Lovely Lonnie

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Trip Start Jun 24, 2008 Previous
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  Launceston, Australia
Thursday, July 3, 2008

Continuing along with the epiphanies we have been having, Paul and I have come to another conclusion: American beer is really bad.  I mean, Americans have no idea how good beer is outside of the United States.  Content to grit our teeth, close our eyes and choke down watery Bud and Miller products, we just don't realize that one can actually like the taste of beer.  Since coming to Australia, Paul and I have taken to sampling whatever beer is local to the region.  Our favorite so far has been Boag's of Tasmania, which has a rich, creamy and pleasant flavor, but they have all been waayyyyy better than American beers.  Interestingly, we also learned that no one in Australia actually drinks Foster's beer.  You all know the commercials-- "Fosters--it's Australian for beer."  Turns out that that's just good marketing, because it's not sold in Australia.  Something like 90 percent of its sales are exports.  Who knew?  The other funny beer-related item of interest was the drive-in liquor stores that were in abundance in Launceston.  At one, they even had separated the lanes as "express" and "browsing" lanes

Launceston River

.  We thought that was an excellent idea that should be brought back to the States.

As for Tasmania--we decided to flee the cold and rainy part of the country and headed back to the north.  We were a bit disappointed, because we had hoped to check out Hobart.  Hobart is the biggest city in Tasmania and was the first non-native settlement on the island--it actually started as a prison colony.  But we just couldn't take the cold and rain any more, so we headed to Launceston, which the weather report claimed was sunny.  Sure enough, Launceston turned out to be sunny, and we gained an appreciation for the Tasmanian countryside with its rolling green hills, mountains and coastline.  Although we thought the surfers we saw in the water were insane.  Actually, with its hills, farms, cows, beer breweries and cheese, we thought Tasmania was like the Australian Wisconsin.  

Once we got to Launceston, we checked into a cute hotel that was on top of a pub.  Although charming at first, it turned out our room was right over the bar, so we heard the music pretty late into the night.  Who would have thought trivia night at a bar could be so loud?  While in Launceston, we walked to Cataract Gorge, a beautiful nature preserve.  The climb was pretty rigorous, with lots of stairs and we noticed that, while we kept passing people headed down the stairs, we only saw one person walking up the stairs like us, and he was clearly working out

Paul in the Park

.  And crazy.  Eventually, we ran into a nice guy walking his very mean little dog named Loki and he laughed at us.  Apparently, most people walk to the gorge along a much easier path that was straight, paved, and didn't have any stairs.  Of course, we took that path back, but we were rewarded with some stunning views of the city from the top of the hill.

After visiting the Gorge, we headed to the Boag's beer brewery's Centre for Beer Lovers.  The old brewery had been turned into a museum, and we wandered around learning about the history of the Boags family and their brewery.  My favorite part was learning about the old brewery's "vermin eradication machine," which was the cat that lived in the brewery named Oscar.  Apparently there were many cats that held the position for the more than 100 years the old brewery operated, but they were all named Oscar and all were tasked with taking care of the mice and rats so that they didn't get into the hops supply.  In the brewery's books, Oscar's vet's bills were called "repairs to the vermin eradication machine."   Hilarious. 

All-in-all, Paul and I really enjoyed our trip to Tasmania, and Launceston ("Lonnie" to the locals), and would both like to come back in the Tasmanian summertime.  We are now headed back to the "Mainland" where we will spend a night in Melbourne and then begin the trek up the coast towards Sydney. 

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

King's Bridge	Launceston	Cataract Gorge	View of the City
View of the City	The Gorge	Another View of the Gorge	Gorge
Peacock	The River	River in the Gorge	The Hill We Climbed
Look Closely--There's a Rainbow	The River in Launceston	Birchall's--The Oldest Bookstore in Australia	Paul at the Centre for Beer Lovers
Jim Boag's Desk	Portrait of the Vermin Eradication Machine	Boag's Brewery	Beer Barrels
Boag's Brewery	Launceston Town Hall	Drive-in Liquor Store	Church in Launceston
Park in Launceston	Shannon	A View of Tasmania	Tasmania on the Road
Dawn in Tasmania	Shannon's Happy Meal Toy from Launceston McD

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