Merry Christmas!

After five weeks exploring the southern tip of our beautiful country (and now trying to convince everyone who hasn't been to Tasmania yet, to jump on a plane or boat and visit some time pronto!), Luke and I have jumped on a plane from Melbourne and come home for Christmas. A holiday from a holiday? I like the sounds of that. Poor Jefro the Kombi is being rewarded for not breaking down once so far, by spending the silly season alone, locked safely away in a factory in Melbourne (thanks, Sven!) and won't be back on the road until January 19.

So until then, thanks for visiting Two Tonkins In A Kombi and reading about our funny little adventure and we really hope you check back in mid-Jan, when the trip around Oz will continue. Merry Christmas!

The coolest Santa I've ever seen, in the town of Penguin (No!) on Tasmania's north coast.

Yours lapping up good food, a soft bed and a real bathroom,
Odette

P.S. On returning to Luke's parents house last week, we were greeted with a suspicious looking envelope. It seems that Luke had done the impossible! No, he hadn't won the $21 million Lottery draw whilst we were away, he had been booked for speeding in Hobart... IN A KOMBI! What a proud moment for us both as we toyed with the idea of paying the extra $11 and getting a photo from the RTA sent to us to frame, as proof of this unlikely event. How unlucky that the one time that we had Jefro hooting along the highway at 180km per hour, there was a hidden speed camera. Unlucky indeed.

Gone With The Wind...Almost

We got our first taste of Tassie's wild, wild weather when we visited Cradle Mountain a couple of days back, but it seemed our brush with the unpredictable forces that control the Holiday Isle's climactic happenings was far from over...

Are we being tested? I mean, we're already sleeping on a piece of foam as thick as Sunday's newspaper and living in a space the size of a laundry (minus the appliances, of which we must hoard all our dollar coins so we can pay for clean clothes), but hey, throw some wind, rain, hail and what the hell, a night's worth of snow into the mix too please, just to put this two year Tonkin marriage really to the test.

But heading to Stanley, a quaint, coastal town on the state's north-west tip, the skies were blue and the sun was shining, so a mini cyclone was the last thing on our minds. More on that in a moment.

Stanley is a beautiful little place, and it's almost as far as you can go on the north-west tip of Tassie, without hitting the smaller, dirt roads that branch off onto another coastal point where the winds of the roaring 40's rock the beaches. It's no wonder there's a private wind farm out there but maybe the government should chip in and buy a few more turbines - I reckon they could supply half the country's energy from this venture alone. Most tourists head to Stanley to climb the famous 'Nut' - a huge, flat topped fossil that's millions of years old and a hell of a work out on the ol' calf muscles too.

We were tempted to take the chairlift to the top, especially after seeing how steep the walkways to the summit were, but with two full fat latte's and a scrumptious homemade brownie under our belts, we decided the walk was the sensible option. And the view from the top was spectacular. (Can you spot Jefro, way down the bottom in the caravan park?)

But the relaxing, calm day came to an abrupt end, at about 1am that night, when Luke and I woke to gale force winds that made us feel like we were in an empty Coke can, being tossed along a windy beach (What an analogy!). The winds were so strong that we had to pull our pop top roof down and chase our camping chairs half way across the park. We didn't sleep much after our rude awakening and the windy nightmare continued the next day. As we were driving along the freeway, inland, in an attempt to escape the 60km an hour winds, the straps holding the kombi pop top down ripped off. Yikes! Cruising along the freeway with our roof up was not a good thing! A quick road side fix it job (Luke, is there nothing you can't do?) and we are on our way. Let's just say that arriving to our next wind-free campsite was a breath of fresh air. Literally.

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette

Sunset Silly at Stanley

It doesn't get dark until 9:30pm in Tassie. That means plenty more hours to play before it gets dark enough to hit the sack.

Yours with waaaay too much time on her hands,

Odette

Cold Mountain

Travelling to Tasmania and not visiting Cradle Mountain is a bit like eating hot chips without tomato sauce i.e It shouldn't be done. Part of Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage area, both entrances to the national park, Lake St Clair from the south and Cradle Valley in the north, are spectacular.

