the Tiwanaku culture being one the biggest powers in the area prior to the rise of the Inca.

There was also a funky looking church.

And then back on the bus for the final stretch to Puno, passing through the somewhat terrifying looking city of Juliaca on the way.

I could have flown from Cusco to Juliaca, but quickly decided against it when I read about all the crime and how dangerous it was. Glad I took the bus.

At last, 10 hours after departing Cusco, I arrived in Puno, successfully found a registered taxi at the bus station and made it to my hostel. Where I promptly nearly passed out on reaching my room because oh my god the altitude and oh my god three flights of stairs.

URGH.

The Return of the Storm

Ah yes, the return of my nemesis. But first, my plans for a lie in were foiled when I woke up at 7am in desperate need of breakfast. Much to my delight, breakfast at my hostel in Puno is the best I've had yet - cheese, ham, scrambled eggs, fresh bread, tomatoes, smoothies, ALL THE TEA.

After I'd had a nice cup of coca tea in an attempt to ward off the incoming altitude issues, I booked myself on a trip to Sillustani for the afternoon and proceeded to have a nice lazy morning to make up for the lack of lie in.

In the afternoon I was picked up for my trip to Sillustani, the only native English speaker on the bus. Fortunately, there were a couple of other people who preferred English over Spanish, so I got a bilingual tour.

On arrival, it started raining. By the time we walked from the car park to the base of the site, it was chucking it down and the wind was driving it sideways. Glad I thought to take my wooly hat with me. That bloody Storm. I thought I'd got rid of it.

Anyway, after 5 minutes, the Storm buggered off. Sillustani is the site of a complex of tower tombs ranging from small, Colla-built tombs that immediately preceded the Incas, to the huge structures built by the Inca themselves. I've noticed that restoration as opposed to preservation is popular in Peru, so here is one of the partially restored Inca tombs.

The tower itself doesn't contain the body - the burial is actually beneath the tower. There are also some even older burials on the site, this time in cists. We have similar burials in the UK. A cist is a hole lined with stone and then covered. Sometimes this is with a capstone, sometimes with a skin or wickerwork. The cists at Sillustani show up as small rings of stones sticking out of the ground.

Speaking of rings of stones, there's also a sun temple there. It's like a miniature Stonehenge, or possibly a very large sundial.

The smaller ring next to it is the moon temple, apparently and it's unfinished. Not much else to say aboout that one. With our trip to Sillustani completed, we piled back onto the bus and I took the opportunity to take a stupid selfie to demonstrate my excellently clashing fashion choices. Orange hat, purple scarf, green jumper. I am a fashion goddess.

Can't beat that hat. My ears were lovely and toasty. My innards got nicely toasty too at our next stop, which I hadn't known was included. Ten minutes down the road from Sillustani, we pulled over at a little house that looked like all the other little houses in the area. Adobe bricks, small buildings positioned around a courtyard.

There, the family showed us some of the local staples, including some delicious potatoes fresh out of the pot, fresh cheese and quinoa bread.

Quinoa is a ridiculously faddy thing in the UK and I've never had it in anything nice. Until I got to Peru, that is. I am not ashamed to say that I had a second helping of the quinoa bread. Om nom nom. Strangely, the selection also included a brown spread which I'm almost certain the guide said was made of earth. Like... mud? Still not entirely sure, but it was pretty good with the taters.

The family also keep guinea pigs, although these guys are definitely not pets. These are for eating. Just a shame they look so much like the one I had as a kid, which rather amused the guide.

And then back to Puno, where I had an email waiting for me to say that my two day trip out on Lake Titicaca was confirmed. Win.

IHMAIWTD

Wednesday started out OK. I sorted out getting some laundry done, did some writing, some booking of stuff.

And then my iPod started making the click of doom. This is generally a sign of the hard drive failing. I went into a bit of a meltdown. It really shouldn't have been a big deal, but I'm very attached to my music library and the iPod is the only place I have access to the whole lot. I need it for the moments when I feel like shit or I can't sleep.

