08/12/11-12/12/11
Not a lot to be said for my day joining the train, I’m so use to the procedure now that it’s like catching an aeroplane and having to sit through the familiar safety briefing time after time – read/eat/sleep
I arrived the next day at midday in Adelaide (that rhymes!). Unlike last time when I arrived to find the supermarkets were closed this time there were no problems in picking up food.
The one place I didn’t get to visit the last time was the Adelaide Hills so on Saturday I decided to jump on a bus and go explore this area. I first took the bus all the way to Handoff, an old German settlement. It still retains an atmosphere of its old colonial roots although this is mainly only kept alive for the tourist trade. After I headed back in the direction of the city to trek up to the top of Mount Lofty to check out the views of the surroundings, picking an area without an established walking track I had to use the main road for half the trek. That evening the hostel I was staying at was celebrating its one year anniversary so we were treated to a hog roast that evening – all 240kg of it!
For my last full day in Adelaide I mainly relaxed and visited the main sights for the last time grabbing some photos of stuff I missed the last time I was here.
Time to travel back in the right direction to resume my travels around Australia; I had my last train journey using my rail pass. It was a long 10 hours back to Melbourne, the third time I had had to do this journey. When I arrived I had a short walk to my hostel located in the north of the city centre, it is one of the biggest in OZ with over 800 people staying in it at one time. My main task was to send a birthday text home back to my sister – the first birthday of hers that I had missed.
21/12/2011
05/12/2011
Launceston
29/11/11-01/11/11
Time to move north, having exhausted Hobart I jumped on a coach up to Tasmania’s second city Launceston where I was catching my return flight to Melbourne a few days later. The trip only took less than three hours so having left in the afternoon I arrived just before the evening had set in.
The next day I went to explore the town but found it was just the same as Hobart really, nothing of note to see. Instead I dragged myself around the local art and history museum, the latter being housed in an old railway depot. A welcome surprise I found was that the local park a group of red faced macaques which were a gift from Japan.
With the sun shining I went to hike around Launceston’s main tourist attraction – Cataract Gorge. This huge natural feature has several walking tracks so you can walk along its path. If you fancy there’s a chairlift that spans across the gorge. Instead I spent the morning hiking around the available tracks. Along the way I crossed several suspense bridges as well as visited the old hydroelectricity station. On one path along the top of the gorge I happened to bump into a kangaroo with baby joey in tow and a small spikey ant eater called a Q, bit more interesting than some of the wildlife you would see on walks back home. In the afternoon I walked along the Inveresk trail next to the history museum.
Time to move north, having exhausted Hobart I jumped on a coach up to Tasmania’s second city Launceston where I was catching my return flight to Melbourne a few days later. The trip only took less than three hours so having left in the afternoon I arrived just before the evening had set in.
The next day I went to explore the town but found it was just the same as Hobart really, nothing of note to see. Instead I dragged myself around the local art and history museum, the latter being housed in an old railway depot. A welcome surprise I found was that the local park a group of red faced macaques which were a gift from Japan.
With the sun shining I went to hike around Launceston’s main tourist attraction – Cataract Gorge. This huge natural feature has several walking tracks so you can walk along its path. If you fancy there’s a chairlift that spans across the gorge. Instead I spent the morning hiking around the available tracks. Along the way I crossed several suspense bridges as well as visited the old hydroelectricity station. On one path along the top of the gorge I happened to bump into a kangaroo with baby joey in tow and a small spikey ant eater called a Q, bit more interesting than some of the wildlife you would see on walks back home. In the afternoon I walked along the Inveresk trail next to the history museum.
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