But another thing that's pretty darn amazing, is just how quickly the weather changes in these parts. Sure, there's tons of warnings around saying to 'expect all seasons' when you're heading off on a bush walk, but we thought the rangers were just being over cautious. It is summer and yes, it does rain a lot in Tassie, but snow in December? C'mon... But snow it did, the very night we decided to camp out at Cradle Mountain (and at $40 a night for a powered camp spot mind you, the most expensive and over-priced piece of dirt we've parked on so far on this trip).

We arrived at the national park and headed straight for Dove Lake to do the 2 hour bush walk around the beautiful waterway. Needless to say, that when we arrived, the birds were singing, the sun squeezing some shine through the clouds and we thought, "hey, this could be our lucky day!"

But exactly half way into your walk, when we were at the point furthest from any possible shelter or protection... it starts to rain. And then hail. Yep, big chunks of ice, falling from nowhere - the sun had done a runner just like Christopher Skase, all those years ago. If it wasn't for our brand new, yet-to-be worn Kathmandu rain jackets (that cost a bomb and make us look like total amateur bush walker losers - let's just say it took the hail storm for Luke and I to both get over ourselves and actually embrace the hiking apparel), we might be still shivering on the track somewhere right now, with tourists taking our photos, thinking we were some kind of drowned out marsupial rodents.

But we survived and found solace from the rain and freezing cold temperatures in the nearby Wilderness Lodge and Spa, which is a private lodge where the rich city folk stay when they visit the bush and conveniently mix their walks with a couple of facials, a mud body wrap and some time in the spa, sipping on champagne. Luke and I went for a coffee but when the staff mistook us for paying lodge guests and served our coffees in 'the lounge' in front of a log fire and with free pool table, we thought we better make the most of their hospitality before we went back to our freezing camping spot. And freeze we did. Kombi vans really should come with their own heating system - wearing a beanie to bed is a little too bogan for my liking.

But we were told that it did, in fact snow the night we stayed at Cradle Mountain. Thankfully not on us, but on the mountain peaks and probably on any poor soul who decided it was a good idea to challenge themselves and complete the 6- 12 day Overland Track walk, that takes you all the way from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair. Kombi's are cold, but tents are colder.

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette

Jamie Oliver, Eat Your Heart Out

My husband Luke has a few things in common with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. No, Luke doesn't have a cute lisp or a determination to overhaul the Australia primary school canteen menu (although given a few days and a bit of cash, I'm sure he could do it...). Jamie and Luke both, obviously, have a thing for kombis - although we're getting around in a 1976 Kombi Camper while Mr Oliver's choice of VW is a 23 window, ultra rare samba split screen. But the other thing which made me think I was sharing a van with the British cook, was when Luke whipped out the brilliant idea of cooking pizza's for dinner.

Now, I love pizza. Any toppings really. Extra cheese. Bring it on. But let's not forget one small detail. Our current residential address is changing daily and although Luke has made some pretty special modifications to our van (DVD player? Check. TV ariel? Check.), there's really not a lot of room for an oven between the front seats. So I was eager to see how we'd be eating pizza for dinner, without a trip to the local Domino's - which would have been about a two hour drive, considering we were staying at Strahan, a town with a population of just 700 and no Pizza Hut in sight.

But a quick trip to the local IGA, a pack of pita bread, tomato paste, cheese, ham, rocket (Ooo, fancy!) and some capsicum later and our dream pizza dinner seemed a little closer to becoming a reality. Then I watched Jamie Oliver come to life. Pizza's made, Luke cooked the masterpiece in a fry pan on low heat on the gas stove, then to finish off the miracle, he simply placed the entire pan under the grill for about 5 minutes and hey presto! Piping hot pizza, made fresh from inside a kombi! Magnificento!

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette

Trip Highlights So Far...

For Odette

Daggy I know, but I'm a real fan of ABC TV's Gardening Australia programme, so you can imagine my delight when we went along to the Tasmanian Royal Botanical Gardens in Hobart, and I came face to face with Pete's Patch - the very place where long time presenter Peter Cundall records the show. "Wow! Cool! Unreal! I can't believe it!" (This was Luke's reaction drenched in sarcasm). But for me, seeing the full organic vege patch, grown without any chemicals, was a real trip highlight (I can hear you all laughing from way over here across the Strait but it's true!). I was just devo that the ABC weren't recording the show on the day we visited so I could meet Pete myself (gotta give the man huge gardening chops - he is 80 you know!).

