simple life tour TASMANIA 2006

we've taken soo many pictures...so just scroll you through the different photos

May I introduce you to the main actors

bouncing bridget









echidna edina

and of course the youngest of the crew, chicken anna








and the most important participant….our yellow formel 3 speed racer


With Bridget being 24 and Edina having turned 27 during the trip it felt like having my older brothers around me, who are the same age…but no problem at all for me, I’m used to be the chicken AND I’m proud of it ;)

The first time we three chicks met, was in the train on the way to the airport and my shoulders and back were already hurting there *ouch* Bridget and me had a 15 minute walk behind us *schnauf* 25 kilos on the back and 10kg ish on the front in my small (er) backpack, what was much effort to carry.


On the old airport in Tasmania (no automatic luggage reclaims but a truck and trailer where you have to get it from) we first met our speed racer on the airport’s car park and were positively surprised, guess why?? Because it was yellow, awesome for sunshine Anna :) and much bigger we expected.

lake st clair, the place where we've spent that really really cold night...

The first two nights we all slept in the tent but on the third day I tried the opportunity car and that was more comfortable then in the tent.
(photo after woke up)
I did sleep quite well, no comparison to a bed of course, but obviously I couldn’t get deep sleep because I woke up when Bridget just ‘knocked’ on the window with her fingernail and I was sitting straight up on my seat in less then 3 seconds “hee what?” *confused after sleep* But I wasn’t really scared of being alone in the car though. I should mention that I’m only owner of a ‘cheap as chips’ (comparable with ‘preisteufel’ in Germany) sleeping bag and no foam mat. Originally I wanted to buy one in Tassie but with sleeping in the car being pretty nice I didn’t have to spend money on that anymore. I tell you what, it was soo freezing cold the first nights that I had to wear all my long-sleeved clothes, meaning tight top, t-shirt, jacket and my thick jumper, trekkies and thick socks and it was still cold cold cold *bibber* one morning I got up at six because I couldn’t do it anymore, my feet were like ice blocks and there was no chance to get them warm because it was 5 degrees (hello? Five degrees? Imagine that, Bridget’s good sleeping bag was supposed to be comfortable until nine degrees, so no wonder that I felt I will die of coldness) everywhere. In the kitchen, not heated but at least a closed building, I drank my last cup of tea and continued just with hot water to get my body to normal temperature again. The other twos came to the kitchen about an hour later with red noses, watering eyes and blue lips and absolute stiff hands and numb feet….”toes?? which toes?

Basically we got a chance to cool down on our trip and recover, there was not really a need for that though, from the heat on the mainland and from the strong sun for our sensitive European skin. When Edina left the crew after nine days Bridget decided to try to sleep in the car as well so that we could save the money for the camping ground and actually she felt comfy with that as well (photo sleeping in car) Fortunately we met some guys in a shelter where we had dinner consisting of bread and spread and got to know each other pretty quickly so that we had a barbie because we borrowed our torch so that they could save their meat before it got burned completely, and the offer to sleep in their college in Launceston, where they’re all studying together. all in all we were in launceston two times and spend three nights and real, nearly unbelievable, beds, I tell you, that was such a luxury after more than one night on the seats in the car.

For we didn’t have a cooker or a fridge our choice of food was pretty limited. Therefore we had bread, if possible and available pumpernickel –yummy- and plain spread, carrots (I’ve never eaten that much of this rabbit food then in these two weeks) cucumber and oats+apples for brekky. Mostly we had a decent picnic place where we had our delicious food ;) but sometimes we were just sitting on the BORDSTEIN of the road or even in the middle of a public car park. We were so lucky that the only spare car park was directly in front of the ticket machine, where the people were passing by all the time. But with neither Bridget nor me getting embarrassed that easily, we prepared our salad sitting on the ground mat and just smiling at the people probably thinking ‘crazy tourists’ but who cares? :) we didn’t!

You see, I have the right to call our tour simple life tour. we really lived only with the most essential stuff, but that was a nice experience and good fun as well. Your general claims decrease very quickly on such a tour, so Bridget told me absolutely enthusiastic one time “oh cool, let’s drive to Bicheno, there is eeeverything” “ya? Really?” “yes, public toilets, supermarket and a service station” indeed, we were satisfied with these ‘institutions’ completely.
During the days we basically drove all over or better all around Tasmania, visited the many different national parks and went for walks nearly every day.

We did one longer tour over 3,4 hours and when we arrived at the car park again we saw this strange sign “walkers registration” especially when you’re climbing up to Marion’s lookout- ooops we exactly did that walk and must have overseen that, but we came back healthy and happy, so no need to worry.

