hobart v1.1

we awoke early in the morning to mrs. clarkson making us brekkie and telling us of the things she had planned. apparently lydia and i have also lucked out with a personal chaffeur and tour guide! we started by taking a drive through hobart. it is a beautiful town framed between the bay of sullivan's cove and the mountains. all of the houses are old, and unique, and non are very tall. they dot the landscape in their pastel colours from on top of their hills. it reminds me of bermuda very much. lydia and i took an immediate liking to it. although mining has helped keep hobart alive, it has never been huge or complicated. as you near the outlying moutains and hills (15 minutes from the central business district) the houses mingle with open green fields. not far from the clarkson's is a house that has horses grazing.

our first stop on the mrs. clarkson tour was errol flynn's primary school. mrs. clarkson had called some people at the hall of records in the morning after hearing what a fan i was. they did not know where he had lived specifically, but they did know his school in sandy bay. it was nice of her, and pretty cool just to say i saw it. we then drove for about 2 hours se from hobart towards the end of the world. the scenery is beautiful, lush and hilly. everything is green. we passed through kingston, huonville and geeveston. in geeveston i had my first meat pie with sauce (ketchup). it was delicious. we then entered the hertz mountain national park where we winded our way into the forest for 30km. after the drive we did the tahune skywalk through the southern forest. some trees were 1000 years old, and we had a great view of them as we walked 40m above ground through the canopy. mrs. clarkson even participated, a great feat as she is terrified of height. the walk ended with a view of the huon and picton rivers, and a helicopter ferrying supplies up the rivers. on the way back we stopped near the entrance of the park to see australia's biggest tree (weight) named the big tree. not original, but massive at 405 tons. i slept through most of the winding trip home, but awoke to catch the sight of the sleeping beauty mountain.

when we got back nikki's parents left for their cottage and lyds, nikki, and I ordered pizza and watched a movie with nikki's friend. we finished off the night by taking in a tutorial of the rules of the afl (australian football league). we watched the game between brisbane and melbourne and asked questions throughout. i think i could have been the peyton manning of the afl.

note: the oscars pretty much sucked. there was no one theme to the night and the speeches were terrible. i am also disappointed that the leafs did nothing at the deadline except sign yanic perrault. i hope 3 times is a charm with him.