tassie tassie tassie

My sophomore, junior and senior year of high school I went on a trip with just my friends.  Sounds crazy, right?  My birthday always aligned nicely with winter break, combine that with super cheap tickets back in the day ($100 round trip) and some willing friends, and bam - unforgettable trips were created when a few o.f us headed to Utah for a week to ski and see family.  It wasn't always the same crew each year but the trips were just as fun and memorable.  I felt like I was on top of the world being on vacation with my friends.

A week ago I got that same fluttering feeling of excitement in my stomach when we met up with our dear friends Kyle, Jess and Bastian for a crazy Tasmanian adventure.  Jess is from Tasmania so she and Kyle willingly planned a trip for all of us to and explore what seemed to be untouched beauty.  I've never been anywhere quite like it - although the people made the trip to be honest.  We were a two-car caravan that traversed the island and had a blast while doing it.  Memorable highlights included getting lost on back roads, hiking in the cold, exploring in the pouring rain, being threatened by hungry emus, sharing funny stories over the walkie-talkies, rescuing a stranded camper, playing with family/cousins and competing to see who could find the coolest roadkill.
 
We arrived in Tasmania and were greeted with a quick downpour and then a beautiful rainbow - how often do you get to see the whole thing?  We drove to Hobart and ventured around Salamanca market looking at all the different foods, trinkets, woodworkings, art, jewelry, clothing, crafts, and treats for sale. 

We then got in the car(s) and continued on ZooDoo, a local wildlife park.  A place like this would never fly in the states - too much liability - but that's what made it so amazing.  We took an open-range bus tour where we were able to feed emus, ostrich, camels and alpaca.  It was like a scene from Jurassic Park as we entered the emu pen - the bus sped off and the crazy, red beaded-eyed birds with beaks like a butcher knife ran alongside us staring us down at 40mph.  Yikes.  I hid my food and had to keep reminding myself, "so many people have done this before, they most likely won't attack" but then again I wasn't sure. 

The ostrich and alpacas were just as 'friendly' but I had normalized once we reached the camels and even let Spencer take a picture of me near one.  I don't think I'm an animal person :)  We were able to play with a koala and enter a large pen/field with kangaroos, wallabies, emus, goats, sheet, deer and a myriad of other usually wild animals.  All in all it was the best animal encounter I've ever heard of, been to and probably will ever have: worth every penny and then some. 

**edited later - it's true it's true, as it says in Spencer's comment the trip was far crazier and amazing than my writing could ever describe.  And I failed to mention that the day started off with Spencer having to drive a manual on the left hand side of the road - think about that for a minute - now imagine how hard we were laughing.  truly the trip of a lifetime**