So, yeah. Much freaking out. Much trying very hard not to crawl under the covers and cry. Much making myself feel sick with worry.

I had planned on going to a museum, but I couldn't get my brain to focus. I needed something to take my mind off the horrible clicking the iPod made every time I turned it on or off. So I treated myself to a nice lunch in the main square.

Look, more delicious quinoa-based things. How come we don't have nice quinoa dishes in the UK?

And then I ate some of the fancy chocolate I bought in Cusco. As I mentioned above, I'd wanted to save it for NaNoWriMo, but I needed endorphin-inducing food. It worked. Having stuffed myself with good food, I finally remembered that I have access to a large chunk of my library through Amazon, so that should keep me sane until I can work out what to do about the iPod.

On the downside, I'd stuffed myself with good food and my stomach did not appreciate it. Or possibly it was something else I'd eaten. Whatever the case, I spent the rest of the day and all night feeling rotten, if rather less anxious.

Hablas Espanol?

Fortunately, both anxiety and sickness had dissipated by the following morning. Which was great, because I had to get up early again to head out onto Lake Titicaca. First stop, the port, where I bought some water (for me) and apples (for my host family). I had no idea if apples were a suitable gift, but the guide assured us that fruit would be appreciated. Hmm...

And then our group of 13 piled onto a boat for the short trip out to the Uros Islands. These are the famous floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca, named for the Uru people.

We landed on Suma Willtja, where the president of the island, Joel, gave us a demonstration of how they construct the islands with layers of reeds. The reeds are also eaten and I can confirm that they taste a little bit like apple. Not bad.

After the demonstration, we were invited to see inside the houses, which I found a little bit uncomfortable, but the islands now rely heavily on tourism.

And then, to avoid being guilt-tripped in buying little trinkets I didn't want, I paid the S./10 to take a ride across the lagoon in the island's reed boat. Very relaxing.

A quick stop at the island across the lagoon for coca tea - a necessity at this altitude, methinks - and then we were off again on the three hour slog across the lake to Amantani, the biggest of Titicaca's islands.

There we were met by the ladies who would be hosting us for the night - the mamas, as our guide, Johnny, called them. I was grouped with a father and son from Sydney and soon we set off behind our mama, Epifania.

At the house, we met Epi's husband, Teodosio, who joined us for a lunch of quinoa soup followed by potatoes and cheese with a nice cup of munia tea and a basket of delicious quinoa bread. We soon established that out of the three of us, I spoke the most Spanish (by a small margin) so I ended up as unofficial translator. Somehow, I managed to work out most of what Teodosio was saying, which I was very pleased with.

After lunch, we headed down to the community's small library, where a young lady leads an after school initiative to teach the local kids additional reading, maths and basic English. The company I took the tour with contributes to the communities they house their clients in, which is part of the reason I chose to go with them. On our trip, the company was taking some tables and chairs to furnish the library.

We made our own small contribution to the kids' English learning by teaching them Jingle Bells. They seemed to do pretty well, although I did hear the occasional "Navidad, Navidad" which is how the song goes in Spanish.

Outside the library, the mamas showed us some of the weaving they do and also how they grind quinoa. Then it was time to head up the hill at the back of the community to view the sunset. Half of our group decided not to make the trek, so off went the rest of us and Johnny the guide, tramping up the hill. I was soon wishing I'd drunk more coca tea. Or, y'know, was just a little bit fitter. Johnny led us around a slightly less steep path, so we got a lovely view out across the lake, with just a hint of Bolivia's mountains in the far distance.

And, of course, the obligatory group photo in which I am pulling a weird face.

And still onwards, winding up to Pachatata and the ancient ceremonial centre on the hilltop. I was pleased to see I wasn't the only one struggling with the hill and the altitude, but it was certainly worth it when we got to the top.

While busy with other groups, it wasn't that crowded or noisy that you couldn't appreciate the beautiful view. Here is the sun going down over Peru, from the highest point on Amantani.

