ON THE ROAD AGAIN.....

This is already Wednesday, but I'll try to fill in on the last few days.  We left LA on Saturday.  The great fear at the time was that CARMEGGEDON  would destroy the traffic in LA.  The powers that be were closing a 10 mile stretch of the 405 Freeway.  Friday night was a barrage of new-casts basically declaring that we would be stuck for hours on any Freeway we tried.  We dropped Wally at Jodi's at 1:00. (Our flight wasn't until 5:55 pm - but CARMEGGEDON was here!!)  All the traffic reports Saturday morning had nothing to say.  We left Jodi's at 1:10 and drove straight to LAX.  HO HO HO.  We got there in 40 minutes.  We had checked in to our flight and were sitting in the Red Carpet Lounge by 1:45.  CARMEGGEDON was an exciting story, but there was no there, there.  Our flight was as smooth as smooth could be.  We landed in London by 11:30 Sunday morninig, easily found the bus to Cambridge, and were met by Mike, who walked us to their house.  Tea, and a nice chat.  Walked back along the river to a pub for some English beer. We got Indian take-out for dinner.  Easy easy easy.

On Monday we had a slow nice breakfast, then took a walk to town.  We strolled up and down the river went into town briefly,  got a coffee, then back to Mike's for our quesidilla lunch.  After lunch we went to Newnham - our old hangout.  We wandered past 27 Marlowe Road - our old flat looks pretty much the same.  The yellow door is now white and the kitchen looks like it's undergone renovation.  From there we walked to Grantchester - one of our favorite strolls.

Punters can be seen on the Cam from the path to Grantchester.  Since the Cam is level with the path, it gives a surreal view of people on the river - they look like they're plowing through grass.

Back to Mike's.  Last night we had a meal with Mike, Maureen, Vikram, Norman, and his new girlfriend, Jeanette.  Interesting night.

This morning after another leisurely breakfast, we wandered to town and went to the Scott Polar Research institute (the Scott Polar Museum).  There were exhibits from the Arctic explorations, the Inuit people, and the Anarctic explorations.  Lots of memorabilia.  Very interesting.  Learned a lot about Franklin (as from the Canadian folksong - the "hand of Franklin" - which describes the hunt for the Northwest Passage).

We met Mike for a coffee, then went back to his house.  We picked up our bags and he drove us to the train station.  We got the 12:45 pm train to King's Cross, and got over to St Pancreas Station to get the Eurostar.  Things had gone so smoothly, we were there by 1:45.  We tried to get an earlier train, but we had bought our tickets on-line, and, unbeknown to us, got a great deal.  So here we sit, in the St. Pancreas station waiting for our 4:22 pm train to Paris.  Nice WIFI though.

Hasta Manana -

BACK HOME

We're back home.  Wally is conked out in the dining-room (it's the coolest room in the house).  Back to an almost normal like do laundry, pay bills, and settle into a summer routine. 

Our flights went smoothly, but...   Charlie and I like to get to the airport for our flights nice and early.  You can relax in with a book or a coffee (preferably both) and wait for the flight to go - no muss no fuss.  Our travel arrangements were set up by an Australian tour company and our old buddy, Marsha, who's been helping for a long time.  Marsha's getting old (aren't we all) and had a few scrambles setting up this trip.  After a month or so, the whole thing had been "arranged",  Marsha called us with the details.  She left out the Tasmanian part.  Back to the drawing board.  Eventually, we got all the pieces together, but we really didn't see the details until a week or so before the trip got going.  Given the last minute feel to the set up, it really went nicely.  However, we spent our last night in Australia in Hobart, Tasmania.  This meant a flight from Hobart to Sydney with only two hours between that domestic flight and our big, international one back to the states. Had anything gone awry, we would have missed the flight home.  Since we had upgrades to business, that would have meant losing the upgrades and 14 hours or so (probably longer) getting home any which way we could.  The other issue that was concerning us was that we were landing at the domestic terminal and leaving from the international terminal which was too far to walk.  We had 3 choices, a tram, a cab, or a train (it really is a long distance).  We opted for the train, the fastest method of the three options. $5 Australian dollars each and a 2 minute ride.  We knew we were OK when the Quantas flight went well, even though getting to the train involves elevators, tickets, more elevators.  Also, leaving internationally takes a lot of fiddling around - check-in, customs, security.  We were also helped a lot by the Australian signage - it really is wonderful - signs everywhere.


