Since I've been fairly busy (not ultra just fairly) at work recently and I've been spending my days after work lounging around and reading, I don't have anything new or novel or otherwise exciting to report. For example, my most exciting news is that I recently found out that Arwen and Aragorn of The Lord of the Rings are actually distant relatives, who knew? I mean one's an Elf and the other a Man, but it's true. They're first cousins (about a thousand times removed on Aragorn's part). Anyway, enough of the geekery.

I apologize for the lack of point to the following long story:

I shall tell you a story of the last night I spent in Tasmania. We had spent the last week driving around the red-headed step child of the main continent of Australia. It was spring in Van Deiman's Land and most of our outdoor adventures had been continually dimmed and damped by the cold rains leftover from winter. By our original itinerary we were slated to camp out once more on a beautiful eastern beach but the skies and the weather channel were threatening yet another storm, so we altered our plans and found ourselves in a small town in the inland hills southeast of our final departure point from Tasmania. This night you see, was our last night on the island. We had spent the day touring a system of caverns not unlike those found here in Virginia. The major difference and most exciting part of these caverns, however, were the glow worms. That's right they're not just plush cute little playthings from our childhood anymore, they are living slimy glowing carnivorous cave dwelling grubs who grow into mosquito like insects.


(place your mouse over the picture to see a real glow worm)

The amazing thing about them though is that they live in colonies, so there are millions of them in one gallery in the cave. The guide shuts off the light and it's like you are looking at the stars in the sky, only slightly green tinted.

Anyway, so after the glow worms we continued on our way stopping only to take pictures with the 3 story tall statue of a Tasmanian Devil by the side of the road.



Thus, we came near dinner-time to a small town in the middle of nowhere Tasmania, which contained a grand total of exactly 1 Inn. It was the only place in the entire town which (somewhat) catered to tourists, there were no hotels, no hostels, no bed and breakfasts. I actually think that the only restaurant in the entire town was also at our Inn. Our hodge-podge group of mostly Canadians and Americans, with a German thrown in for good measure and good jokes, were not to be dissuaded, however. Most of our time in Tasmania had been spent in so-so hostels or in mostly dry tents, with the exemption of Port Arthur where we slept in a nice little vacation apartment, but this was due to a 5 year anniversary of a massacre in the area and can hardly be viewed as an asset.

We had the whole Inn to ourselves, which meant we got our own beds and real beds not just bunk beds. That is until we went down for dinner and found, this being the only place to go in order to get away from home in the entire town, all the 'colorful' folk of the town congregated in the bar/restaurant. We stayed in the bar/restaurant for the rest of the night, again this being the only place to buy booze or food that we could find. There were several games of darts going on and the TVs on the wall blasted what I can only remember as Nascar. We had a wonderful dinner of Hamburgers and fries with all the Cascade Beer we could hold, needless to say I remember little of the rest of the night besides much loud joking and laughing, on our part mostly at the expense of our German friend and the locals surrounding us. This might be a good time to bring up the similarities of Tasmania and West Virginia:

1. Tasmania is more rugged and beautiful ... WVa is more rugged and beautiful
2. Tasmania is much less populated ... WVa is much less populated
3. Tasmanians carry the stigma of the convict era more than the Mainland ... WVa, uh I think many may be descended from outlaws from Scotland and Ireland
4. It is said that Tasmanians are inbred and born with 2 heads ... just like to say that West Virginians are inbred and have buck teeth

(I'm sorry if I have offended any West Virginians or Tazzies)
The next morning I awoke and packed up slightly before my other student travelers and made my way down to the bar/restaurant/breakfast room/reception area where I found my two mainland Australian Guides in a drastically onesided discussion with two locals, apparently still there from last night. I had already made it through the door, however, and was therefore doomed to pull up a stool and stair dumbly at these two (possibly still drunk) Tasmanians. Due to, what I can only claim as, sheer luck I had stumbled into the middle of a body scars competition between the locals. The winner of the competition had a Giant Scar running down most of his thigh (yes I saw this man's thigh) which he claimed to be a shark bite. I must have said something at this point as the two of them looked up and suddenly became aware of both my presence and that I was not Australian, they then began asking several questions about who we were, what we were doing, where we were going, and when we were leaving. When they found that we had both come to and were planning on leaving Tasmania by the over night ferry "The Spirit of Tasmania", the man with the shark scar just about went ballistic. For nearly ten minutes he expounded on how terrible the old boat, "Tasman Ferry" or "Van Deiman Cruise" or whatever, was and how nice and wonderful the new boat was. To hear this man tell it the old boat was like convict life come back to haunt all of the poor Tasmanians who had to go back and forth by her. I was extremely grateful when my fellow travelers finally made it down the stairs and we were able to leave and begin packing up the car. Only to find as soon as we left the room our Australian guides doubled over in laughter. They then explained to me that the old boat and the new boat the man was talking about was were exactly the same boat! It had apparently gone through a name change a couple years before but absolutely nothing else had changed. Thus I considered my self introduce to the true "spirit of Tasmania" once known as Van Deiman's Land.