Devonport, Tasmania, Australia

I awoke on my last morning in Hobart to beautiful blue skies - the first such morning since I arrived. It would have been a perfect day to catch the views from Mount Wellington, but I had a bus to catch. The ride up the island to Devonport was really beautiful. There aren't really mountains here, just rolling hills and flat farm land. We passed through a lot of really pretty country villages - it really is a beautiful state. One farm along the road was selling manure, or as the sign read "Horse Poo $1.50 per bag".

Devonport is not a destination town, but rather a transit town (the ferry between Tasmania and the mainland docks here). This is a bit of a shame, as it really is lovely and the people are much friendlier than they were in Hobart, even if there is really nothing to see or do here. I felt immediately at home in both the hostel and the city. This differs substantially from Hobart which was the only place I've been since I left home (other than with the barbarians in Rodofu in Bhutan) where I didn't feel safe. I'm not sure if I was ever in immediate danger there (although I think I came close) but learned to stick to the well-lit and busy streets after dark.

I spent the day today walking on the bike/pedestrian path that winds around the coast. The coastline and beaches are very reminiscent of eastern Canada or USA - no tropical blue seas here, but very beautiful nonetheless. There is a river that runs through town called the Mersey. Although there was nothing to be seen on the other side of it, I took the ferry across and then back. I know it's the wrong Mersey, but it just had to be done, didn't it? The ferry man didn't think me at all strange to do a round trip without getting off on the other side, and came within inches of performing his rendition of the Gerry and the Pacemakers' song for me.

It will be an early night for me tonight as I start my trek tomorrow. I'll be in touch again somewhere around the 9th of March when I'm back in Hobart.

Hobart, Australia

Well I made it Tasmania and have spent a few days here. Hobart has not been as enchanting as I expected it to be - perhaps it's the victim of too many rave reviews. It puts me somewhat in mind of St. John's with its hills tumbling into the harbour and its history which reaches farther back than virtually any other city in Australia. But it is certainly lacking the charm and quality of inhabitants that St. John's boasts. It also doesn't have those beautifully painted houses :-). It does have a huge harbour and lots of old buildings, and certainly a very interesting history.

The weather has not been great here and is also reminiscent of St. John's. There is lots of wind, it is usually overcast and we've had some rain. It's also a lot cooler than I've been used to (other than those weird spells in Melbourne) which is actually a bit of a blessing. I have been exploring the city and the surrounding area, but have yet to get to the top of Mt. Wellington which apparently offers the best views of the area. Even on the rare occasions that Hobart sees blue skies, the top of the mountain is still shrouded in cloud and I saw the peak for the first time today. Hopefully I'll get a clear day to climb it when I'm back in Hobart again.

I took a little side trip yesterday to a town about 20 kms away called Richmond. It is rife with history and is part of the "Convict Trail". It is a quaint little tourist town full of souvenir shops and cafes, and hosts busloads of grey-haired tourists on a daily basis. It was the first time on this adventure that I've actually felt out of place because of my youth :-). That said, it was still a nice day and I learned a little about the history of the area and lifestyle of the convict settlers.

Interestingly, on my first day in Hobart I bumped into a guy in the street on a bicycle loaded down with paniers and a trailer. He was sporting a Canadian flag and had MEC rain covers on his gear so needless to say I engaged him in conversation. He, Curtis, is from Calgary and is four years into an eight year cycle around the world. He covers between 150-200 kms per day and is camping the whole way. Every once in a while he treats himself to a hostel in a larger centre, so he can store his bike for a few days and rest. It sure makes my efforts seem inconsequential by comparison. We didn't talk for too long but I can't even begin to imagine what he has experienced along the road - he did allude to the hardships he has faced in the third world. I can't say I envy him (other than the 8-year part).

I have spent a lot of time here getting myself ready for my treks. I have had to purchase some camping equipment as renting would have been more expensive. I'll likely donate it to my friends in Sydney when I'm done with it. I am leaving tomorrow for Devonport on the north shore of the island, and from there on Tuesday to the trail head for the Overland Track. This goes through a couple of national parks and will last about 8 or 9 days. You can actually do it in about 5 days comfortably, but there are a bunch of side treks I'd like to do along the way so I'm taking a bit longer. I am really looking forward to getting out into the "wilds" again as it's been awhile since I've really been away from civilization. And before anyone starts worrying about me trekking alone (you know who you are), rest assured that this is a well-maintained and well-travelled track and there will be lots of people out there with me. I will likely be sleeping in huts along the trail, but will be carrying a tent in case of emergency or if the huts are full.

I am actually looking forward to doing the trek as I think it will afford me an opportunity to meet some people and enjoy some new company. I have to admit to being a bit lonely since I left Brisbane as it's the first time I've been alone in about two months. I'm curious to see if this is just an adjustment phase or if my days of living solo are behind me. Wouldn't that be weird after 18 years of guarding my solitude so fiercely? I guess only time will tell.

I had bit of bad luck today which I'm hoping won't have lasting effects. I was eating my lunch on the steps of the supreme court building beside the weekend market, and some kids were skateboarding down the railings of the stairs above me. One of them lost control of his skateboard and it flew into my elbow. I have a fairly large bump there now which is turning a beautiful shade of purple. I am slowly regaining mobility in the joint but it is still very painful. I'm hoping that it is just a bump and that it won't affect my trekking too much. I can't imagine needing my left elbow to walk, but it will be useful for packing and unpacking, cooking and dressing myself. I have a full day in Devonport before I leave on the trek, so if it becomes problematic I'll have it checked out there.

That's it for me. I'll have access to e-mail until Tuesday (February 27), but don't plan to blog again before the trek. I'll be back in Hobart by Thursday March 8 and will try to blog shortly thereafter. Keep those e-mails coming - they're always so welcome.

Boozing in Brisbane

It's now Monday morning and I'm slowly starting to recover from the weekend. The housewarming party was a resounding success with much merriment had by all. Paul's Dark Lady Punch, laced with Absinthe, really revved things up later in the evening. After the parents had stumbled home with their children in tow, the die-hards stuck around for some serious karaoke. Lucky for all in attendance, much of the available music was from Aussie bands that I had never heard of, so short of the "70s Hits" DVD, I was pretty much relegated to the sidelines.

We woke up Sunday morning with an additional couple (Tony and Tanya) crashed out on the couch. Nicole cooked us an awesomely decadent blueberry pancake breakfast. By 11:00 we were fading fast and decided that hair-of-the-dog was in order. We spent the remainder of the day on the deck, ensuring that there would be no beer left over from the weekend. Given that we had started from a state of semi-inebriation and that we hadn't had much sleep, the fun and laughter rolled all afternoon. I haven't done this in years and it was a total blast. At about 4:30 PM, Tanya, not wanting to "chuck a V", managed to drag Tony off to their side of town. We fell asleep before they were out the door. We woke at about 6:30, got cleaned up and went out for a wonderful Thai feed at a restaurant owned by friends of Paul and Nicole's.

All in all, it was a great weekend. We have all decided, independently of each other, that we will be going on the wagon as soon as I leave Brisbane. Tonight is my last night here, so we reckon we'll have one last night on the piss before we all start drying out. I'm spending the remainder of the day sorting my stuff out and getting packed up. It's back to living out of my backpack...

Making Plans

I spent much of yesterday making plans for the next few legs of my trip. As you all know, I promised myself that I would not make any plans for this trip and I would just allow myself to go where the wind blew me. This is quite a departure from my previous trips and I have to admit it has been really wonderful. So when I started putting money down on tours and confirming flights yesterday, I did feel a certain amount of anxiety. Fortunately there haven't been any panic attacks yet, but it is definitely weird. I think it's a good thing that I've managed to shed so much of the uptight, anal, by-the-book Heidi along the way.

This whole thing was prompted by me looking into some treks in Nepal. I came to realize that if I want to do anything this spring, I was going to have to book it now or not get a spot. After the Bhutan debacle I also wanted to make sure that I would have a positive experience. I visited the offices of Peregrine who had come highly recommended by several people that I'd met independently along my travels. They made me very comfortable and I trust that I'm going to get good service from them. (Please keep your fingers crossed for me that this all doesn't turn into Bhutan #2!!!)

