Tasmania Day 2

 My bus to Bichano went up the East Coast, which meant I was absolutely glued to the window, snapping pictures at everything we passed. Twas a rather empty bus which ended up being just my by the end of it. I ripped kiwifruit apart with my fingers all trip (a knife and spoon would've been a good move, but I've gotten the process down to a T).. I got out of the bus at a point as well to collect a few interesting looking shells. Once I got to Bichano it was apparent that either my phone was not working, or I just didn't know some secret necessary code to contact people [this ended up being the case]. I didn't see my host, and went to the info center with no luck. After 20 minutes I found the internet cafe to message him from. Immediately I got a response and he was there right away, apologizing for waiting at the wrong place and not seeing me.

His name was Mick Shepherd, but the town knew him as Shep, the boat skipper. Not too tall, pleasantly plump, and an extremely tanned 51 year old. On our drive back to his place, in this < a thousand person town of Bichano, he waved to the many passersby he knew and showed me various beautiful lookout points and beaches. It was a real paradise there with waters bluer than I'd ever seen. After settling in my room, we snacked on cashews and macadamia nuts whilst he explained to my extremely confused self, the way the cricket works. To be honest, most of it went over my head, which I mainly blame on his extremely thick Aussie accent. If I had a massive Aussie 50 cent piece for every time I said 'what?'...

We drove half an hour to Coles Bay, passing by Wine Glass Bay as well. En route he finally imparted upon me the truth of his trade. Though he skippered regularly now, often for a 6 [6?!] star resort that sounded unreasonably amazing, he was trained as a pastry chef. We exchanged food loving stories, and I was left drooling at menus of various dining events he's catered in the past (hear this, some oyster in multiple ways, including one where he put bacon under the oyster, added some worcester sauce, and covered in puff pastry, making a play on an oyster pie. The bacon protected the oyster from the heat on the bottom.

After taking heaps of pictures at Coles Bay, we stopped at his friend's house. I was greeted by 3 loud jumpy dogs and entered one of the most architecturally beautiful and modernly decorated homes I've ever seen. The windowed walls led to a gorgeous view and the non-windowed walls were decorated with fabulous art work. Not a big place, but such a sight. The company was 2 couples, around the same age as Shep. He had gone to school with most of them, and alternated his skippering with one of them. I had a few glasses of white wine and really loved the extremely different kind of company. They were all really funny and had great yarns.

Afterwards, the Shep-Safari trip began as we off roaded in the dark to see the various creatures so foreign to me. Possum were quickly spotted, and though I thought they would be the same as what I was used to in the States, holy hell was I wrong. the king in madagascar is the closest thing I could relate them to... they were quite large and had raccoon like features. Eventually I also saw quite a few kangaroos, but no pictures were taken. [note to self: must fine in day light] As we closed in to home, our search for penguins heightened, and lo- and behold, I was able to see heaps of them. They were so cute and small, looking quite lost and blue. epic win.

Once we got home, 60 minutes went on and we prepared dinner. One job, I had one job. Peel the fucking potatoes, and man I was slow as shit compared to when Shep took over. Nonetheless, a whole chicken and various vegetables were put on the barbie, and after anticipatory waiting, dinner was served with beer accompaniments. It was sooooo good. Chicken is often my "blah, yea, sure..." kind of meat... the kind where I'll always eat it, but it's never the first choice. This though was epic. Our night closed watching the food network and I passed out at like 10, absolutely pooped.

Come 6:30am I was up and moving, prepping for my 7:45am (holy hell) bus to my next stop, Launceston. Toast with jam and kiwifruit filled me up, and all I could do was regret the fact that I could only stay for that one night. If I had time for one more, we would've gone fishing to catch dinner for the next night, but I'll just have to go back one day.

After a quick good bye at the site of the bus, which was actually more of a school bus taking kids to class on the way, as one of the two people on the bus over 15 years old, I was off for day 3.