Blah blah blah blah blah

[lizzie_and_ari]

Hello again,

Well I find myself unexpectedly at work because Dave isn't back yet but Davo, who was minding the phones, had to go. So I figured I'd just mind the phones half-heartedly and write more excting stuff here.

So, I'd got to Saturday. Sunday morning we got on the boat to Tassie. It was terribly terribly exciting and Ariadne had never been on a big boat like that so she was very excited to (generally I'm way more excited than she is about stuff cos I'm essentially more childish and excitable. She is calmer than me)
Anyway, there was a huge biker rally on that week so 90% of the 750-odd on board were bikies of all different types and we were late setting off due to the huge amount of beautiful bikes on board. Everyone was dead friendly too - we were both in hostel accomodation (ie 6 to a room) but unfortunately not in the same one but that wasn't too bad in the end. We had free breakfast and dinner which consisted of an all you can eat buffet, so, naturally, we ate a lot.

Actually not just on the boat. We both ate disgusting amounts of food whilst away and are now fat and flabby and horrible and on a diet.

There wan't too much to do on the boat but there was a cinema - in fact we watched some of What Women Want and then tried to watch a late night movie, which was Australian Art House and unfortunately most Art House films are shit and this was wierd-ass, feraturing as little dialogue as possible, for no apparent reason. Most of the time though we spent wandering about on deck looking at the stars, drinking whisky in the bar and going 'look wow we're on a big boat'

Then we got to Tassie and picked up out gorgeous wee car, affectionately named Jemima (which is a family name in Ari's family so I told her we weren't naming out kids that but we could name the car) We tried to head off in a specific direction but sort of got lost. The beauty, however, of the whole trip was that we couldn't really get lost because there was nowhere specific we were going. We had a 100km/day limit on the car and figured in would be ok to pay and go over it a bit ie do maybe 700 over the 6-day period. We did 1350. [coughs in an embarrassed fashion]

The first night we stayed at a beautiful camp site in Moel Creek, camping right by a stream where we could wash our feet in the morning, and room for a fire, and we had singed sausages and ketchup for dinner.

I guess I'd better clarify that I actually didn't wash my feet in the stream, just I could have. I think Ari washed her face, which was brave. You see the thing is about Tasmania is - IT'S FUCKING FREEZING!! We didn't wholly believe this but after the first night's camping we went to a town and bought big winter woollies and hats to wear. The cold was lovely. It was just like home.

The following day we did fuck up a bit - we were looking for a camp site, listed in a book we bought, by a lake in the middle of the island, but upon nearly arriving we realised in was several miles down a bad gravelly off-road track and given we were in a rental car this was a scary prospect. So we kept driving and driving and eventually decided (pretty much through the medium of bad communication and Ari doing what she thought I wanted and me doing what I thought Ari wanted and therefore doing something neither of us wanted)to stay in a hostel in Hobart, as we were fairly close. Finally got to Hobart and realised mostly they were sold out. In the end, through the medium of a phone that was just about to lose all power, we found one that had room - which we got to by turning back and then right.

So, I turned Jemima round, got to the end of the road and realised there didn't seem to be any traffic lights, despite the people opposite having some. Confused, I decided to 'just go for it' and turned right into what emerged to be a one way street. Worried about causing a huge crash, I tried to turn in to the bary to my left, only to realise that this was an ambulance bay. Panicked and disorientated, I chose to ignore the big angry looking wierd guy comng up behind me, figuring he couldn't tell me anything I hadn't already realised, ie I am a fuckwit. Turned out there was one thing, when he banged on my roof and told me he was the police (hey they look different in cousinfuckerland!)

"So you drove the wrong way down a one-way street [this would be the first street I turned round in, the one with no traffic lights. That was a clue] and then turned onto another one way street. When is this going to end? Have you been drinking?"

Cue many deep apologies from me and denials of drinking, and more coherent explanation from Ari who wasn't quite so much in shock. Fortunately he gave us directions - legal ones - to where we wanted to go and said if I turned round quick he wouldn't put me on report. Ari thinks he was lovely. I think he was scary but at least realised I was neither drunk nor wilfully breaking the law. Just, as mentioned a fuckwit.

So we got out of Hobart pretty quick the next day and went to Port Arthur.


Here we stayed at the most beautiful campsite in the world, where Humphrey and we had what seemed like half an acre of land and a fireplace and bits of bushwalking right by a beach and at 4:30 we had to go to the wood shed to collect wood.

And, unfortunately, cut wood. With a big axe. Unfortunately the 15-month-standing lesbianism has failed to imbue either of us with chopping wood abilities. Ari was way better at me (she gets the whole thing more, and was strictky in charge of fire making) but we did develop quite a crowd of people laughing and threatenign to put it on the internet.

Bastards.

Port Arthur itself was beautiful. It was a penal colony for 50-odd years as the Tasman Peninsula is actually only linked to the rest of Tassie by a tiny bit, which they guarded, making escape almost impossible. I really like what they've done with the place - there have been long battles about whether to preserve it or ignore it's past and a lot of this was moot after a huge bush fire destroyed a lot of it, so now they have what remains, and you can look around,and they have a visitor's enter with slightly nmore touristy aspects but it's all really tasteful... We went there 2 days running because there was so much to see. It's actually really peaceful, given it's history of violent torture, then, once they decided to abolish corporal punishment, even worse torture -they had all sorts of psychological torment they carried out on then, mainly solitary confinement, in total silence and darkness for days on end, causing retinal damage as soon as these guys went back into the sunlight.