For Luke

Seeing any other kombis on the road is a bit of a special moment for Luke (the faithful VW wave is a nice gesture that seems to be a national thing), so seeing a kombi in the main street of Hobart on top of a surf shop, was pretty cool for my VW obsessed travelling side-kick. The surf shop was called Red Herring and they'd gone to a great deal of trouble to get the old bus painted (and gutted) so they could use it as their trademark shop sign. Very cool.

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette

Walking On Air

Besides fresh local foods and some of Australia's most unbelievable National Parks, the one thing that's pretty much impossible to ignore when you head to Tasmania, is the struggle between conservation and industry when it comes to the State's forests. We've all hear about the protests and uproar that are inevitable when the government gives the green light to timber companies in Tassie, but the talk is nothing until you see the huge semi-trailers rolling down the hills, jam packed full of trees bigger than the one currently covered in Chrissy decorations in Sydney's Darling Harbour.


But while the bare mountains are horribly disturbing, Forestry Tasmania has plenty of creative minds on board to help shift the focus from the current timber cutting to the amazing forest that still remains. Even though Greens leader Bob Brown calls Tassie home, you would have to be naive to think that Tasmania has been transformed into an environmental conservation leader. The state does deserve some credit however, for putting a whole bunch of educational tools in place to help people see the natural environment up close and hopefully get inspired to protect it.


The Tahune Forest AirWalk, swinging bridges and visitor centre is one such tool. And you'd be surprised how many people are willing to make the 30km drive, straight into the bush, to experience what it's like to walk up in the forest canopy for themselves. Yep, we decided to check it out too.




Based over the amazing Huon river, the AirWalk is a little pricey at $20 an adult (I really hope that money is going to protecting those Huon pines...) but if anything's going to make you trade in your office job to found your own climate change protest group, then this will. You feel so small walking with these forest giants and the view up over the tree tops to where the Huon river splits in two is pretty darn cool too. Oh and there's two fun swing bridges over the rivers on the 2hour walk back to the info centre that will keep the kids (and big kids like Luke) entertained.


Being in Tassie, it's a little hard not to think about your impact on the environment and all the ways that you can try and lighten your carbon footprint. Yeah, so driving a VW Kombi across the country isn't quite as 'cool' as a new hybrid, but we're just hoping the lack of TV, microwave, second car and oh, house, that we're going without on our trip is cutting back our emissions enough to justify our wheels.

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette

Wildlife Warriors

When you head to a place like Tassie, with all it's National Parks and World Heritage areas, you expect to see a few possums or a kangaroo or two. But when Luke and I decided to head over to Bruny Island, off the coast of Hobart, for a night, we had no idea that we were going to have that many animal encounters, that we may as well have bought two tickets to the Irwin's Australia Zoo on the Goldcoast.


Bruny Island is made up of two islands, joined by a sand road or 'neck' where a bunch of penguins and shearwater birds nest each and every night (of course!). A $25 return ticket for all three of us (the two Tonkins and kombi Jefro) and we were off on a 30 minute trip on our second car ferry in a matter of weeks. Oh, didn't you know? Hanging out on car ferries is very now, darrrling!

Anyway, back to the wildlife wonderland we were about to encounter... so, where was I? Yes, Bruny Island is made up of two islands - there's a really cool lighthouse at the end of the South Island that overlooks the Great Southern Ocean (if you took off in a dingy from the beach below, you'd be in Antarctica in a couple of weeks or months or maybe you wouldn't make it in a dingy at all, but it's out there, trust me...), but the roads on the islands are a mix of tar and dirt, so pack your patience and a pack of panadol in your backpack to help you survive the bumps.

When you get into the main little village of Adventure Bay, skip the first caravan park and go straight to the end of the road, as far as you can go, to the Adventure Bay Eco Village. A cool little park, with powered sites for campervans and basic on-site cabins, the emphasis at this place is on living in harmony with nature and the environment. This means compulsory recycling, short showers that cost $1, an organic on-site cafe and animals sharing your campsite. And not just ANY animals, but more on that in a moment. There are wood ducks with their babies...

