Tasmania

Ah drunken promises, sure we're all guilty of them, but be warned sometimes they actually come true and you find yourself on a plane to Tasmania on Christmas eve! Like all good fairytales our story began once upon a time many months ago in Laos. While floating down a river in a tube we came across a bunch of boys, we mean men, from Tasmania. Roll on three days, many more trips down the river, buckets of rum, shots of tequila, and alot of drunken talk and we were fully convinced to book flights to Tassie for Christmas and New Years!  In all fairness to us, how could we not take them up on the offer, they sold it so well. Tassie was apparently the most wonderful place in the world, the real capitol of Australia, home to the legend  MaxiTaxi (Brads mum)  who had been endlessly described as the best woman in the world, pure quality. We had pinky promised that we wouldn’t back out so there was no doubt in our mind whether we were going or not. The guys must be a bit shakey on the rules of pinky promsing though because they were surprised when we had actually booked things. We say surprised but poor Brad nearly had heart failure when he had to tell his mother he had promised two Irish girls that they could come to their house for Christmas dinner!  First stop on arrival was chez Doran's where we got a great reception, finally meeting the legend MaxiTaxi. Brad then gave us the grand tour of Launie, i.e the gorge and the rugby club! 

  That evening we went to the rugby club for a quite Christmas eve drink, and well ended up literally swinging from the rafters. Suddenly it was four in the morning. Better get home or Santa won't come...

Waking up on Christmas day ( jingle bells, jingle bells) to the sunshine  in Tasmania was surreal.  If anybody had told us a year ago we’d be there, we would have said your crazy sista! But thats the joys of traveling. Maxi Taxi and Mike could not have done more for us. We were like children when she surprised us with presents.  It was almost as good as the time Annie got a sindey 4x4 from Santa (almost :p). Nothing can describe the food we had that day, bare in mind we’ve been in Asia up until this point. Suddenly we had not just a regular supply of food in a house but a christmas supply! The fridge and presses were bursting with food and oh dear lord they had dairy products- cheese how we’ve missed you. Before dinner had even been served we had devoured, and we mean DEVOURED a platter of cheese, crackers and dip. At the start we politely took some and went back for more, but by the end we had no shame and ate until they were gone. Maxi Taxi out did herself for the mains, those potatoes will go down in history and then the desert- at least a cheesecake and a half between us. We were stuffed! But somehow had room for toasted sandwiches an hour later.

It seemed every relative of the Dorans had showed up for dinner that day, nanny Pat and nanny Peg,uncles,aunts, cousins, there were so many of us that we had the first Shed Christmas dinner to accommodate a table big enough for us all. And the big question on everyones mind was which one of us was Brad going out with?? Well neither of us. He explained this to them, we explained this to them, the other guys explained this but no one believed it. At one point when Annie and Brad were in the garden setting up the table, they looked around to find every female member of the family peering out the window at them..subtle! Being our first Christmas away from home, especially so far away you would expect us to be a little upset, but we actually had possible one the best Christmas we’ve ever had (aside from Christmas 97 when Annie got a sindey 4X4).


The Dorans made us feel so welcome, we couldn’t have asked for more! Just when we thought the day couldn’t get any better, the Doran Christmas shed party started to rock. Reunion time with the Tassie boys from Laos and we did what we all do best, drank the heads of ourselves. If only we had had tubes it would have been like Laos all over again!!

Before we got to Tassie we had asked Brad would he be able to get his hands on a tent for us for our trip down the coast and the music festival, his response was that he might be able to get his hands on something. Eh slight under exaggeration. Tassie folks take camping seriously!! We were expecting a patched up two man tent that would hopefully withstand a gust of wind. But oh no, Brad was equipped- we had a four man tent, complete with gazebo , full cooking supplies, a solar panel fridge, tables and chairs. All that was missing was a wide screen TV. Oh and the most important thing of all, the Yute. Thats a pickup to most people. Brad was up early the next morning and had it packed to the brim with everything one would need for a camping trip. And so we were ready to go on our camping adventure.


Our first stop was Bridspoint, where the Dorans camp every year. If we thought Brad was prepared for camping it was nothing compared to Maxi-taxi.  He obviously learnt from the best, she had everything you could ever need including a microwave.  We went full Tassie that night donning our new Aussie hats (thanks brad), cooking up the left overs of xmas dinner on the BBQ. Sherry got to fulfill another life long dream and "put some shrimp on the barbie" just like a true Aussie and Alf Stewart. We were treated to damper made in the camp fire that night. What's damper you say? We didn't know either! It's  kind of like scones but made out of just flour and soda. Maxi taxi is known as the Damper queen and we could tell why, it was sooooo good. We continued our food binge and devoured it...Swearing the diet would start in the morning! Unfortunately the next day we had to say goodbye to Maxi-taxi and mike (probably a good thing for our waistlines!) to make our way to Hobart. We took the scenic route there. Tassie is as small as Ireland, we could have made it in a few hours but we went to all the hot spots along the coast. We put scouts to shame at our stop in Coles bay, setting up and unreal camp in the wilderness. Altough Annie struggled with cutting the firewood. In hindsight, seeing as there were huge bush fires in the area only a few days later, our camp fire probably wasn't the best idea, but we had it under control we swear. Maria island was our next stop, a national park with no shops, restaurants etc There was a museum though, that gave the history of the island..through song no less, our favourite was the 'Maria island has a king' we can remember two lines but that doesnt stop us belting them out.