So worth it. And once we got back to the house, Epi and Teodosio were ready with dinner. A potato soup for starters, followed by a pasta dish. Just what we needed after trekking up that hill. We managed an almost conversation over the meal, in broken Spanish on our part, and the occasional snippet of English from Teodosio. I did establish that the couple have two sons who live in Puno and that Teodosio wouldn't see us in the morning because he had to leave early to go to Puno to see the kids. See, I must have picked up more Spanish than I thought.

We also handed over our fruit gifts. I am super rubbish with body language, but I think our hosts were pleased.

Dinner was followed by a glorious early night during which I managed to snuggle myself into my sleeping bag, under the blankets and somehow didn't overheat. It was beautifully cosy.

So. Many. Hills

After an amazing night's sleep, first stop was breakfast with Epi, Teodosio having already left for Puno. Breakfast consisted of quinoa pancakes and jam. Most delicious. I made a slip up in my Spanish, because I misheard Epi and my brain did a stupid. What Epi said was "Quiera tiene mas?", which I realised later in the day means "do you want more?" and was clearly in regard to whether we wanted any more pancakes.

What I heard was "Quiera tiene?" and without that mas on the end, my brain just coulldn't work out what she meant. It didn't help that I think she tapped her wrist as she said it, so I came to the completely wrong conclusion that she'd asked for the time. She didn't seem too worried when I told her it was 7am...

Fortunately, I didn't have much time to worry aboout my dodgy Spanish, because we were soon off back down to the little harbour to begin our next adventure. Epi was spinning wool the entire way down the hill. I was most impressed by her multitasking.

And then it was time to say goodbye to the mamas and board the boat. Obligatory group photo time again.

Our only stop on this day was the second largest island in the lake, Taquile. Taquile is much more geared up for tourism than Amantani, but without feeling like kitsch central. First task: climb the hill from the dock to the Plaza de Armas.

For some of our group, this was more than a little difficult, but we all made it in the end. I'm glad to say that after the previous night's trek up to Pachatata, this was relatively easy.

We had some free time in the Plaza, which I made the most of by losing a good 15 minutes in the knitted goods shop. There is a tradition on Taquile of the men knitting. I have no idea who made the amazing gloves and scarf that I bought, but I can be certain they were made on Taquile - everything in the shop was island-made.

I couldn't resist - there's frigging llamas and alpacas on them and the fingers of the gloves are all different colours. Plus, the gloves are made of alpaca wool. I'd been looking out for something of this type the entire time I've been in Peru and once I heard about Taquile's crafts, I knew this was going to be a good place to find something.

As it's going to be spring/summer in a lot of the places I'm visiting from now onwards, I have no idea when I'll get the chance to wear them. But the pretties. And also, supporting local communities.

OK, I'm shutting up about the woollens now.

From there it was just a short, thankfully flat, walk around the island to our lunch stop. Lunch with a view, which I suspect is unavoidable on Taquile - wherever you are on this island, I'm sure you'd see the sea.

Lunch consisted of quinoa soup with quinoa bread and salsa for starters.

Followed by trout from the lake. I'll admit that while the trout was yummy, I really struggled with all the bones. My parents will tell you that I get a bit weird as soon as I find a bone in a fish and it then takes me ages to eat the rest of it, if I eat it at all.

I was pretty impressed that I ate as much of that trout as I did.  Altogether, that meal was pretty good for S./ 20 - that's about £5.

After that, it was a simple case of walking down the other side of the island to another dock and our 3 hour boat ride back to Puno. While Machu Picchu was amazing and the main reason I chose to include Peru on this trip, I think this trip on Lake Titicaca has been my real highlight.

My blissful feeling was somewhat marred on return to the hostel, where I found the place overrun with programmers or developers or something. Not that they were unfriendly, but they were loud and they were taking up all the room in the common area. I wolfed down my tea and disappeared back to my room where I had another early night. I'd need it for my stupidly early bus in the morning...


My final week in Peru is looming. I'm heading to Arequipa next, the country's second largest city. No real plans as yet...

Mostly looking forward to the drop in altitude...