Aww... cute! There were random pink looking jelly fish in the ocean, bush hens wandering around the toilet block, but the thing that most campers come to see, is the white wallabies. Yep, white.

Apparently, these little guys have an albino gene and because they have no natural predators on Bruny Island, they've been able to interbreed and now they hop freely about the Eco Reserve. We weren't lucky enough to see the white possums (expect for one road kill which was too sad) and 'blondie' the resident white echidhana that roams the grounds (I'm seriously not lying - these creatures exist here!) but seeing a white wallaby up close and personal was enough to get us excited. Gee, with this kind of scenery, $20 for an overnight spot is a bargain!

But the excitement (or the animals) didn't stop there. Grab some red cellophane from the park office and head 20minutes back out to the 'neck' and join the rest of the campers to watch the local penguin colony as they make their nightly stroll up the beach, back to their nests. This is really an amazing experience and not one you get to do for free in anywhere else I know of in Australia. There's a National Park ranger on duty each night at the 'neck' boardwalks, who'll tell you all about the cute little critters who mate for life and take it in turns to hunt each day, while their partner looks after the nest and egg. Perhaps we humans have something to learn from these clever birds? Huh? But for now, Luke and I are content to watch and listen to these little guys in the darkness. Our Tasmanian wildlife quota is maxed in just one day.

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette

Haunted Past

Port Arthur. As much as I tried, the only thing that kept creeping into my head when I saw the words Port Arthur on the map of Tassie, was that haunting image of Martin Bryant, with those piercing blue eyes (remember the controversy those unnaturally blue eyes caused across the country for the national newspaper that supposedly digitally enhanced the image of the murderer and printed it?). I couldn't stop thinking about the tragedy that took place at the tourist site over ten years ago, where 35 people lost their lives because of one mentally unstable man.

I admit I wasn't sure that I wanted to make the hour journey past Hobart to the Port Arthur peninsula. Did I really want to visit a place where such a terrible thing had happened? But tourist books and fellow travellers kept telling us that a visit to the site was a must on any trip to Tasmania, so Luke and I decided to pay our entry fee (which wasn't cheap, mind you - $25 per adult but this included a walking tour with a guide who told you all about the area, a trip on a ferry and entry back into the park the following day, if one day's worth of history wasn't enough) and we made our way down the coast.

After walking the grounds of Port Arthur, to my surprise, there wasn't a mention about the fairly recent Port Arthur tragedy from our tour guide (we later read that the staff prefer not to talk about this incident as it's still too raw, instead there's a lovely memorial garden for reflection), but we did learn a lot about another evil past that Australia has harbored. Convicts, brutal punishment, slave labour- it all went on for years at Port Arthur, back in the 1800's as part of England's plan to eradicate the scum of their society and send them miles across the sea to Van Demon's Land. Sad but interesting stuff and Port Arthur explains our not-so-pretty past in a way that won't make you feel like you're back in a boring year eight History class.


Even though there is a quiet sadness to the area, a visit to Port Arthur is well worth the drive - what remains of the original English settlement is hauntingly beautiful, the gardens are amazing and the history of the place is surprising. Check it out.

Yours in the great outdoors,
Odette

Mr Fix-It (Warning: This post may or may not contain explicit language)

My husband Luke is a really nice guy. Lucky for me, but even luckier for all the random campers we have met so far on our trip across Australia. And it's only been a few weeks, but it seems that wherever we go, Luke manages to find himself someone to help out of whatever pickle they may find themselves in.

Let me give you a run down of the incidents that have stood clear in my mind so far. (NOTE: These are but a few of the many times Luke has put on his Superman suit).

CASE STUDY 1: Bike rider dude with the broken external hard drive

We met this solo traveller whilst washing up in the camp kitchen at Launceston's Treasure Cove Caravan Park. An interesting guy, we later found out that this American had been commissioned by National Geographic magazine as a photographer to ride his push bike across the world (sweet gig if you can get it). He had been riding for two and a half years so far and Tasmania was his last stop. Grunting and cursing in the corner of the kitchen, looking at his computer, Luke wanders over and 20 minutes later, washing up finished, me ready for bed, Luke's still fiddling with this guy's USB port, trying to find out why the bike rider's new hard drive just won't work.

