I left the Melbourne hostel on Saturday morning while it was still dark out for my short early morning flight to Launceston, Tasmania, meeting up with Megan and met her boyfriend Zach who kindly drove us to the airport. Tassie, as Australians abbreviate it, is an island state just south of Melbourne, giving outsiders an edge-of-the-earth sort of feeling. It’s hard to tell how big the island is, but I saw a good chunk of the northern part in my quick 24-hour stay with Megan. It’s very rural with about 550,000 inhabitants, and like small towns in America people often leave for university (or gap year, which about half do in Australia) but come back to raise families. We didn’t make it down to Hobart, the capital and main hub about 3 hours south of Launceston.
Spending the day with Megan was so wonderful, in part because it’s nice to spend time with a friend when traveling, and in part because she was an expert tour guide of her hometown area, showing me obscure and beautiful sites, empty dirt roads, and overall a great day full of cultural exchange and conversation. I learned loads about Tasmanian wildlife, education, and indigenous people. Her parents had gone away for the day and so nicely had left a large car for us at the tiny 4-gate airport. My ears did not like the quick flight and I was unwilling to admit out loud that I had a full on cold by this point, but driving around was a good way to spend the day (versus walking another 25,000 steps). Despite the rain forecast we had beautiful weather all day, in the mid 50s and sunny, though Megan said this was like their winter and she was freezing.
Our first quick stop was to walk around a tiny rural town called Evanton, where it became clear that it’s the sort of place where everyone knows each other or has some connection. Then we went on a short hike on a paved trail to Cataract Gorge. It was stunning. It followed the water with huge rocks and so much green, plus a bridge that swung a little over the gorge. It took us to an area with some buildings around and a café, and there were wild peacocks walking around! This was a spot where teenagers used to come hang out, and some stupid ones would jump off the swinging bridge and hit the rocks or the water in the wrong place and die.
We drove about an hour, first through downtown Launceston and then through some dirt roads and farms, with signs to avoid the endangered Tasmanian Devil and wallabies (small kangaroos). We saw lots of wallaby roadkill. Megan noticed a kookaburra bird but I missed it. Driving on the left side of the road with me sitting in the left side front passenger seat were still strange to me. Our destination was a lavender farm! The lavender wasn’t in full bloom yet, but we could see the purple flowers coming up, and it was still beautiful to walk through the fields and see the mountains.
We next headed to see some Tasmanian beaches in a town called Bridport. It was windy so we just walked on them briefly, but they were stunning. The sand was so clean, and the water just the perfect teal color. We ate lunch at a café overlooking the water. We continued our drive and stopped at some scenic viewpoints, and then stopped at a really pretty winery for a drink.
We then drove to Megan’s family’s house, a lovely one-story place with lots of space on a cul-de-sac. I loved seeing her home and hanging out with her family, parents Kym and Ken and 18 year old brother Ryan, and Winston the little dog. It was Kym’s birthday on Sunday so it was nice that the timing worked out for Megan, as she doesn’t get to visit as much as she’d like. Right after arriving we went out to the garage to say hi to Ken, who was sitting on some sofas with their neighbor Steve and chatting over some beers. It gave me a really funny first impression, they were gossiping about American politics and other international affairs, but it all had a very redneck kind of vibe.
I had mentioned missing Thanksgiving to Megan the other day, and how I was a little sad to miss it since it’s one of my favorite holidays. So it was really nice when Kym cooked our own little Thanksgiving dinner! It was so sweet. I told them about the tradition of going around and saying what you are thankful for and we did it, and it was really, really nice. It was also just great to have a home-cooked meal and feel taken care of; I even got some more medicine for my cold and a big box of tissues, small luxuries when traveling. We spent a lot of time exchanging Australian and American sayings to see what we knew; it was surprisingly not a lot. I learned dag/daggy – a negative but endearing fashion expression of sloppiness, and I taught them going Dutch, John Hancock, and shoot the breeze. We watched the end of live-action Beauty and the Beast on TV, which Ken had never seen and was giving funny commentary to, and then went to bed pretty early. It got dark out late here, after 9.
We had a slow Sunday morning with breakfast; Kym had me try some Vegemite on toast. It’s sort of this black buttery spread. Americans generally don’t like it, but apparently that’s because they spread too much on there. I did not enjoy it but I think because I had it properly – a thin layer on toast – it wasn’t as disgusting as many say it is. It tasted like a mouthful of salt. Megan then dropped me off at the airport for my two flights up to Cairns in Queensland and we departed. I was in for another terrible flight on my ears, but eh, I’ll recover. I wish I could have spent more time in Tassie, but the little time I was there showed me plenty of fun and hospitality! Thanks to the Lawsons for a wonderful quick stay!
travels.of.tara 