So apparently I am bloody awful in keeping the blog up to date, seeing as I haven't updated in
ummm 2 months. I'm usually not very good at these things. I fall out of date and then I think it's too late to get back to it. Plus I have school work and the last thing I feel like doing after writing an essay, on the historical
avant-
garde and how contemporary theatre practitioners may or may not live up to the same standards, is write more. However, there are people at home and at Clark who want to read about my journey and it would be nice to have on record for posterity. Since one huge, long, massive post would be ridiculous, I'll do a bunch of shorter posts with pictures, in chronological order of when they
occurred over the last 2 months. Luckily I have kept a fairly decent
photojournal of my trip so filling in the gaps with descriptions won't be too difficult.
OKAY. HERE WE GO.
DAY TRIP NUMBER 2: "Food Road"
We took a little road trip up the west coast of the Tamar River from Launceston to Devonport. Along the way there was a Raspberry farm. Unfortunately it was winter, so there were no fresh raspberries. But! There were chocolate covered raspberries and raspberry jams and raspberry wines and spirits to sample. My accomplices on this trip were Becca, Chelsea, Heidi, and Kiara:
After the Raspberry farm, about 20K down the road, there was the Ashgrove Cheese Company. Which is a dairy that makes fine Tasmanian cheeses. Out the front, there are a bunch of painted cow statues, much like the ones they had in Boston a few years back. They were painted by members of the community. Inside, they had a round display table with about 30 different types of cheeses to sample.
The next stop was another few K's down the road: the Chocolate Factory! It was very very yum, again with many free samples. They had pretty much every chocolate you could imagine. And they had glass windows that looked into the factory so you could see how it was made. The coolest thing they had was a 2 foot tall chocolate replica of the Luna Park entrance, which is an amusement park with one location in Melbourne and one in Sydney. I saw the real thing up close in Melbourne, and it was actually a fairly good representation.
The highway we were on led directly to
Devonport, which is a small seaside city in the north of Tasmania. We drove through and went to the beach. We were the only ones there because it was early August and that is the dead of winter. Still, I would not be deterred, and I would not miss my chance to get into the Bass Strait, so I took off my shoes and waded up to my ankles. The water was maybe 34 Degrees F.
But even though it wasn't a nice day for a
swim it was still a beautiful beach and we had fun just walking along and enjoying the sunshine. It rains a lot in Tasmania during the winters so every day of sunlight is a small blessing.
On the way home we stopped at the Cherry Shed, which was pretty much just like the raspberry farm, except everything was made with cherries instead of raspberries. Again, just as it was not raspberry or swimming season, it was not cherry season. All in all, the day was a success. We tasted local foods and enjoyed the beautiful rolling countryside.
Wombats are pretty much the cutest little fat things ever. They are closely related to the koala. Unfortunately, there were no koalas at this wildlife park. Koalas do not live in Tasmania, but the park used to have them. Unfortunately it died just a week before we got there from liver failure.
Devils have their names for a reason and we weren't allowed to actually interact with them. But just watching them was pretty awesome anyways.
This cockatoo was pretty cool because it said "Hello," and it said it in an Aussie accent. Obviously, because that's how it hears it's keepers speaking. 
The grand finale of the day was definitely the kangaroos. They were Eastern Grey Kangaroos. The one in the picture with me and Becca above was a joey, so he's just a baby, maybe 5 months old. His mum didn't even care that we were petting him. She just layed around being lazy... which is pretty much all roos do. Locals call them huge pests, but they are still pretty amazing in my book. 
