Installment 1 March 28th Melbourne - Hobart

Hello from Hobart, Tasmania,
Just an email to the 2 addresses - I'll write individually as well
After a fairly stress full couple of weeks we have finally got away. 5 Years of our life here is either boxed, charitied, burnt or (mostly) given away to friends with varying degrees of enthusiasm on their parts. (The deal was for every good item, you must remove at least one piece of junk). Anyway we got there in the end and even manged to spend 2 sessions at the atheletics, one weight lifting and one rugby 7's.
We spent a couple of days at Dans getting the final bits ready and then hopped on a ferry to Tasmania. Since then we have been winding down, and spent a couple of nights in the bush, one up a mountain - the Walls of Jeurusalem, quite religious in an eastery way really. Quite fun as 2 hours of the hike on the second day were finding our way accross an enourmous plain with no actuall path, just a stream a couple of KM's the left and a mountain looming 4Km on the right. Needless to say that after setting off from the mountain campsite at about 9am we didn't see another soul till we completed the circuit and got off the mountain at about 3, which was quite something considering the distances we could see at any one time.






























Back to reality and a YHA hostel in the middle of nowhere, where we were "Alex's" only customers. In a land of men with shaved heads and long biker goatee beards Alex complied with just a beard. It wasn't until the next day that I realised that his opening line of "Do you have a reservation?" was only his way of being drol. The hostel was really just an extension of his house, and we felt we were invading. When his elderly Scottish parents appeared the next day and his mum started bossing him around we felt is was time to leave. It was clearly a family moto never to throw anything away, and I just wish I had the courage to ask after the following items that littered the communal kitchen / living room.
4 x Vacuum cleaners of various vintage (There was no sign of any hoovering having been done in quite a while, so presumably they didn't work.)
5 x Teapots, well actually 3 teapots without matching lids and 2 lids without matching teapots.
1 x Caffatiere, no matching plunger or lid.
1 x Plunger, no matching caffatiere.
The list goes on, and my real concern is that the old bath toys littered amongst the broken mops and brooms, by the outside bathroom, don't actually belong to visiting children, but instead 30 years ago may have belonged to Alex himself.
Any way, we are now in Hobart, and catch a very small aeroplane out to the middle of absolute nowhere tomorrow morning, then it's pasta rations for 7 days as we hike out. The weather looks good at the mo', but this is Tasmania the Island where in the last 50 years it has snowed on every single day of the year.
We'll be out of radio contact, but we are owners now of a satellite distress beacon, so international rescue are never too far away.
Meanwhile, I am sat in a hostel avoiding eye contact with friendly vegans and other travelling types that currently I have little in common with, what with us being tourists. Presumably that will change, as my beard and hair continue to grow.
Over and out.