The slow day

Jan 17th, 2008 by Nick

Every vacation this long needs some slow days. Rather than trying to jam in another destination, I had booked one extra day in Sydney, Melbourne, and on Tasmania. Today is essentially the extra Tassie day - I’m being a bum and not doing very much other than catching up on doing nothing.

The drive from Bicheno to Launceston was rather boring once you got to St. Mary’s. I decided to skip St. Helens and go through something called the “Elephant Pass.” It turns out that the local mountain is Mount Elephant, and the pass sends you along the mountainside for about 20 km. 10km of it is extremely windy, recommended speed of 25 kph. That was a lot of fun, and some interesting scenery; I would like to do it in a car with better handling. After that, the drive was very flat through the grass ranges, very boring.

Right now, I am at the Country Club of Tasmania. It is a little resort about 8km southwest of Launceston. It has a highly rated golf course, a very small casino, and a nature preserve. For A$149 including free high-speed internet (worth about A$30), it is a very nice little place. On a Thursday afternoon, it’s dead quiet.

I’ve been loading photos up onto shutterfly, and while I’m waiting I’m going over to the off-track betting. I thought they did not have show betting in Australia, but it turns out that “place” means what “show” means in the US, and there is no 2nd-place betting. Also, the minimum bet is 50 cents. This is my kind of betting, and I’ll probably hang out there tonight if it gets a little busier. But first I need to go find a grocery store to stock up on supplies for tonight/tomorrow.