Tasmania, Rugby, Footy Pictures

The Haka

Tasmania, and some sports.

I spent a glorious weekend seeing as much of Tasmania as I could in three days. Me and my usual band of cronies, Kev, Colleen, and Zsoka, were joined by an Australian, Georgie, and a German living in Finland, Kaarina. We flew into Hobart Friday morning, picked up our rental car, and began driving Northwest towards the more rainforesty (that's a word) section of the island. On the way, we stopped at a gigantic hydro-electric dam in Tarraleah. Our next stop was a small hike to a large waterfall, Nelson Falls. Bounding across the rocks, I leapt to the foot of the waterfall, and stepped in the ice cold water. It was wonderful. This area of Tasmania really reminded me of the South Island of New Zealand. Many people in Australia had told me that there was no need to go to Tasmania if I had already been to New Zealand. Lucky for me, I ignored them. After the hike, we made our way to a town called Queenstown (there everywhere) where we had to drive down a precarious winding road to reach the town. Stocking up on food, we continued Northwesterly, until we arrived at our camp site in Cradle Valley. Unfortunately, it was dark and pouring rain when we arrived at the campsite. So, instead of getting out of the car and setting up camp, we just slept in the van. The next morning, it was still raining, but we made our way to Cradle Mountain. We did a nice two hour hike in the wind and rain around Dove Lake. After the hike we began driving east across the northern region of Tasmania towards Launceston, the second largest city in Tasmania. We then continued on the way to the Eastern coast of the island and again slept in our van, this time at Coles Bay. On Sunday, we woke up and made our way down the Eastern Coast to Wineglass Bay. It was a beautiful hike, and culminated at the beautiful Wineglass Bay. A pristine white beach, surrounded by mountains, hugging crystal clear blue water. Unfortunately, my friend Colleen sprained her ankle on the hike down to the beach. She gutted it out though, and made it to the end. After the great hike, we made our way down to the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park in Port Arthur. Sadly, the Tasmanian Devil is going extinct in the wild due to a mouth cancer that is spreading rapidly through their population. Since they are very aggressive (see videos posted), they bite each other in the face, therefore passing on the virus. Since the late 90s, scientists estimate that the population of Tasmanian devils have declined by 20 to 50 percent. At conservation centers like the one at Port Arthur, they are trying to slowly breed the seven healthy Tasmanian Devils they have. It was a lot of fun seeing the Tasmanian Devils in action, but also sad because it reminded us that they might be extinct in the wild within ten years. That night, we did a ghost tour through Port Arthur. Port Arthur, a former convict colony and home to a large prison, was the scene of the worst mass murder event in post-colonial history. The ghost tour was a lot of fun. I was tasked to hold the lantern at the end of group and proceeded be "that guy," you know, the guy who tries to scare his friends on a ghost tour. That night, we drove back to Hobart. The next morning, Kev and I flew back to Melbourne on Anzac Day. The next couple of weeks have been spent finishing up the semester, and going to sporting events. I was lucky enough to got a Rugby League match between Australia and New Zealand. I have learned recently that there are two different types of Rugby, Rugby Union and Rugby League. Rugby Union is what they play at the Rugby World Cup and is the more popular version of the sport worldwide. Rugby League is played predominantly in Australia, New Zealand, England, and France. The famous "All Black" from New Zealand are therefore a Rugby Union team. I did however get to see the New Zealand Kiwis perform the Hakka before the match. It was fantastic. Australia won, but other than the haka, I was bored by the match. I then went to an Australian Rules Football match, otherwise known as footy, between the two teams at the top of the standings. Footy is a sport played predominantly in Victoria, but every major city, other than Darwin, has a team in the 16 team premier league. I got to see the Geelong Cats, winners of two of two of the three last championships, against the Collingwood Magpies, the team at the top of the standings. Geelong pulled away from the Magpies in the third period and ended up winning by thirty. It was a fantastic atmosphere at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with around 85,000 screaming fans in attendance. I then was lucky to see Australia play there last friendly in Australia before the World Cup. They were playing their rivals, New Zealand, ironically nicknamed, the "All Whites." It was a sloppy game full of dirty tackles, but did end with Australia scoring the winning goal 3 minutes and 13 seconds into injury time of the second half. To compare the popularity of the sports, there were about 55,000 fans at the soccer match. My classes ended last week, but I have three papers to write before I will feel fully free. In interesting Australian News, Israel Folau, one of thee best Rugby League players in the world, is strongly considering signing with one of the two expansion teams entering the AFL (Australian Football League) next year. This is the Australian equivalent of Michael Jordan leaving the Bulls to play baseball. Also, the Labour government is attempting to implement a 40% super tax on the mining industry in Australia. They argue that the mining industry is getting rich off minerals that belong to all Australians and that some of the profits should be going towards social welfare programs. The Liberal Party argues that the mining industry is Australia's most successful industry, and that this super tax will cripple the industry that helped Australia avoid (thus far) the global recession. Already, the mining industry is saying they have had to halt some project because of the proposed tax. This could end up being the linchpin issue in the national election in November. Anyway, I have exactly a month left in this amazing country. One more great trip to the Great Barrier Reef left, and of course, my goodbyes to Melbourne. Back in New York City June 27.

2 Tasmania videos