The moral to my tale is that in future, we'll set up the trip details ourselves.  No more middle-(wo)men. 

HOBART - OUR LAST FULL AUSTRALIA DAY

We got up had a lovely flat white and pastries in the hotel restaurant, and then at 9 were met by Paul.

He first drove us around some of the older wealthier neighborhoods of Hobart.  Arthur Circus, a setting of little houses in a circle, which had a very English feel to it all.

We drove around Battery Point, a very wealthy little area.  In the area was Hobart's first casino, and Australia.  After a tour around, we drove to an over look to see the Governor's House.  Apparently, it's special because it has a huge number of acres of land around it, and it's own herd of cattle associated with it.

From there we drove along country roads past hops fields, oust kilns, stone fruit farms, sheep farms, and beautiful glaciated valleys.  Rosegarland, Gretna, Hamilton, finally we drove into a wildlife preserve called Bonorong.

We had a guy tell us about Wombats.  Hey, I thought they were like big, fuzzy guinea pigs.  WRONG.  For beginners, the males grow to about 40 kg (88 pounds - they're about the size of Wally, the dog).  About two years after they're born, they reach maturity, and the males turn on their moms and toss the moms out of the den.  If they're attacked, the run into a den and turn their backs to the attacker.  The back side of a wombat (back 1/3 - 1/2 or so has a thick cartilage plate under the fur.  Any attacker has to deal with the plate.  If the attack continues, the wombat lowers itself down, the attacker rushes head into the den to get at the wombat, which then rises up and crushes the attacker.  They've been known to crush skulls, break bones, and cause real damage.  They also bite.  They still look cute, they just don't act it.

Our next visit was with a Tasmanian Devil.  They are adorable, and unfortunately, not well suited to much but crushing bone.  The one we watched munched through a wallaby leg - bone and all- in a few minutes.  They're slow, mostly eat carrion, and unfortunately not diverse biologically.  When a group of  Devils meet a large carcass, they bite at each others mouths, the winner gets the first tastes.  When they developed an awful, mouth cancer, it was transmitted mouth to mouth, causing a huge number of them to die in the wild.  The group of Tasmanian Devils at the park that we saw were disease free, but couldn't be released to the wild and to a certain death.  The park's plan was to raise as many as they could and hope there would be somewhere, eventually where they'd be safe.

We then saw a couple Koala Bears.  They are really cute.  However, they're slow as molasses, stupid as sticks, sit around eating poisonous eucalyptus leaves, and spend most of their day (22 hours) sleeping.  They are closely related to the wombats, and after close inspection, really look similar. They, too, have the cartilage plate.  They use theirs to help ease their bottoms while they sit in the crook of a tree all day long.

We then walked around the park checking out other things:  some emus, kangaroos, wallabies, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and a whole host of other miscellaneous birds.

We were given a little bag of food to feed the kangaroos and wallabies.  This one grabbed my hand to make sure she could get the grub.

Our next stop was Mt. Field National Park.  We had lunch, and then, Paul drove us to the top of a trail.  Charlie and I walked down the trail and Paul met us at the bottom.  It was called the "tall trees trail" and led through a growth of huge eucalyptus (swamp eucalyptus was the thinner ones), super ferns, moss, it was the most primeval of forests, dark and wet.  I kind of imagined finding a raptor out of Jurassic Park in its midst. The trail included Horseshoe falls and Russel Falls.  These were really magnificent, especially since it's been quite wet around here, and there's been a lot of snow melt.

Mt. Field National Park in the distance.

Horseshoe Falls.

Russel Falls.  This was particularly spectacular from the top.

We made our way back to the hotel.  Then we decided to go off to dinner.  We had a wonderful soup and sandwich at lunch so neither Charlie or I was very hungry.  We ended up at a bakery and had a great, warm chicken, cheese, asparagus pie for dinner.  I wish we could get good pies in LA.

