A Devil of an Adventure - Part I

It seems that I’ve started taking a trip south of the equator every January (every is a bit of an overstatement since my n = 2). This year’s trip was to Tasmania and began with my barefoot running neighbor dropping me off at SFO. I was extremely thankful, as the convenience and conversation were far superior to anything I would have encountered on Caltrain or BART. I then entertained myself for the many hours of travel with the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (a gift from my brother), the in flight entertainment (Son of Rambow, Nights in Rodanthe), and as much sleep as I could fit in. Finally, a cheerful face and a bouquet of flowers greeted me upon my arrival in Hobart. With what was left of day one, AG and I toured the ship where he’d been living and working for the past month and ate a nice meal out with his lab mates.

Day two began with a short run to pick up the rental car and then a very entertaining breakfast in the people watching sense. In the small breakfast area of the place that we were staying there were three tables: a small table, a medium table, and a large table. An older couple had already filled the small table, and the middle-sized table was covered in dirty dishes, so AG and I sat at one end of the large table. A few minutes later Mrs. Robinson and her beau walked in. They seemed at a loss for what to do. AG and I were trying to make eye contact to say sitting at our table was okay, but they would have none of it. Finally, they asked the staff to clean off the medium table and left to sit outside of the dining room while their table was being prepared. The whole thing felt very strange. We made up all kinds of scandalous tales as to why they needed their privacy. Later, when we were leaving, we saw said couple leaving, him in his Blockbuster uniform and her in her pearls, and excitedly embellished the aforementioned stories.

We then picked up AB and NT and headed off to meet the devil—the Tasmanian devil! AB had recommended an animal park just outside of Hobart that was on our way up to Mt. Roland and our cottage for the evening. We stopped and got to say hello to animals native to the island. True to cartoon form, the Tasmania devils seemed to continuously run in circles. They were cute, but I’m not sure I’d want to be inside their pen with them. They just seemed to have too much energy—more energy than AG even at his most manic. AB explained that the kangaroos liked to be scratched under their necks, and we all followed her lead scratching one kangaroo after another. We had food for both the kangaroos and the wallabies, but the wallabies would not come over no matter how convincingly I tried to coax them. The echidnas were also a big hit.

We had a wonderful picnic lunch at the animal park, and NT introduced us to a N-style sandwich: avocado, tomato, cheese, honey, and chips on bread. Because we were so wonderfully full after lunch, we didn’t think about food again until hours later when we were already at our cottage. We decided to go into the neighboring town, which was several blocks long and large for Tasmanian standards. Unfortunately, it was 7:30 pm on Sunday, and everything was closed! We saw one place that advertised pizza, but it looked more like a second hand shop so we kept going past it without looking in. Finally, at 7:45 pm we gave up and tried the store with “pizza” written on the outside and found that it was in fact filled with local, organic pizza ingredients! But, we were too late. They’d already put in their last pizzas of the evening. Utterly defeated and in desperate need of some sort of food, we settled on eating at the bar/hotel restaurant. In a land filled with fresh, local food, we saw none that that night. AB enjoyed her meal, but I think the only positive for the rest of us was that we were thankful we got some food in us.

Day three began with an adventure in a giant hedge maze. I have always wanted to get lost in a giant hedge maze, and I was really excited about this part of the trip. The touristy hedge maze in Tasmania is cleverly called Tasmazia. We started in a giant hedge maze and then stumbled across a wooden maze with a toilet as the goal! Next, we found the Town of Lower Crackpot inside the giant maze and visited its many smaller mazes: the Confusion maze (my favorite!), a maze that was a replica of the one at Hampton Court Palace in England, a hexagonal maze, and other mini-mazes meant for little kids. After completing the balance maze we found some strange area filled with guillotines and shackles and a spooky house. AG, AB, and I decided to venture into the spooky house to see what it was all about. We made AG go first into the house, I was next, and finally came AB. We had to walk bent over because the ceilings were so low. I kept thinking back to a haunted hayride where I ended up sprinting through the entire thing because I had figured out that if you moved really quickly, you could get through each section before the people could jump out at you. Sprinting was not possible through this dark house, so I instead moved very, very slowly. Right away there had been a spooky noise coming from inside, but it didn’t seem much more than something electronic that had been triggered by us. Around one corner was a welcome bit of light, but it was illuminating a cage with skeletons and such. Funny, but the highlight of the spooky house was actually a relief. Upon seeing it, I was finally convinced nothing was going to jump out at me. We made another turn into a pitch-black hall, and then another, at which point AG jumped and said “Ooooh, there’s some stuff here!” Stuff? I didn’t really know what that meant, but he kept going, so it seemed okay. I was next to turn the corner, and I ran into the stuff and jumped as well. The stuff was simply a piece of string hanging from the ceiling. The combination of the simplicity of the scare tactic that had worked so well on me despite AG’s warning, my heightened emotions from being in a spook house, and the fact that AG had defined the piece of string as “stuff” caused me to break into a fit of hysterical laughter that spread through the whole group. No one seemed to understand what I was laughing at, but everyone seemed to enjoy the laugh. AB made it past the stuff just fine.

Once out from the spook house, we were on a mission (I was on a mission?) to find the rest of the mazes hidden in the giant maze. I stumbled upon a secret passage that led us to the three bears house, the center of the giant maze. Last on our list was the Irish maze, but we were hungry for lunch, so it looked like we weren’t going to find it before heading out. But, surprise! It found us. The Irish maze was only a path painted green—it was no maze at all. Maybe it was an obvious joke from a once British colony?

We then ate at the Pancake Parlour before heading out of town to the Cheese Shop (which had with lots of painted cows outside) and to the Raspberry Farm (where you couldn’t pick your own raspberries). Next, we headed back to our cottage to explore the foot of Mt. Roland and a cave we’d heard about from the owner of the land.