Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Bruny Island is Full and Closed

I don't think I mentioned yesterday that we rented a car. This is of interest for two reasons. One: this is the first time I've ever done that. Typically you're supposed to be 25 to do so, something about brain development. (Seriously, part of the reasoning for this rule is that some of the lobes of the brain have not fully develop until that age, Neuroscience Agrees). So we got slapped with a young driver fee. Secondly, Australians channel their inner Brit by driving on the left side of the road. This is terrifying is you are tired from being on a plane for a day and a half with a 14 hour time zone change.

We got up after about 11 hours of sleep and then walked into town to get some supplies. Hobart is the capital city of Tasmania, and started as a penal colony in 1803. Yes, 1803, adorable I know. Australia is young even compared to the US. Anyway, the big thing we needed was fuel for a camping stove, otherwise we'd be eating a lot of cold food for the Track. On the way we also found Isabel some UGGs, which is only ok when you're in Australia. Now, I said we, but my part consisted of sitting in a chair and zoning out for 3 minutes. Yes only three minutes. In what may have been a shoe shopping world that's all it took. Isabel is awesome and amazing and breaks all gender stereotypes and I'm not just writing this because she'll probably read this post.

Isabel then drove us to Bruny Island (not wearing the new UGGS). For those who don't know, Bruny Island is a small Island off the coast of Tasmania. It's main draw (for me) is penguins. That is why we went there. On the way to the ferry we drove through a bit of pretty countryside and even went through a town called Snug. Seriously, who names a town Snug? We took the ferry over to the island and decided to set up tents and such. Now there are accommodations on Bruny, but I'm cheap, so we were camping out. There was a campsite about twenty minutes in from the ferry, and right near by the penguins (who only come out at night). It was completely full. Damn. So we drove all the way down the island by the excitingly named Adventure Point to check a few more campsites. Closed. Double Damn. At that point we decided it was time to go to the beach where he had lunch and frolicked (not in the water though, it was much too cold). In October The average Tasmanian Sea temperature is 56 F. There was also a ton of wind. Still, it was gorgeous and if you wore a jacket, you could have imagined that you were in the tropics. Here are some pictures

(that's not me)
After this we drove down to our last hope of a campsite, 45 km away right at the bottom of the island. We may have stopped a fudge store on the way. (btw half the roads are unsealed, so we really hope the rental agency doesn't look at the undercarriage when they're inspecting the car). We got to the campsite and found one other person there, and she left pretty soon after. We had the entire place to ourselves.
We set up our tent and went for a little jog to kill some time. Then it was time to get Isabel some dinner. She'd seen a drive thru Oyster Place called Get Shucked (which at various points I called What the Shuck, Shuck You, and Go Shuck Yourself. This last one was silly of me, as that would obviously be a self service Oyster Shucking place). Closed. We really have all the luck.
Then we hung out near where the penguins show up and watched a gorgeous sunset from pretty much the highest place on the island. Here are some pictures, not of the sunset as I had put the camera away at that point.
Not a Sunset

Not a Penguin (or a sunset)
Then we went down to the penguin beach and waited for the little guys with the other people who had nothing better to do on a Tuesday night. Isabel was the official penguin spotter, seeing about three before the cold wind and drizzle drove us away. I'm pretty sure if we had kept waiting there would have been more, but it was almost nine and we're still dealing with the whole jet lag thing. The best part of the entire thing was Isabel commenting on a sound she heard. She wanted to know if that was a penguin. It wasn't. Within seconds there came an indignant sound that was a penguin and could only be interpreted as: "this is what a penguin sounds like, bitch" (penguin's words, Isabel's joke, I'm innocent).
We drove back to the our campsite and saw some animals of the way as most mammals are nocturnal. Also, the stars were incredible. There was virtually no light pollution and the sky was clear at various points between rain showers. An exhausting first full day in Australia, but a fantastic one nonetheless.

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