The most shocking thing we learnt about Tasmania was that Tasmanian devils are real, not just a cartoon character 'Taz'. Nope they're real. But not only are the real, they are really diseased and dying out. A healthy stock were put on Maria island a few months ago to try and increase their population. Equipped with binoculars we went hunting for them but alas the escaped us, we did however find kangaroos, possoms, wallabies and wombats.

Every story we have from home seems to start with 'when we were at this music festival..' so it seemed only fitting that we got a festival in on our travels! Going to falls music festival for new years was one of the selling point (aside from Maxi-taxi) for us to go to Tasmania. It's the social highlight of the Tassie year! Our first point of call was to get ourselves in some sort of decent state after camping for the week- ten showers later we were  slightly recognisable. Second on the agenda was buying alcohol supplies for the weekend, Annie's first introduction to goon. The drink of choice among 16 year old Aussies and poor backpackers! 4 liters for 10 dollar, yes please! Our third task was the biggie, sneaking the drink into the festival. We were warned repeatable that alcohol is not permitted at falls. Eh relax people, its not allowed in Irish festivals either- you just poor it into water bottles and you'll be grand...Nope not in oz. They cannot be fooled by this so called fool proof technique!! Its 100% not allowed in and if your caught, they not only take your alcohol but they take your ticket from you and kick you out!! very extreme..and therefore we went to very extreme lengths to get the alcohol in. They do full car, boot, bag searches so you really have to commit. We choose the car door route. What's that you say? Well basically, we put all the drink into plastic water bottles, took the door panels off, taped all the bottles in and then screwed back on the doors!! They have been known to catch on to this, if the doors rattle and hang down! We later learnt some other ingenius and meticulous methods, some people had built fake floor on the bottom of the yute's, fake bottoms on the inside of fridges. We even met one group who using syringes had taken all the juice out of capri sun bottles and the syringed in vodka! If theres one thing that will bring out peoples creative side its the thought of paying full price for alcohol for three days of solid drinking.

So with our alcohol stowed we were ready to go. A quick 8am Kopparberg breakfast and we were ready to rock. We met the rest of the car convey and hit the road. The guilty head on the three of us going into the festival. There were warning signs about alcohol everywhere,and as we passed the last 'amnesty point' to drop off the alcohol we were feeling the heat, play it cool guys! We had heard loads of theories on how to avoid getting searched, stick to the left lane, go in before this time etc! We were last in the convoy and signalled to the right hand side..eek! but alas with a flash of a smile and an Irish accent we were waved through woowoo!! It was only when we were through and safe we kind of got dissapointed, all our effort and they didnt even check! What a waste, damn it, we should have brought more in!!! Everyone else got in and thank goodness all the different smuggling approaches worked and we had enough drink to not only supply us for the weekend but possible to start a small bottle-o if we wanted.

We all set up camp togther, forming a little tent village. We had set up the tent so much in the last week we had it down to a T and literally had tent, canopy, the sleeping and drinking area set up in minutes. Within a half an hour we had all the alcohol freed and started the pattern for the next few days, drinking, singing, dancing and fun.

The first day we got to see our child hood hero Coolio! Rodrigous  and Gabriell and the highlight of two door cinema club. Quick sleep, wash of the face and we were ready to go again. Well almost. Everyone was a little ill after the previous days drinking, and was a bit of a struggle to drink. Theres one thing to solve this- a friendly game of DRINKSHEEN!This game we invented in helium a few years ago, its pretty straight forward- every minute you have to shout drinksheen and take a drink. Not to be confused with eh power hour. DRINKSHEEN is much better, and guaranteed to cure all hungoverness and promote fun times. By the end every word must end in SHEEN, as in ANN-SHEEN, SHER-SHEEN, BRAD-SHEEN etc..It was also a major day of bonding with our new bessies, Katie, Tyler and Nick (i.e our gays!). Annie had been admiring Tyler's outfit and when she found out he was going out with Nick she proclaimed- oh that explains the fashion! After venturing down to the stage for a few hours to see some bands we all wandered back to the tent area to top up supplies. It was at this point shit got cray cray! After Brad body dived onto the canopy (nobody knows why!!) the guys started fighting with the poles (eye roll, boys are so stupid and immature). We're not sure how it happened but suddenly we were in the midst of it (after first checking it was covered by our travel insurance) and we were going hell for leather, were lucky no one lost an eye!

After that out came the glow stick, mexican hats (from where we don't know) and we were ready to ring in the new year. Hands down, without doubt it was the best new years, we've ever had! The only downside was when we got back to the camp and our tent had been attacked and was just a pile on the ground. Poor Sherry thought that Annie was inside and was dead until she heard a voice coming from a few tents down. When Annie had come home and seen the tent, after a few pitifully attempts to fix it she had hijacked someone elses tent!

Oh so much fun. The only downside..The hangover...What's worse..It was a goon hangover..Oh goodness new years day 2013 was by all means a rough day for us! For the first time since we left we watched TV, in fact we watch about 7 hours of family guy in a zoombie like state! We tried to redeem ourselves the next day by heading to the Mona museum and Taste of Tasmania, still not quite recovered from the weekend.

 It was an emotional goodbye with Brad but he pinky promised us he would come visit us in Ireland and we all know now if you pinky promise you can't back out :)