CASE OUTCOME: Luke suggests the guy take his new purchase back to the shop the next day as it hadn't been formatted for an Apple MAC computer. Nice to know that Information Science degree still comes in handy on the road.

CASE CLOSED

CASE STUDY 2: Grandad struggling with caravan TV ariel

Cooking dinner one night at St Helen's, and from out of the Kombi windown, Luke spots an older guy, battling with the wind, trying to fix his caravan TV ariel. Quicker than me saying the words 'dinner's ready,' and Luke's outside, moving the ariel this way and that, trying to get the guy a perfect picture for him and his wife to watch the nightly news. 30 minutes later and a whole new understanding on what it was like to be a truck driver crossing the Nullabor back in the sixties (thanks, Bruce), and Luke has himself a new friend (and one that was wearing a full brown velour track suit, no less).

CASE OUTCOME: TV ariel secured, dinner eaten - everyone's a happy camper at St Helen's.

CASE CLOSED

CASE STUDY 3: Pommy lady trying to use a mobile phone

Having a lovely coffee at the Sorrell Fruit Farm, near Hobart, and Luke overhears a British couple trying to work out how to use their new mobile phone to call their sister to let them know they had arrived in town from the airport and were waiting to be picked up. Phone owner lady asks the cafe waitress if she can help, but she too is clueless at how this new mobile works, so like a regular Clarke Kent, Luke drops his cappuccino and springs to the rescue.

CASE OUTCOME: Luke turns the new Next G mobile off, then on again, dials the number and what-do-you-know? The phone's ringing! The ever thankful British couple are no longer stranded at the fruit farm and Luke's coffee isn't even cold yet. Phew! Nice work.

CASE CLOSED

CASE STUDY 4:

Taking a romantic walk around the little town of Coles Bay, near Freycinet National Park, and a solo bush walker with a pack the size of a small child on his back, collapses in front of us. With no one else around, the hiker quickly informs us that he's an epileptic and is having a turn. Luke, quick to action, races to the nearby fast food shop to buy the guy a fizzy drink for his low sugar levels, while I sit with the guy and keep him calm.

CASE OUTCOME: Our new bush walker mate skulls his bottle of Lift, pops a few tablets and then informs us that he may have overdone it today, after walking a seven hour bush walk without having lunch. Ten minutes later, he's up and on his feet and thanking us for our kindness. Well, well, well, perhaps I have a future as Luke's super sidekick?

CASE CLOSED

CASE STUDY 5:

Settling in for the night at Coles Bay Caravan Park, not too long after our last little incident, and Luke see's another solo traveller (what is it with these solo campers?) rock up next to us with a camp trailer the size of a typical Sydney unit. After struggling to pick the thing up and nearly dropping the trailer on his foot a few times, Luke, bless him, can't help himself, and heads over to the middle aged man and asks if he can help lift the trailer so the man can secure it in place. As Luke bends to help, the man fires up "Let me F*%$ing lift it, you put the jockey wheel in place, but if someone's going to f&%$ their back up, it might as well be me 'cos it's my f&^$%#ing trailer!" O-kay. He continued, "F#$%ing hell, I'm the owner of this thing, I'm the one who should be lifting the f&*^&ing thing. It's f*#$%ing heavy! I know how to set the f$%^ing thing up but thanks for your help."

CASE OUTCOME: Luke says nothing and follows the guy's orders until the camp trailer is setup. I overhear the explosive rant from within the kombi and when Luke returns after his latest mercy mission, despite a 'no swearing' rule on our trip, we affectionately dub the man 'f$#@%ing psycho'. What a lovely man.

CASE CLOSED. Sort of. That guy was a psycho!

The dreaded trailer that Luke tried to help set up. The travesty was that the guy took about 4 hours to set this baby up and the next morning, when we got out of bed at 8am, he was gone! That's a lot of work for one night. He really should have purchased a nice little one man tent. Psycho!

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette