Work?

I can almost hear people saying, another post already? Wonderfully, the conservation volunteering we've been doing this past week and will be doing next week bases us out of Hobart and only runs during the weekdays. So we find ourselves in Hobart this weekend with not much else to do.

This past week, we were in Port Arthur, which was the first Tasmanian convict settlement. We spent our time doing track maintenance and a sign survey for a historic convict mining site.

Our accommodation was right next to the major interpretive site for Port Arthur, which consisted of a prison, guards accommodations, hospital, insane asylum, ie. everything a working settlement needs...the basics. A definite highlight of the week was our free GHOST TOUR on Thursday evening. Spooky tales of dissection rooms, encounters with spirit children, and a phantom choker haunted our sleep that night.

On Wednesday we competed in the local soccer match. It was CVA volunteers vs. locals. It was a close match, but not even me stopping a ball with my face managed to turn the match to our favor....it did score us the Ghost Tour tickets though. Way to go, my face!

I have nothing to say about the picture of the echidna that we took, but we took a picture of an echidna. Isn't he cute?



Also note a picture of our fantastic team.


Anyhow, to pass our time in Hobart, we were down at the Salamanca Market yet again, this time to take in some of the local festival, 10 days on the island. Below is a picture of one of the Roo'd Dudes, a human kangaroo - the best Halloween costume ever!

We have one more week of volunteering left and then we are on to Nepal via Sydney and Bangkok. This week we are off to a place called Little Swanport where I hear we have "rustic" accommodations. That should be interesting.

Update in Pictures

Hey all! Lori and I are currently in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Home of the infamous devil. We just came off a 5 day hike through the bush where we faced such dangers as Tiger Snakes, falling trees, and the deadly wallabie (not that deadly). Tomorrow we start a mysterious conservation volunteer program here which we know next to nothing about. All we know is that we need gloves. Stay tuned for more on that.

Due to the lack of photos in our last two updates, the following is a photographic journey of our last month. Apologies to Norah for promising a Best of the Worst Part II update and not delivering.

Lori meets the amazing takahe bird for a romantic interlude on the streets of Te Anau.Herds of sheep block the road to the Routeburn trek near Glenorchy, New Zealand.

A view from the top of Burns Falls into the flats below on the Routeburn. Making our way to the emergency shelter at Conical Hill on the Routeburn.The stunning view from the top of Conical Hill.Dan explores the Luxmore caves on the Kepler Track near Te Anau, New Zealand.The dreaded stoat!The less dreaded, more mischievous, and curious enough to rip up a sleeping bag Kea bird.The incredibly nefarious, nasty, and simply horrid sandfly. Not to scale.Post hike ice-cream. You asked for the picture, Pat.A gigantic thistle, this stood taller than Dan, not much of a feat.Road trip New Zealand, a windy day. (actually it wasn't) Lori meets the love of her life. An old lighthouse along the southern coastal highway of New Zealand.Kelp, its good for your iron count.Marble shaped rocks off the coast of New Zealand, we don't understand these.Lori zips by Dan on the Queenstown Sky Center Luge. I think she's found her new calling.Lori conquers her fear of heights.....Yah right. The start of road trip Australia. Who is this handsome stranger?? The legendary Central Tilba, right next to Tilba Tilba, but inexplicably no where near North Tilba. We befriend the handsome stranger (sans tooth).An amazing picture of the national animal in motion. Good job Stefan. Finally we've found something we can do together.Lori and Dan kill the handsome stranger (accidents happen).Wallabie!! These crazy guys tripped over our tent. View from the top of Mt. Ossa, the highest peak in Tasmania. But still less than 2000m. Not very impressive Tasmania, pull up your socks.Climbing Mt. Ossa. oof.A misty morning on the Overland Track, Tasmania.

Remiss

Hey all! Alas, we've been remiss in our blogging as of late. The truth of the matter is that, as I said before, internet cafes are no longer on every corner block and the price now causes us to rush to get stuff done. Unfortunately the blogging has taken a back seat to planning where we will be going, what we will be doing, and more importantly where we will be sleeping.

We held back our last post so that we could put in some pictures, but unfortunately, all we've been able to use for internet the last little while is self contained kiosks which don't allow any access to the computer itself thus preventing us from uploading pictures.

So, sadly, last post and this post will not have pictures, however, I promise a big post of pictures only to follow this.

Lastly, a brief update. Almost a week ago we flew from Queenstown, NZ to Sydney, Aus where we rented another car, picked up our friend Stefan who graciously agreed to fly from Perth to meet us and join in a road trip down the coast to Melbourne. It has been a fun time dodging kangaroos on the road, spotting wombat warning signs, and searching desperately for koalas. We are now one day out of Melbourne. From Melbourne we hop a ferry to Tasmania where we do another hike and then travel on to Hobart. In Hobart we will be doing some kind of eco-volunteering for two weeks. We have no idea what it will be but good news, if it involves bat guano, we have our rabies shots....

So, we have no idea when we'll be able to post again, nor when the big picture post will be, but we promise to do our best! Thanks for all your best wishes and thoughts.

The Lady and the Tramps

Hello from down under down under. We are in NZ for just a few more hours and then we're off to Oz!

For those of you concerned about the title to this blog ("what about DAN?? Wasn't he along on the hikes??") have no fear. He was there too. It just doesn't sound as catchy to title this "The Lady, The Man and the Tramps". Or "The Man, Woman and Two Hikes". Or even "Two People Who Walked for Awhile". Anyway.

Since our last post, we've enjoyed both the Routeburn and Kepler Tracks, two hikes conveniently located near Queenstown, in southern NZ. The first involved lots of trees, uphills, waterfalls and sandflies. I guess there were some downhills as well, as we ended up where we started, but somehow it felt like a tonne of uphills with a teensy little bit of downhills thrown in for good measure. Our weather was spectacular. Lucky us!

The Kepler Track (inexplicably named after some German astronomer dude) featured more uphill, additional uphill and....some steep uphill sections. We saw some coolio caves near the top of Mt. Luxmoore and enjoyed the wide assortment of birds that we saw along the way, including a red-crested parakeet and kea, an alpine parrot. These are among the smartest birds in the world, and are known for their creative foraging. They particularly love to destroy sleeping bags, boots, tents etc in their quest for food. They are neato. And big. About a foot tall!

Post-Routeburn/Kepler, it only seemed right to reward ourselves with collosal ice cream cones (boysenberry dipped in choc in this photo) in the town of Te Anau. Then it was off to Queenstown to pick up our fancy, 1300cc rental car. Squeaky brakes, a hilarious "power" window feature and steering wheel on the wrong side. Dan did admirably, and no one perished on our four day trip along the southern tip of NZ. The only indication that he wasn't a tried and true kiwi driver was his unfortunate tendency to signal by turning on the windshield wipers. HAHAHAHHA.

We visited important NZ historical and cultural sites like Puzzleworld, the Cadbury factory in Dunedin and a giant fruit statue thingee in Cromwell. Along the way, we also managed to witness three teensy blue penguins coming ashore in Oamaru, a yellow-eyed penguin peeing in Curio Bay and a sealion vomiting on the shoreline of the Otago Peninsula. Good times.

Our next stop is Sydney, where we will pick up yet another car (this one standard transmission - yegads!) and a guy named Stefan from Perth. We are hoping, since he has lived in Perth for two years, that he will have an encyclopedia-like knowledge of the entirety of Australia. No pressure, Stefan.

Later!