Starving in paradise

Tasmania is a strange,strange land!! The scenery is beautiful and totally worth the trip! The whole island is like one very small town. People don't seem to have ever left, so we have learned to take everything they say with a grain of salt/ when emotional we use the term "liars" haha. An amazing waterfall to them is really just a stream... If we ask how any food dish is "oh it's lovely!" (it's ok) and its just hard to get a straight answer out of anyone!! Maybe we don't speak the right language? Even a very clear question like "is it safe to drink the water?" doesn't get a yes or no answer. We were asking one guy at an info desk about his opinion and where we should go while we are in Tasmania and his answer caused more questions. "well you can go anywhere really.... Here or here or here (different places on map) you could drive all around really!" same at the national park. They don't seem to get that we want to know if we should go or if it's worthwhile, not can we go! We asked what hikes we should do since it was our first visit and he goes "well you can go anywhere really." and points to every hike on the map. That narrows it down! Tourism is different here! So we feel kind of on our own in that department but so far we are making it work and we have made a nice itinerary for ourselves! Independent women! Surprisingly we have only met one other native English speaker traveling in hostels! It's very interesting...no other Australians! We have met a few people from Japan and a lot of Europeans. It's an interesting little bubble, clearly not the beaten path!

Speaking of not the beaten path... The food here sucks. Tonight i had garlic bread for dinner, last night rice. Alexa tried the nachos tonight which literally were doritos baked with tomato sauce and cheese. I assume there has never been a mexican on tasmanian soil. Also nothing is open past 7 pm. 7!!! We learned this the hard way by waiting to grocery shop for dinner (at least when we cook we know it will be good) until after a pretty sunset. Big mistake!! The bright side is when the town shuts down you can go the wrong way down one way streets, drive on the right and drive on sidewalks and nobody will ever know (cough cough Alexa) :)

To all my followers, sorry, still puking! Also at times I seem to have a brain disorder or a slow acting stroke or poor vision (least likely option-I just had laser correction!!) because I constantly read things wrong and it's pretty amusing (to us at least) highlights include thinking a tour included a hot air balloon fight (what's that??), fun breakfast (actually full breakfast), "guest parking only" was "queen Victoria only" and the "festival state" was the "free fall state." You know, like a state where everything is constantly changing, as if in free fall? I dunno.... But if you want to make fun of me keep in mind Alexa deliberately drives on sidewalks to get where we want faster and will drive past every real parking spot just to park right in front in what clearly is not meant to be a parking spot. At least my things arent on purpose!

Wild Animal sightings: 2 wombats, 2 echidnas, a wallaby and a kangaroo!!! Also lots of bunnies, sheep, cows and a lot of black swans! Curious. Also one suicidal dinosaur-looking bird who ran right in front of the car but seems to have gotten away!

Another fun cultural thing. The radio in Tasmania is very amusing very versatile! There is like one channel we can get service on and it does it all. An hour of dance music, then an hour of serious news talk NPR style, then it's country hour y'all, some weather talk, some celebrity gossip talk, then top 40.

Today we drove back across the island and we are currently on the east coast. The ocean over here is beautiful and we are near bay of fires which is also beautiful! We were way too happy to see a McDonald's today after days without Internet. McDonald's aka mackers has free wifi and thus is our favorite place. Everywhere else in tas charges a lot! Like $2 for 15 min and today we even saw it charged by the minute! Nice to get in touch with the world every once and a while! We are driving down the coast tomorrow and checking out another national park. We were glad to see mike is still alive and well and even blogging! we have been eating like small sad birds. Hopefully this changes very soon. Even Cheerios here taste different. Emma I highly advise against you visiting here for that very reason.

I think that's all for now folks, enjoy the pics!

Ps-you don't pass a car on the road, you overtake them!