Well hello again. The Banana Stand has been restocked and is ready for business. A lot has happened in month. I hired a car and drove the Great Ocean Road, trekked across SW Tasmania, and am now back in Brisbane!
The Great Ocean Road is just SW of Melbourne so I hired a Yaris and took to the wrong side of the road. Getting out of the city was nerve racking as hell. It's weird turning mostly. Once out of the city I was getting the hang of driving on the left side. Rolled the windows down and blasted the radio. I hadn't driven in 4 months and it felt great to be back behind the wheel.
I got some great sunny weather and stopped to take lots of pictures. It's like the PCH in Cali, but on a much smaller scale. All the beauty was there though. Winding coast roads, huge eucalyptus forests, wildlife, secluded beaches, and rock formations galore. My goal was to see my first wild koalas and I scored big time. They just chill in the eucalyptus on the side of the road and the best part was walking up to one on the road. The pictures show it all. They have no fear of humans at all. It's so crazy. And they are damn cute, there's no denying that.
The two nights I was out there I camped finally. I've been waiting to break that tent in and I did just that over the last month. The camping along the GOR was all free and there were some beautiful sites with koalas in the trees even! I also saw some kind of marsupial. It wasn't a kangaroo, but there are about 5 of them and they all pretty much look like kangaroos.
After getting back to the city I got to stay at my new friend Brad's place. He is a friend of Charles in LA and was nice enough to let me crash at their beautiful old house. It was really nice. So after spending the weekend there I flew to Hobart, Tasmania. It was only a 45min flight. I spent a few days in Hobart seeing the city and trying to figure out my trek. I wasn't really sure what I was doing or where I was going so it was a lot of guessing. Luckily it all worked out perfectly. I couldn't have planned it better.
I took a bus from Hobart to Geeveston, a tiny town SW of Hobart about 90 min. From there I thumbed a ride up the tourist road which is where I planned to enter the park. 25% of the state of Tasmania is preserved parks. So it's a pretty wild and beautiful place. My destination was SouthWest National Park. There are no roads into it, just walking trails. The closest one I could find was at a rainforest tourist attraction near Geeveston so that's where I headed.
I got dropped off on a fire access road and started walking. After about an hour I got to the Houn River trailhead and commenced my adventure. I carried everything in my backpack, including all my food for 9 days. It ended up being 10 days, but I had just the right amount of extra food.
The first day was wet. It was all through the rainforest, which had recently got torrential rains. On the second day I got out into the plains all along the Western Arthur Range which was my ultimate destination. The plains were all a bog. So the entire ground is basically floating on water. I would step down and water would squirt out of a hole 4 feet away! Walking through here sucked cause it was all flooded and muddy as hell. I would step and immediately be ankle deep in sludge.
The third day started shitty cause it was really windy and light rain kept coming. By the afternoon though it cleared up and I was loving it. Walking along the plains was relatively bland landscape, but then I would come to these creek crossings and they were amazing. I would walk into the woods and it was like another world. Everything was completely covered in bright, green moss. It was hanging from everywhere. I had to crawl and climb to get through the dense, tangled mess. Very surreal.
By mid-day I started crossing the plains south towards the mountain range. It was late in the day, but I was behind schedule so I plowed up the side of that mountain with everything I had to get to some campsite before dark. I finally made it to the top in dense fog and 70-knot winds. I literally could jump and I would land somewhere else. It was the worst weather I have ever been in I think. I still had at another hour to go too! So I blindly followed whatever trail I could see. I was so disoriented in the fog that I really thought I had walked in a circle. Everything was a blur. I saw a lake and thought I must have passed camp, but kept going a little over the next ridge. The wind stopped dead after I was on the other side and way down below me was Lake Cygus and tents! I had found it. Thank god, and it was still sort of light out.
I descended the hill and got to camp just in time to set up my tent and meet the neighbors. There are a few established campsites along the mountain range that have a toilet and wood tent platforms. So there were usually other people at these. During the day I was always alone hiking though. Then I would see the same people at night again. It was kinda cool. Most of the people I met were over 50, and I was by far the youngest person out there.
The next day the fog cleared and I got some good sun. From then on the sun shined down every day. I was the luckiest person ever. It rains there pretty much everyday so to get that many days of sun was a miracle. I hiked along the range for 5 days before descending back to the plains and out through the same rainforest. The range was full of beautiful lakes and tons of rock formations. The trek included legitimate rock climbing, walking, and rappelling. I've never done anything like it. I was the little hobbit on his big journey. So many times I looked around and felt like I was in a movie. It was part Willow, part Lord of the Rings. By the way, there's no way Elijah Wood could handle that little trek of his.
Tassie Trek
Distance: 108.6 km (67.5miles)
Walk Time: 67.75 hours
Duration: 10 days
Each day was a totally new adventure and was so different. It was an unbelievably cleansing experience both mentally and physically. My metabolism increased ten fold. I can eat an unbelievable amount of food now. I am also 18 lbs lighter than when I left LA! I weighed myself in Melbourne and couldn't believe it. I actually freaked out a little. I feel like a runt. But it's really because I was training hard 4-5 days a week in Brisbane and I eat a lot healthier and drink a lot less. The last time I weighed this much I was in middle school!
The trek worked out much better than planned and I was so lucky with everything. I want to start doing these more often and around the world. I am looking at a 12-day one through the outback near Alice Springs. There is also a 4-day across a tropical island up north which is where I am headed next.
After a couple nights of detox in Hobart I flew up to Brisbane for St. Patrick's Day and drank for the first time in two weeks. I'm going to work a few nights to make some spending cash and hang out with all my mates here. I am planning on staying here until my birthday (March 29) and then going up the rest of the east coast. That's the tropical part, finally. I haven't been beaching it since last December. So that will be good again.
So Melbourne was good fun, and Tasmania was epic. And now Brisbane is like summer again and I love it. I just uploaded some 400 pictures so check them all out. Everything will be explained through those. I took a ton on the trek and some really cool ones too. All the Melbourne albums are updated as well.
Hope everyone is doing well and that the bad economy isn't getting the best of anyone. I'm scared to come home and try to find a job. Could be rough. Might have to keep up the travels for now. Other than that, the new Kit Kat Darks are amazing, The Killers are doing a show on my birthday that I am trying to go to, I miss cheap beer and take-away food, and I have no idea what I will be doing one month from now. Miss you all and take care.
G.O.B.: Hey, can you do me a favor? A young neighborhood tough by the name of Steve Holt will be dropping by, and...
Michael: Your son?
G.O.B.: According to him.
Michael: And a DNA test.
G.O.B.: I hear the jury's still out on science.
Party. I have 4 days left in Brisbane before I head up the coast. Everything here has been great. My mate, Hannah, had her birthday on Wednesday and mine would be tomorrow. We went out every night this week. I also got to play golf for the first time in ages which has been all I have wanted to do lately. Thursday night was a massive dance party until 4am. Brilliant.