We're back in the room, packing and getting ready for the airport run tomorrow.  Our flight from Hobart doesn't leave us much time for the flight to San Francisco.  We can always get a good worry going when we don't have much time.  Sigh

FREYCINET TO HOBART - JULY 6

After breakfast this morning we began our drive south to Hobart.  The nice thing about driving on a smallish island is that driving doesn't require much navigation.  It was such a pretty drive, I'm a bit sorry we did our drive from Launceston to Freycinet in the pitch black.  Sigh. Maybe another trip. 

The photo above is looking back across Oyster Bay at the Freycinet peninsula.  On the left of the mountains in the distance you can see the Hazard Peaks that were close to where we were staying at the lodge.

Another shot of the same thing - it was also a gorgeous day, as well.

The southern end of the Freycinet Peninsula (to the south of the first few photos)

Charlie is standing next to the Spikey Bridge.  It was built by convicts as part of a carriage way to Hobart. 

Black swans on a lagoon seen from the road.

The gum trees along the highway were wonderful.  There were several stands of them.

The town in the photo above is called Triabunna.  It has a ferry to the island you can see in the distance, a part of the Maria Island National Park.  The town's setting along the water was great, too.

We drove along the ocean for the first two thirds of the trip to Hobart.  We then went into the mountains for a bit.  Not sure which river you can see - there were about three that seemed to be along the route we took, and it wasn't posted.

Once out of the mountains, we crossed two causeways on the Tasman Highway just outside of Hobart, the photo is of one of them.  It was a lot like the Florida Keys (only a LOT colder).

Hobart can be seen in the photo above.  It sits at the base of Mt. Wellington, snow capped and usually (based on our one-day look) covered in clouds.
Once we got to the hotel on Davey Street, the guy at the desk told us that our "harbor view" room couldn't be had because they had accidentally overbooked.  Charlie, who was tired from driving for two and a half hours on the left side of the road in a car we DO NOT recommend (a KIA), wasn't having any of their problems.  He looked Charlie-annoyed - not dangerous - but definitely peeved.  The hotel guy looked at Charlie, went to his manager, and we got an upgrade harbor view room.  Charlie will be happy to sell his peeved look to anyone who needs it in the future. Here's the view from our room.

The boats in the foreground are filled with lobster pots.  Here's a close up.

After we settled in the hotel we wandered around town for a quick look and for lunch.

We had lunch in a coffee shop in Salamanca Place (an old market that now has lots of trendy stores, restaurants, bars, and the like.  The place was called the Coffee Doctor.  We had excellent barley-vegetable soup.  While we ate, we noticed their coffee-dripper experiment.  Fresh water at the top, course ground coffee in the middle, coffee at the bottom.  Wierd, but fun.

My tour book had a quick walk around town which we followed.  Most of the walk was around the dock area.  The photo below is an even closer view of the lobster pots.

A look back at some old Hobart buildings from the harbor.  Hobart is the second oldest town in Australia.

Salamanca Place outside of the square.  Very English looking, lovely shopping and eating.

Tomorrow we get a tour (of the city? environs?) and a lunch.  Then we'll have tomorrow to stomp around some more.  Friday, we drive to the airport (Hobart to Sydney) then Sydney to San Francisco then San Francisco to LA.  If all goes well, we leave Hobart at 10:40 am and land in LA at 4:38 pm.  Obviously, lots of hours in that day.  Gak.

FREYCINET NATIONAL PARK DAY 2

 We spent yesterday afternoon fighting with the WIFI.  The lodge had just installed a new system, and we were the guinea pigs.  Obviously, they got it going (or someone from Mumbai did, at any rate).  At 4:30 we had a Taste of Tasmania wine and food tasting.  There were seven different wines, starting with a champagne (very nice), a nice Chardonnay (Freycinet which, apparently is shipped to the US - or will be soon), a wonderful Pinot Noir, and a way-too-sweet Riesling.  We tried local oysters, mussels, and various cheeses as well.  Nice taste.  For dinner we tried some more mussels and oysters.  Delicious, but getting a bit rich for the likes of us.  Oooff.

