We did a fair bit of driving during those 6 days, first down towards Hobart and Port author, down to Bruny Island and then across to Cradle Mountain, a day stop in Launceston then back out to Daves home town Campbell Town before spending the last night BBQing with the Woodroffe Clan of Westbury. Have a look on a map and we basically ticked off most of Tasmania, well a lot of it anyway!
One thing both off us have always wanted to do but never had the chance was Canyoning. Canyoning is very straight forward- first of all your kitted up in a 5mm wetsuit, gloves, booties, helmet and a specialised harness. Once your kit is ready you throw yourself off the edge of a cliff and abseil 30m into a freezing cold Tasmanian river in the middle of a canyon. After you enter the numbing abyss, the only way out is at the end of the canyon: everything in between is canyoning.
Initially you wade, swim, and in some peoples cases waddle down the river, you then reach a ledge with a 6m drop into the river there’s only one way forward and that is to throw yourself off the edge. Luckily for us our 2 guides had only just started there canyoning business, therefore they were very casual about the whole approach. So back flips, front flips, corkscrew flips, off the wall jumps and any other imaginative way you could launch yourself off the edge was encouraged.
Initially the group was a little cautious about flipping of a waterfall into a 2m wide pool which was 6m below. But with a bit of encouragement and some demonstrations from our guide Timmy, most of us were happy to attempt a flip or two by the end.
One of the highlights of the canyoning was the laundry shoot. To begin, you wedge yourself into a tight nook at the start of a narrow tunnel (or shoot). Slowly you nudge yourself forwards, once the water pressure behind you builds up behind you, your squeezed through the shoot at a fairly rapid rate until the shoot suddenly ends and your shot off a 3m high waterfall into the pool below. It may not sound like much but its pretty sweet.
At the end of the canyoning adventure a 1hr long hike is in order back to the car park, which isn’t too bad as you are hiking thru beautiful rainforest. The problem with the hike back is removing the legion of leaches which have been sucking away at various and very interesting parts of the body.
Photos and video coming shortly.....
At the end of our quick peak at Tassie with Leesh and Ric and the parentals, everyone left. Everyone but Brett. He was left in Tassie all by himself for a few days to surf, enjoy some rain and then jump on a plan to Melbourne to stay at the dodgiest hostel in Oz. Getting a little bit ahead of our selves let us take you back a few days.
February and March were our months of catching up with our WA friends and family on the other side of the country! We basically put Tassie on hold for a few weeks, leaving bob in the very capable hands of Mr and Mrs Scott and Maggie Woodroffe of Westbury, we crossed the Tasman in Tiger Airways style to head over to Melbourne and South Australia for some quality time with some of our favourite people.
First Stop was an all girls Weekend in Melbourne. Brett obviously wasn’t invited so Meegan enjoyed a few beverages, endless hours of playing shopping assistant, a Scary evening of Cabaret and a special Birthday Surprise of The Musical Mary Poppins.
The weekends climax would certainly have to be running through the flooded streets of Melbourne in black plastic Garbage bags to try and catch the start of Mary Poppins. It was all Farmers fault by the way.
Brett and Meegan (that’s us by the way, I know this blog is written from a very strange point of view but that’s just the way it is so if your not used to it by now then bad luck), finally met up in Melbourne. Brett booked the worlds worst hostel, the tiniest room you could fit a bed into as well as vomit, no exits, bodily hairs all over the bathrooms not to mention what else could be founds in the female toilets. Meegan was in the building for less than 2 minutes when she exclaimed “what would happen if there was a fire” I mean that generally isn’t the first thing that pops into your mind when entering a building which goes to show how dodgy this place was.
From Melbourne we boarded a plane to Adelaide to meet up again with Sue and Dave to spend a few lazy days floating down the Murray River on a Houseboat.
We had a little, major leak from the transfer case! All fixed!
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