Catching
up, North
So I realized that I still hadn't said
anything of the last 2 weeks of our Tassie treasure adventure.
I ended the story with walking out of
the South Coast Track alive.
After signing out and cleaning our boots
(so that we don't spread possible diseases around the country, did the same
when we entered the track), anyway after we did that we walked to the Cockle
Creek information center, which was closed. So looking around for some
information as to how we would get out of the most southern ('civilized') point
of Tassie and Australia by all means.
It had started to rain a lot harder
since we left the track too, this in combination with finding out that taking a
bus back to Hobart would cost us 90$ EACH did not do anything good to my mood.
(This made our decision to hitchhike our way up back to Hobart quite easy
though)
I was exhausted and cold which made my
mood terrible.
Cockle Creek must be a very pretty place
to spend the holiday on that rainy afternoon; however, it didn't reveal its beauty
to us.
We walked around a bit hoping to find
some people who were leaving but everyone had just arrived, as it was nearly
the start of the weekend. So we walked back to our packs, which we had left
under the sheltered information center and sunk down defeated on them.
The rain didn't stop either, got worst
at times than lessened again. This didn't help either.
But only about an hour after we sat
their huddled together against the rain and cold, saviors came.
A little family was on a vacation
through Tassie and after driving around the big camping area, concluding there
wasn't a nice spot for them they took us in the car and drove up to Southport
where they themselves would stay the night too.
So we were saved.
Southport still isn't what you can call
civilization just because there's a campground and restaurant. But it
everything we needed and we hadn’t paid a penny to get there!
We didn't pay too much for the spot of
grass to pitch our tent and we bought ourselves some cookies to cheer us op,
boy did that work. The sun had come out on our way to Southport by the way! So
the tent and all our wet clothes could dry up nicely.
Weren't we lucky?!
 |
| the first civilisation ! |
The next day we followed our routine of
packing everything up again (leaving no trace ;) ) to head back on the road
North, tramping our way up.
After 2-3 km two girls stopped and drove
us to Dover (the closest shop we knew, as we had run out of nearly all our
food). Turns out one of the two was a fellow backpacker from England and the
girl who was driving was a real Aussie who had travelled through Africa, Asia
and a part of Europe last year.
Arriving in Dover we went straight to
the IGA (which is like the Delhaize or the Spar at home) walking through all
those aisles packed with food we treated our selves with the thing we craved
most each. Peanut butter jelly sandwiches for me and bacon & eggs for
Dries. We bought food for the next couple of days knowing we would now come
across supermarkets regularly.
After stuffing our faces with a caramel
chocolate bar and snickers we headed back on the road again to find a camping
ground in the area.
No more than 30min later we were already
getting settled in on a campsite near the beach.
We siesta’d in the afternoon and each
took a long hot shower (this first in 8days at least!) wow! Never enjoyed a
shower more than then I think haha! I had to wash my hair 3 times to get out
all the greasiness, which was kind of gross but felt so good when I got out
with actual clean hair. (Washing your hair under a cold waterfall without shampoo
doesn't really do anything with your hair; I've learned that now)
So the following day we had a great
breakfast, not to say the best! Peanut butter jelly sandwiches, bacon &
eggs and a good cup of tea, I mean does it really get better than that?! I
don't think so!
After that wonderful start of the day we
gathered everything together and hit the road again.
After about an hour a German immigrated
plumber (I think he was) picked us up. We said we would like to go up as far as
Geeveston but he said we didn't because it's boring there and nothing to do. So
instead of dropping us of in Geeveston we drove right past it al the way to
Cygnet (which was on the other side of the mountain), where there was a folk
festival going on. Right on the weekend we were there! Such coincidence!
We stayed the whole weekend in Cygnet,
enjoying the mellow vibes of the Cygnet Folk Festival. It was awesome, like
getting stranded in hipster-vile. Live music, both street and on stage,
everywhere gorgeous food stalls and all kinds of other different stall that
sold all these hand made (local mostly) things.
It was great to spend the weekend.
 |
| some awesome musicians in Cygnet! |
On Monday we got back to Hobart easy
enough. We had some things stashed in a luggage locker in town, so we went to
pick up the rest of our stuff. Soooooo much stuff I left behind, nearly half my
backpack because I only needed the bare minimum to go hiking. But to my
surprise I managed to fit it all in my pack again. No worries.
We would go back to the airport camping
park, where we had stayed the night before we left on our hike, we stayed there
4 days (3nights) until we had our flight back to the mainland. This because
Dries had an exam to do 2 days after he'd arrive back in Belgium so I made him
study while I worked on my blog (the previous post took me nearly the most of 3
days).
On the 15th of January in the late
afternoon we headed to the airport (catching a free taxi ride there!) we saw
the sun set over the beautiful state we had just left behind to arrive in a
dark but (significantly) warmer Melbourne airport again.
Bart (the friends in Eltham) picked us
up from the domestic terminal and drove us back to Eltham where we would stay
another 3 nights until Sunday when we cached the train back to Melbourne in the
late morning.
It was nice to be back in the familiar
streets of Melbourne.
We ate cupcakes and went in the Eureka
88 skydeck to top off my chapter two together.
I had completely forgotten how good it
was to have a travel companion.
I made some life time memories of which
I am all very grateful for. What a great month it was!
Talk to you soon
xoxo Lizzie