I am leaving for Tasmania on Tuesday where I'll spend about a month. I have chosen a couple of treks to do there but will sort that all out when I get there. I'll head up to Sydney somewhere around the 20th of March to attend Paul's 40th birthday party. Friends of Paul and Nicole's who were also with us in Peru have offered to put me up there, so I'll get a chance to explore the city again. Then it's off to Melbourne to pick up the stuff that I left at Brian's, have a quick visit with him (assuming he's not up at the fires) and then fly to Bangkok.

I have a 15-day tour in Myanmar (Burma) beginning April 8th which I'm really looking forward to. I have heard such good things about the country despite the political situation. I'm back to Bangkok on the 22nd and then off to Nepal. I'll be doing a 23-day Everest Base Camp and Gokyo lakes trek beginning on April 27 and ending on May 19. I'm not sure what will happen after that - I may stay a bit longer in Nepal if it's anything like how I remember it. I would love to see the rhododendron forests in bloom and am not sure if there's any along the Everest trek (I'm getting conflicting reports). I may have to head back over to the Annapurna area (which I absolutely fell in love with in 2002) to see them there. The weather will be getting unbearably hot in SE Asia at that point and the monsoons will be starting so it will probably suit me to stay away from area for awhile.

I am enjoying my last weekend in Brisbane and we're furiously preparing for Paul and Nicole's housewarming party tonight. It should be a good time with lots of friends, food and karaoke. Sounds like we might have a drink or two too.

Byron Bay

I arrived in Byron Bay about mid-afternoon and proceeded to check out the town. It has certainly grown in the last 12 years but I was still able to pick out a few familiar spots. My first day was a bit of a downer - I was in a bad mood and nothing seemed to click for me. I felt somewhat like a fish out of water - the population consists of university aged backpackers and ageing hippy locals. Paul likes to refer to the latter as "ferals" which may be a bit unkind but still strikes me as somewhat accurate (despite my politically correct tendencies). I spent most of the evening with a book for company.

The next day I took in a bit of the town. There are plenty of places to rest your head and fill your belly but if you actually want to shop in Byron Bay, you better be interested in bikinis, boardies or flip flops as there is nothing else on offer. Of course there are some services like massage, crystal treatments, tarot readings etc. It actually reminds me somewhat of Southern California, but not quite as upscale as the Laguna Beach/Newport Beach areas. I spent the rest of the day on the beautiful beach enjoying the sunshine and surf.

Later that evening, I went to what was to become my regular spot, the Rails, so named as it backs on the tracks and is located next door to the railway station. They have live music every evening and that night a fabulous singer named Toby from West Australia was on stage. I joined a rather interesting young man named Josh who had driven up from a town a couple of hours away to catch the Violent Femmes who were playing in another bar in town. Unfortunately for him, the VF had actually played the night before so he missed the show. It took me a very short time to realize that this was pretty indicative of the type of character he was, and I suspect that he was plagued by such misfortunes on a pretty regular basis. The good news is that there were also two guys from Sydney sitting at our table who would prove to be my salvation for the remainder of my stay in Byron Bay. Their names were Michael and David, and while I didn't see as much of David, Michael kept me very well entertained for the next few days. He is very funny and a great conversationalist. I have to admit that this pair started off on the wrong foot in my books, as they left the Rails that night leaving me alone with Josh who was very determined to escort me around town that evening. Their excuse was that they felt I was very capable of handling myself and that I would surely be able to safely extricate myself from Josh's clutches, which was indeed the case.

The next day I walked around the cape and enjoyed the views of coast. It is a truly beautiful spot and the beaches go on forever. From the cliffs around the lighthouse you can see dolphins, sea turtles and stingrays in the clear water below. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach. That evening I went back to the Rails, saw another great band and ran into Michael who I coerced into buying me a drink to apologize for deserting me the night before. We did a bit of bar-hopping that evening and contributed handsomely to the economy of the community.

David was diving the next day, so Michael and I repeated my previous day's hike around the cape, and spent the afternoon playing in the surf on the beach. Paul and Nicole arrived that evening so I joined them at the campsite at around dinnertime. We went out for dinner and had a fairly early night, as both of them were coming off long work shifts and we had plans for the next morning. We got up early and drove to Mount Warning, about 40 minutes inland from Byron Bay. We hiked to the top of the mountain and back, a round trip of about 9 kms. It was a really nice hike and it felt good to get the exercise. Unfortunately, we didn't get great views from the top, but the clouds did part long enough for a few glimpses of the cape and the sea. We all napped for most of the afternoon. That evening was another night out at the Rails for the five of us.