I do have proper walking shoes I have used on the outback tour with Karl in Cairns but because of the weight I decided to leave them up there. So I only wore my running shoes from indoor volleyball (honestly sometimes I’m missing our trainings…) but the left one was broken in the back so my achillis tendon was rubbed and caused blisters *ouch* aber not macht ja bekanntlich erfinderisch und so habe ich mit hilfe von der watte von meinen ohrenstaebchen und pflastern das loch gestopft-ha *proud*

It was really nice to walk in all that different types of landscape. So Tasmania reminded me one time of a combination of Italy and Croatia

because of the sent of the trees PYNIEN and the dry plants and the rocky coast and the other time of deep Bavaria or Austria because of the huge WEIDEN with cows and sheep, STROHBALLEN and TRAKTOREN, the grass was more brown than green though, but all in all it could have fit into south Germany easily. And then there was the rainforest with its fully green trees in all different forms and formations and raindrops and the big leaves of the ferns. That was really nice when we went for a short morning walk in a rainforest reserve and your day started with the spray of the water in front of the falls and the dampness of the air, mhmm!

The ‘tall trees’ impressed me quite much as well because I haven’t seen so huge plants before, your neck nearly gets stiff looking at their top.
All in all we saw heaps of waterfalls and many different types of nature. Something that surprised me pretty much was the coastline, because one place really looked like in the caribic, absolutely the whitest sand I’ve ever seen and I think I have seen many different and wonderful beaches so far and just complete turquoise and light blue water even it was overcastted- wow. But the difference was that the warmth lacked, we slept for one hour at that particular beach in jeans and shirts. Driving along the coastline with all the huge rocks and clips and always a massive view over long long beaches was a absolut nice picture. I think that’s one of the nice things in Tasmania, the variety of landscape with mountains and WEIDEN, beaches and cliffs, more dry brown and really humid green areas, rainforest, big LAUBNADEL forests and lakes.
Besides walking and just behaving healthy we fulfilled the typical female yearnings as well- of course :) and so we booked in for a tour in the Cadbury factory (most popular chocolate brand, like Milka in Germany probably) and learned how to produce that nice brown bar with that fine taste of chocolate, melting slowly on your tongue…oops I’m missing the topic ;) … and could try several different samples –yummy- that was probably the nicest part of the whole tour, no I’m joking, indeed it was interesting. But it was very hard on the same time as well because we weren’t allowed to touch anything, so imagine: three chocolate fanatic girls are walking through the chocolate factory where there are standing heaps of huge trails with thousands of pralines and bars sorted after all that different flavours *hands in pockets nearly with cramps* or just all the FLIESSBANDS carrying so much chocolate time constantly less then one metre away from you *SCHLECK* in the room where the chocolate gets molten there was such a nice smell and then you could look into these huge pot where there were tonnes of molten chocolate was steered. We were on the edge to insane because our index fingers nearly automatically wanted to dive into that more than yummy looking liquid to put it into the mouth afterwards *ABSCHLECK* but we had to keep our cool without loosing the temper and be patient until after the tour to bite into a 250 gr block (indeed here they have 250 gr not only 100, so Herr Rissman couldn’t explain 1 Newton with the 100 gr chocolate bar in physics…amazing what you keep in mind of school- funny) you see it was a very very nice morning, started with chocolate brekky and hot chocolate and everything chocolate =) and it was worth being excited like little children before Christmas already three days before.
The wildlife we experienced was pretty impressive as well. we saw heaps of wild wallabies jumping around our tent looking for food or some possums had their dinner on the tree in whoms shade (ohoh grammatik luecke....*g*) we parked our car. unfortunately we had to notice the next morning, that their digestion was working quite well...our already fance yellow car got a nice pattern then ;) it was a premier for us three girls when we saw the tasmanien devil

(a masupil- beuteltier- only existing on tasmania and becoming exstinct, they look cute but are kind of agressive) and an echitna (really sweet with his long nose screwing into the ground to find some food)

in wildlife. that is pretty cool if you see wild animals on a walk nearly all the time. not that exciting were the dead animals on the streets...you even could invent a new game to make the long driving more spectacular, no not car-counting and not license-plate-remembering either... animal-counting and guessing what it originally has been, mean, i know. that gives you activity in almost all bents- that was really amazing and absolutely not nice to see...sometimes we even got goose-bumps from watching that and a bit the feeling to vomit because it was such disgusting how many animals lose their lives on the streets. therefore we have never driven at dusk or at night...we really wanted to avoid any encounter with animals on the streets.

living in the car was not that bad because we really kept everybody s stuff in order and had our own little household with a food bag etc.

we've met really nice guys in a pretty small village (of course one of them was german again...) and they offered us to stay at their rooms from their uni. thanks for that again, it was just so luxury to have a proper shower and especially a bed- comfy! we also had a great last day with a nice barbecue with them.

even if i really was happy with sleeping in a proper bed after 16 days adventure trip i have to say that it was absolutely awesome- thanks girlz! amazing, i've spend about 30 days 24 hours a day with birgit and we didn't argue one time properly... you're cool babe ;)