What's weird is all this is really quite recent. The colony shut down in 1890-something, only just over a hundred years ago, and when they first opened it to the public some of the tour guides were ex-convicts who would do stuff like showing people their scars for money.


Yep, we also went on a ghost tour. Which was wierd ass. Ghost tours are the same the world over. Hands up sceptics etc. Our guide was good, although obviously not as good as any I've seen in Edinburgh, but there wasn't much creepy stuff going on. There were a few tales but none of them long and none of them very recent. It was very obvious to us which bits were embellished, but probably just due to the insider perspective. I wasn't actually scared at any point during the tour which is wierd because I was terrified before and used to get scared even on my own tours at Auld Reekie. I think basically there's not much there. I felt to me like the whole thing had been cleansed.


After Port Arthur we drove up the East Coast to the vague vicinity of penguins. We found a caravan park in a place called Bicheno but weren't sure if we were gonna stay or not, we had a quick pee whilst deciding and when we eventually figured that heck , it was late and though it was a shithole we didn't want a repeat of The Hobart Incident, the wanker guy in the office had a go at us for using the loo. He was also a general wanker who runs a wierd caravan park - his tent spots consisted of a small patch of mud where you could just park up and pitch your tent anywhere, thereby potentially boxng other people in.

Fortunately it was worth it because we had the exact right spot for the penguin tours, which we went on that night.

In Tasmania and right up into mainland Australia as far as NSW, there are a special unique breed of penguins who are officially called Little Penguins or Little Blue Penguins but commonly known as Fairy Penguins. Except this is apparently now offensive. It has been deemed un-PC. You wouldn't want all those Emperor penguins thinking the little ones are poofters.

The world has gone mad. Fortunately our guide thought so too and referred to them as fairy penguins.

Although we took the camera I was only 99.9% sure I turned the flash off and you can't take flsh photography of penguins because they have no outer eyelid - the have a sort of eyelid but they close it when underwater and it's clear so they can still see. So, you can see photos on t'internet of the gorgeous little cutiepies (they stand at about 30 cm tall)at http://www.bichenopenguintours.com.au/bpt_main.html


Some interesting facts about penguins:

A penguin is born when the female lays the egg on the male's feet then buggers off for a few weeks, during which all he can do is shuffle (can't walk, swim, eat,etc)
When the baby is a few days old the mother returns and takes over childcare while the bloke has a holiday. Within 6 weeks the penguin is fully grown but isn't matured until 10 weeks
The parents then get rid of the child by stopping feeding it.
The male penguin will then take a random route off to sea, this is quite a long journey over fields and even across a motorway. However they lose very few penguins a year because they have exceptional hearing and eyesight and know how to cross the road.
At sea, the penguin finds a lady penguin and they mate for life. After a couple of years, boy penguin brings girl penguin back to his place, comes out of the sea at the exact same spot he went into it, then takes the exact same route back to his rookery, same rocks, same patches of grass etc.
Then they have to malt by basically staying very still for a few weeks - they can't move or swim or eat, again. They finish malting and go back to sea
They are the cutest thing in the whole darned world and are my new favourite animal

Anyway, sorry to bore the pants again. Will write more, cos I really want to remember all this, but will also be back soon with other news.

Lizziexxxxxxxxxxxx

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! Sounds beautiful my darlings! Glad you're having such an amazing time. Just out of curiosity, how much extra did the car rental people charge you?

I want to see the penguins! They look so cute!

I went on an anti-war march yesterday with Georgie - the poor thing did 18 hours on a coach, there and back in a day. Crazy! It was very cold and wet to start with and I was very grumpy as Georgie had woken me up at 6am texting me and then had left me alone for three quarters of an hour waiting for her in parliament square in the extreme cold and wind - arggh! But then we ate doughnuts and the sun came out and lots more people turned up and we all chanted lots of slogans - Georgie's favourite was 'George Bush, we know you, your daddy was a killer too' and mine being 'money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation'. So we wondered around London with 40 - 100,000 other people (depending on whose estimates you believe), ending up in Trafalga Square, where me, Georgie and her cousin Llyod sneaked off to the pub, where we ate and drank lots. Bliss. Georgie was sent on her way with a bottle of gin nestled into her bossom to keep her company on the way home (as well as her college buddy Dave of course - very sweet guy, shame she doesn't fancy him ;-p)

It was so good to see Georgie again and we talked of great excitment about when you're coming home.

I'm so glad you guys had such an amazing time - I look forward to next installment. Love you lots and lots.
Naomi
xxxx

[tisme.livejournal.com]

*is very much enjoying the story of goodness*
*wants to see the lesbian wood chopping*

[(Anonymous)]

Hi guys,
What's happened? You haven't posted for ages! Either you're both dead in ditches or you're tremendously busy running comedy clubs, cuddling koalas/penguins and being generally sinful - very much hope it's the later! Hope all is well - write soon!

Lots of Love,
Naomi
xxx