This morning we decided today would be our visit all the local beaches day.  After breakfast, we drove up to Sleepy Bay.  Apparently, despite its bucolic name, it is a wild and woolly beach.  Not so this morning, it was beautiful.  The photos above and below are taken at the Sleepy Bay area.  We originally were just going to go to the overlook, but we ended up hiking down to the beach itself.  I'm glad.  Granite boulders, a lagoon, lots of eucalyptus brush, it was beautiful.

Our next beach visit was Jackson Beach near the ranger's station.  I'm not sure what I expected, but there were beautiful sea shells here.  In the photos (above and below) (I'm having a spacing issue today) you can see the lodge we're staying in.

 After our Jackson Beach tour, we decided we needed gas for our car, so we drove to the little town of Coles Bay.  We drove toward the sign that said town center, but we never found center.  There was a little cafe, a pier, and a burned out building.  There were also lots of lovely homes overlooking the Bay, but not much else.  We drove around for a bit trying to find a center, and eventually gave up.  On the way down the main road, just before the sign that said we were leaving Coles Bay, we saw another town center sign.  For just completeness sake, we drove to the "center".  Here we found a gas station.  We had to pay in the little grocery store/gas station/ convenience store.  Apparently, we'd found center.  Our next stop was Friendly Beach above 18 km beyond Coles Bay, north of where we're staying.  We stopped at an overview and then continued to a pull out so we could explore the beach.  It really was beautiful.  The photos below are of Friendly Beach.

Charlie standing on a basalt flow at Friendly Beach.

The Freycinet peninsula has a western windward side and an eastern leeward side.  The Friendly Beach and Sleepy Bay are on the leeward side.  As we were leaving Friendly Beach, a dark cloud appeared and we got a quick shower.  What the rain brought in was a really big wind following it.  "Blowing quite a gale" a Scottish woman once said to me - it really is doing just that.  We decided our last beach visit would be Honeymoon Bay.  The photo above is the bay, it was so incredibly windy, we didn't stay long.  During lunch we took the photo below of Jackson Beach from the lodge with wind.  Incredible.

Tomorrow we're off to Hobart.  This will be our last night at Freycinet Lodge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FREYCINET NATIONAL PARK DAY 1

We woke up today to beautiful skies!  Blue and no clouds.  Here's the view from our porch of our room.

Our cabin looks rustic on the outside - it's not.  On the inside it's quite luxurious.

Since there had been threats of rain, after breakfast we decided to take a walk to Wineglass Bay.  It's the picture you always see when you type in Tasmania and beautiful.  We went to the Ranger's station to buy day passes for the park which you need if you have a car.  It was cheapest to buy a year's pass to the park - if anyone wants to travel to Tasmania before July 4 2012 - see us.  Our walk took us up the "saddle" and down the other side to Wineglass Bay.  The walk to the top wasn't too bad, down the other side we had to scrabble down some boulders.  The Bay was amazing!!

Our slog up and down the saddle was worth it.  Wineglass Bay is an amazing place.

We had brought with us a pre-prepared lunch from the lodge.  It consisted of a smoked salmon sandwich.  The gull decided we were the best things on the beach and sat and watched us up close and personal until it was obvious we weren't sharing our lunch.

The clouds began to gather and we walked back up the boulders, and back down the path to the car as it got darker and darker.

After we got down and back to the car park it poured rain.  We went to the ranger's station to buy some Tasmanian goodies.  Suddenly, the skies cleared and we were back in lovely weather again.  Confusing place, this Tasmania.  We drove to a lighthouse the Tourville Lighthouse for a beautiful over view.  Here are some wonderful views we saw.

The islands above are called the Nuggets, they're supposed to be great bird islands.  We saw no birds.

We came back to the hotel and had a few minutes of WIFI fighting.  We then went to a Tasmanian wine and food tasting.  Some of the wine was great, a lot was OK, but the Oysters and Mussels are superb.  We ended up taking a Tasmanian Trivia contest and called ourselves the California Know-nothings.  We ended up coming in 3 out of 4.  We opted for oysters and mussels for dinner.  Amazingly, got online tonight and here we are.