The next morning, Nicole and I went sea kayaking. The purpose of the trip was to see the dolphins and turtles up close but we didn't have any luck on that score. Still, it was an absolute blast, and a whole lot different than kayaking around Lac Maskinonge. Trying to get past the breakers was quite the chore, but I'm proud to say that we managed it without getting dumped. The return trip wasn't quite so successful and after a bit of a surf in on one wave, we got overturned by the next one to break over us. All it all, it was a really great morning and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm thinking I'll try to get out sea kayaking when I head back up to Thailand.

We returned home yesterday afternoon so that Paul and I could attend a concert in Brisbane that I wanted to see. I had seen this musician, Teddy Geiger, on a TV show and really loved his sound. Our first clue that this wasn't going to be the concert we expected was the queue of young teenaged girls outside the venue. We sat through the concert, which was mediocre, amid a cacophony of screams and squeals and "I love you Teddy"s. The music was okay, but hardly seemed anything like what I had heard of this musician previously.

This week will be spent making plans for Tasmania and helping Paul and Nicole prepare for their house-warming party this weekend.

Photos !!!

After many hours spent in front of a computer, I finally have photos available for you all. They can be found at http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hahonegger/my_photos . (In case you have to type that into your URL, there is an underscore between my_photos.)

The albums all have titles which appear in their entirety if you put your cursor over the album. I have numbered them all, and the numbers go in chronological order. Be sure to follow the number in the album name, not the order that they appear on the screen.

I have not labeled all the photos as that would take the rest of my life. The labels typically apply to all the photos that follow, until a new label appears. There are a few exceptions, where the label applies only to that specific photo, and these will be self-evident.

Please note that the Phnom Penh album contains photos from the Killing Fields and Genocide Museum, so if you're sensitive to that kind of thing, you'll want to be careful viewing this album.

I have only included a subset of my photos here, but there are still tons of them. This is especially true of the Angkor temples and you're likely to want to skip over some.

I hope you enjoy them. If you want explanations for any of them, just drop me a note and I'll try to provide details.

Enjoy!

Brisbane

My new favourite Aussie expression is "much of a muchness" which means "six of one, half a dozen of another". Of course I'll always be partial to "fair dinkum" which loosely translated means "I swear on my mother's grave that what I'm telling you is the truth" but I haven't heard it spoken during this visit so I'm wondering if it has fallen out of favour.

I'm having a lovely visit in Brisbane. It has been very relaxing and I've had plenty of down time to read, catch up on e-mails and upload my photos to a website (details coming soon). Paul and Nicole continue to spoil me, but I've finally broken them to some degree as they're now allowing me help around the house. I am proud to say that I've actually taken the garbage out and hung a couple of loads of laundry on the line. I even cooked a meal for them after being informed that "tomorrow is Canadian cuisine night". Paul and I have been to the market the last two Saturday mornings to pick up the week's fresh vegetables and last Sunday we went into the city to check out the Sunday markets along the river. Nicole has taken me to get all the girly stuff done, so I had a pedicure, a hair cut and various other snips, tweezes and waxes. I feel positively feminine again!!! Yesterday afternoon I went and met Paul and his colleagues for after work drinks. Paul and Nicole both had a day off on Monday, so we headed out to the beach together. It was really lovely to be able to swim in the warm sea and bask in the sun. I am getting familiar with the city and the trains so am trying to get out on my own to explore from time to time. The city has a beautiful winding river through it, so riding the ferries is a great way to get around and soak up the scenery (and a breeze!). It continues to be very hot and humid here - I'm having a hard time relating to news of snow and "throwing a log on the fire" from home.

Next weekend we are going camping at Byron Bay a couple of hours south of here. I'll leave three days early and stay in a hostel so that I can spend a few extra days at the beach before they arrive. I visited Byron Bay 12 years ago when it was a sleepy little hippy village by the sea, where you could get organic food and hemp clothing. When I got on the internet to book a room for next week I was amazed to find over 100 choices for accommodation. I guess it has really grown over the last few years and it will be interesting to see the change. I'm really looking forward to it.