"Its a love shack, its a little ol place where..."
Trip Start
Oct 04, 2004
1
53
102
Trip End
Ongoing
Coals bay,
Australia
Sunday, December 19, 2004
We had five days to Christmas Day, so we decided to travel around Tasmania to see as much of the beautiful island as possible. Whilst on the road we would stop at a friends 'shack' in a small holiday retreat called Coles Bay, a hideaway on the East coast for rich Tasmanians.
Due to a lack of cars, Holly had arranged for us to hire a car. Alarm bells started ringing when we found out the name of the hire company, Banger Rentals?! And we weren't wrong; the car was a piece of junk! Gone were the luxuries of power steering, electric windows and air conditioning, that we had become used to in our recent hire cars
08. Our Hire car!!
. Instead we had a rusty, black banger! Well at least the hire company wasn't using false advertising! To top it all off, it was actually more money to rent, than the brand new people carrier we hired in NZ! I shouldn't complain though, it didn't break down and did get us from A to B - if very slowly!So at around 7pm, we pulled into Coles Bay, and after a little bit of searching we found the shack in question, and what a shack! 4 bedrooms, a massive Lounge and Kitchen, and a pool room!
Our delight quickly turned to despair when Holly received a phone call from her dad. Apparently we hadn't actually being given permission to be in the shack; instead the owners had allowed us to stay in their real shack, a building at the bottom of the garden. When opened, it was like we stepped back in a time and arrived in the seventies. It resembled a room from a Butlin's Holiday park, and it looked as though it hadn't been cleaned for a good ten years!
Apparently the building was built by the father, for his son, so when they were down, he could have his own shack away from his parents. It was in such a bad state, we couldn't believe that they expected us to stay here
09. Where we thought we were staying in Coals Bay
! Now I never look a gift horse in the mouth, but if you had seen how many cobwebs were hanging from the ceiling, you wouldn't have wanted to stay there either!After many phone calls to her Dad, telling him how bad the shack was and pleading with him to let us stay in the house, Holly gave up and told us that we really couldn't sleep in the big house. Here was the next problem; as well as the dirt, there was actually only 2 small bedrooms. There were 4 of us at the moment, but with Holly's Mum, Dad, Sister and Brother turning up in the next few hours, things could get a little tight! We had no other choice than find somewhere else to sleep.
So after much moaning, Dan and Hollie decide to sleep in the Speedboat locked in the garage, and T and me were relegated to a tent! Not quite the accommodation we were expecting for our first night - but hey, look on the bright side - its more of an adventure!!
We tried drowning our sorrows in the local pub, but just our luck, it was closed for the staff Christmas party. Food then? Nope all restaurants and shops are closed for Sunday! It just wasn't going our way at all! So our first night was spent sitting in front of a fire, eating sun dried tomatoes rolls - the only food left from lunch.
To top it all off, Holly's parents arrived and actually thought the shack was quite nice! - Well we had spent 3 hours cleaning the bloody place!
