AUSTRALIA - DAY SIX - Launceston

Previous Blogs: Day 1 Portland & Honolulu | Day 2 Oahu | Day 3+4 Melbourne | Day 5 Williamstown | Day 6 Launceston | Day 7 Cradle Mountain | Day 8 Road to Hobart | Day 9 Port Arthur | Day 10 Apollo Beach | Day 11 Port Fairy | Day12+13 Southern Ports | Day 14 Kangaroo Island | Day 15 Kangaroo Island | Day 16 Kangaroo Island | Day 17 Adelaide | Day 18 Adelaide | Day 19 Adelaide Hills | Day 20+21 Uluru | Day 22+23 Alice Springs | Day 24 Darwin | Day 25 Darwin | Day 26+27 Port Douglas | Day 28 Daintree | Day 29+30 Gold Coast | Day 31+32 Brisbane | Day 33 Brisbane | Day 34-36 Hawaii

Click photos for a larger image...

We were up bright and early to catch our flight to Tasmania. The flight is only a little over and hour and we flew in an ATR 72 with Quantas airlines.

Tasmania is an island off the South Coast of Australia about 150 miles from the mainland. The island is a fair size - about 220 miles from coast to coast.

We flew into Launceston (pronounced lawn-ses-tin) the second largest city in Taz with a population of 70,000.

It's been 15 years since I last drove a car on the left side of the road, so driving in from the airport was interesting to say the least. But you soon get used to it. What bugs me the most is the turn signals  are on the opposite side - so I keep turning the wipers on every time I make a turn! Wendy has made a "deterrent" and put on the wipers so that we immediately feel it and realize - OOOOPS!  WRONG LEVER! 

We did rent a GPS to make life easier.

We arrived at 10 am and headed straight to Cataract Gorge - what locals and tourists call an "oasis within the city".

A suspension swinging bridge, made me nervous!

It's a quaint town with interesting architecture, a combination of Early Colonial, Victorian and Art Deco.

Launceston is surrounded by rolling hills - this is the view from our hotel room.

After all that hiking, it was time for a craft beer at a little local pub!

And YES! We finally found pies! Wendy had Chicken and Camembert, mine was Beef and Mushroom.

Heaven!!!!

Tasmania has a long history of making craft beers and there actually is a beer trail you can follow: www.tasbeertrail.com. There are also two large breweries.

Tasmania is a part of Australia, it is a state. Australia does not have provinces like many other British Commonwealth countries.  Just like the USA, there are different States and a Governor for each state - there are 6 states with their own constitution and legislature.

Each state has it's own state police force in addition to the Australian Federal Police who handle cross state line crime, like the FBI does in the USA. There are no county sheriffs or city police forces. Unlike England, Australian cops do carry guns.

Tomorrow we start on the Great Tasmanian Road Trip.

And finally...

Shopping in a local supermarket for our dinner.

Publix REALLY needs to consider getting shopping baskets like these, they have wheels!!

Liquor stores are called Bottle Shops in British Commonwealth countries.

This one is called the 911 Bottleshop. What an appropriate name for a liquor store, sure feels like an emergency when you run out of booze!

What's even funnier, is that the Australia emergency dial number is not 911, it is 000!!!

What do you do when your truck dies?

No problem, turn it into a trailer!!

In the infamous word's of Spencer (you know who you are)... "They're gonna die."

Yup. That's me.... I'm gonna die!!!!  This driving on the wrong side of the road crap is nerve racking as hell and I need some serious Xanax!!!!

I was positive Bruce was going to pull over at a hardware store to buy Duct tape and zip ties to throw me in the trunk just to shut me up.  But he didn't.  However, if I don't get my freaking out level under wraps soon, the Great American Road Trip in Australia may be spent abandoned at the first train station he comes across.  

Wish me luck!!!