Wh-
Heyyyy! And we are back!!! Shit. Back on the mainland, down a few hundred dollars (
tassie beer is the best!) and a few hundred brain cells.
Meh, I've got so many I can afford to throw a couple of hundred of the
lil mites out to sea.
Bon Voyage my darlings!
As for money....
yeh, well, can't afford to throw much of that away. I'm scared to look at my bank statement. I know it was nudging at 3 grand before I left, but now I'm just hoping it can reach to 3 dollars so I can buy myself the coke to put the bourbon from my flask into (go me for managing to save it- puked up quite
a lot on the ship though. Bloody sea sickness.
blahh).
I hit the mainland's shores again on Sunday morning, but have been up to my perky
lil titties in school work since then. Had my last SAC for the week today, which I
could've used those brain cells for that I threw away at sea, but
meh, they are at the bottom of the Bass Strait now which is the same place that that blasted SAC is going to go once I get it back.
Ohh... unless I
surprise me fine self and get a top mark, which has happened before because my talents can surprise even my fine self by their sheer.....
ahh......... awesomeness.
Yehh..
I was in
TassieMania for a week and me Gawd, it was
freaken awesome!! To sum the whole thing up a few words... I'll have to go with: beer, camping, driving, farting, laughing and.....
ahh..... ghosts. That's right! Ghosts! More on that later...
But those few words don't do my exciting-fan-
tabulous-awe-
freaken-some expedition to
TassieLandingStripMania justice. So reckon I had better run you kids (both of you) through the highlights (briefly though brew).
Despite using sea-bands and taking tablets I was still sick as a dog on the ship and by 3am I was saying fare-thee-well to everything I'd eaten that day and pulling chunks of roast beef out of my nostrils. I'll pause here just so you can truly get a mental image of that.
Got it?
Great. I'll continue.
Our ship sailed into
Davenport at 8am on the Monday morning and the first thing we laid eyes on was the
McDonald's across the road, so once on shore we made a bee-line for the cultural
tassie dishes of Bacon and Eggs
McMuffin and
Hash browns with chocolate
thick shakes. Once we'd overcome the shock of the chairs in the
tassie Maccaz being red we settled down and read the newspaper that informed us of the mighty Hawks being in
Launceston that very day. A quick discussion later and we on the road to
Launceston cracking open our stubbies of Carlton and trying to figure out where all the
tassie devils were. I had expected to see people walking them around on leashes, but alas, what locals were up at the ungodly hour of 8am were walking their mothers on leashes.
Paa-poo!
Launceston was only an hour or so down the road and by the time we got there the sun was a-burning our skin through the window of Prick-Poo (my mate's
Camry). We hit the caravan park, set our tents up on the hill and proceeded to drink more. The boys went into town to get a tarp and a torch while me and
Cint lazed in the sun keeping our cameras at the ready for
tassie devils.
A few beers later and I suddenly noticed how steep the hill was that we had mounted our tents on.
"
Cinta?"
"
Hmm?" came her reply from beneath the shade of her hood.
"This hill *burp* may just
prove to
ahh..... be a bit of a hazard *burp* later"
"
Mmmm"
More beers later and the boys came back.
"We should go down to the oval soon"
"
Yeahh"
"I wanna get my ball signed by Buddy"
"
Yeahh"
"When we gonna go?"
"Soon"
"When?"
"After this beer"
A few more beers later.
"We gonna go soon?"
"
Yeahh"
More beers. More sun. A sleep or two.
"Shit we need to go get more beer"
"There's still a couple left and there's a bottle of
Bundy, a bottle of Smirnoff and a bottle of Jimmy in Prick Poo"
"Cool."
More beers. More sun. A sleep or two.
"Shit"
"What?"
"The Hawks would've left the oval by now"
"
Ahh don't worry. We'll still get your ball signed. I'm sure they're in a nightclub in town somewhere trying to rape someone."
"Cool"
More beers.
The air became nippy and we hopped inside the shelter of the big tent onto the small fold out table. More drinking, laughing, farting, smoking, sleeping and bullshitting and there was a crack.
"What the..-"
The chair beneath Big Pat snapped in half and the entire table collapsed and we were sprawled on the floor.
"Let's go to the pub"
"Good idea"
Later that night with a carton of VB split between us we were singing and dancing down the main street of
Launceston and ended up at
Maccaz. I had a
burger (apparently), forgot i had it so had another one (apparently) and then forgot I had that one so had another one (apparently), by which point my fellow cow-punchers decided they'd be rolling me back to the caravan park at the rate I was going. So I was booted out the door of
maccaz hollering "But I haven't had anything to eat yet!!". And somehow, we made it back to the park.
The others made it up the hill and climbed into the warmth of the tents and out of the freezing
tassie night air while I and my portion of VB popped down to the toilets. I then proceeded to climb the hill to the tents and was croaking out "
Cinta!
Cinta! I can't get up this
fuckin hill with these
fuckin beers!!" when next minute I was rolling down it, leaving a trail of VB cans in my wake.
Cint stuck her head out the tent flap and found me at the bottom of the hill lying in a gutter of dirt,
suspicious liquid and beer cans from that day.
"What are you doing?" she laughed.
"Sleeping"
I know i woke up the next morning in the tent so not sure what happened in between the
rolly-
polly time and the morning but I'm trying to stay positive.
Over a
brekkie of beers we learnt from one of the thousands of brochures we'd taken from the ship that the
Boag's brewery was in that town. We cleaned the dirt out of our ears and nostrils, packed up our tents then set off into town.
We payed $25 to do a tour of the brewery, which I naturally
assumed we'd do with beers in our hands at all times or at least be able to stick our heads into the tanks and drink our fill, but this wasn't to be the case. We wandered up and down stairs, through corridors and out into the yards of the brewery all with the smell of hops, wort and wheat in my nostrils while I got gradually thirstier and angrier. By the end I wanted to kill the ugly tour guide and drink his blood just to see if it tasted like beer.
Finally we trudged back to the brewery office where there was actually a bar. I
nearly fell over with exhaustion from the wait. The fridge was stocked with all of
Boag's beers and I licked my lips, mumbling "Come on you rotten bastard" while the tour guide handed around cheese.
If we wanted fucking cheese we would've gone to a fucking cheese factory! Not a fucking brewery you skinny prick!!We eventually were given a 'beer tasting' (who honestly drinks beer for
the taste?) which gave each of us about one standard drink in total. I was fuming. A half bottle of
Boags Premium sat upon the bar still once the other people in the tour group had wandered away so I guzzled it.
We went down to the pub for lunch and the other Cow Punchers sat in the beer
garden while I chatted to the bar maid somewhat
tipsily about being a bar maid. More beers.
Looking at our map of the Great Landing Strip we spotted a large lake in the National Park a few hours drive south where we could fish, camp, have an open fire and make
nuisances of ourselves. Back in Prick Poo we headed south. More beers. Sleeping. More beers.
It was strange going through so many towns that looked like they were cut straight from British travel
brochures.
"Who needs to go to Europe? Just come to
tassie"
It was getting towards the late afternoon when Prick Poo began to climb the
mountain that the lake was meant to sit at the top of when we were meeting four-wheel-drive after four-wheel-drive.
"Shit. Hope Prick Poo can make it"
"She'll be right"
Higher still and Prick Poo was growling under the strain.
"
Carn Prick Poo" We all began to chant.
The tracks wove higher, became narrower.
"
Carn Prick Poo!"
Then one of the four-wheel drives coming from the other direction slowed and wound down his window. He puffed on a
ciggie through stained fingers and a dirty grey moustache and looked at me and
Cinta in the back with a filthy leer.
"
Get's reallllll steep" He slurred.
"It
gets steeper?" Big Pat asked.
Filthy Grey nodded and rolled away down the
mountain without a word.
We sat on the track and looked up the steep slope of the mountain.
"Reckon he's just being a cunt?"
"I don't want to risk it" Big Pat said firmly.
"He's probably just a cunt."
"All we've met so far are four-wheel-drives. That's a pretty good indication of how steep it is."
"We're come this far though."
Big Pat reversed Prick Poo back down the track and swung around on the elbow, "Well next time we'll bring your car and fuck it up on some mountain."
Spirits dampened we drove back down the
mountain trying not to think of the wonderland that
could've been waiting for us atop that
mountain.
The light continued to gradually fade and and we consulted our map of the Landing Strip again.
"There's no more caravan parks till the outskirts of Hobart"
"Well then."
We cruised into the park at the last light of day and set up our tents in the semi dimness on the edges of a massive lake that supplied us with ducks everywhere.
"Duck for dinner anyone?"
A BBQ dinner and we retired to the semi warmth of our tent for more beer and card games, later finding entertainment in the drunken teenage lesbian show that was happening in the cabin a few meters away. They sang loudly and danced to bad country songs till the owners hurried over to bang on the glass door and yell at them to keep it down. We continued to be loud and drunk with our radio till someone stuck their head out the window and screamed at us to shut the fuck up.
And that's all for now kids. Study calls. By which I mean sleeping in the sun with the bottle of coke.
For me, he's like custard.
