Republic Bar, North Hobart - DUB:BASS

A well-planned, and well-executed Australia Day weekend unfolded in Tasmania thanks to cheap flights and free accommodation provided by some good friends. Much of the itinerary was not known by the travelling party until we arrived which added to much of the fun for the two girls who hadn't been to Tassie before. Being my third visit to Tas, I still had many boxes I wanted to tick and I still have a few more..

We arrived at Hobart International Airport at 12.30pm in what felt like permanent air-conditioning. I prepared for Aussie Day by growing a beard and smartly matching it with a Bonds Jackie Howe (aka wifebeater) and $1.82 thongs from Big Dub. We were sniffed for fruit by the good-looking Beagle, after which Nhi's bag had passed further scrutiny, I had absent-mindedly proclaimed "Apples..". The luggage carousel was the next stop on the way to the hire car which instantly provided inspiration for photos on our trip..

Freak show photos! Any people who looked like chiggers* or in-breds were prime candidates for our cameras. This guy was a classic. I remember Nhi showing Mat this pic with Mat questioning what was on the back of his neck - when Mat found out it was his hair, he cracked up laughing at the stupidity.

* chigger - Hobart equiv. of a "bogan" - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan#Regional_equivalent_terms for further information

We picked up our bags and headed over to the hire car pick up area where Nhi pretended to take a shot of me but got a snap of dreadlocked guy for our oddball collection. A bit disappointed in getting the Mitsubishi Outlander when I had hoped for a Subaru Impreza, we ventured off in search of Mat's place in South Hobart.


The lovely 70 km/h limited Derwent River bridge has lovely permanent speed cameras mounted on it and the lovely cruise control doesn't maintain the speed on downhill gradients. I don't think I got "pinged" but I would have been close to it.. We had to drive through the CBD to get to the Southern Outlet with the girls asking "is that it?" referring to the size of the city.

The Southern Outlet was a tough challenge for the Outlander as it is quite a steep sustained climb, which after missing my turn off, had to do again as there was little room for error. Second-time lucky, we arrived at Mat's place which had spectacular views of Hobart, the Derwent and Mount Wellington. After changing out of my Brisbane-suitable Aussie Day attire, we headed off with Mat to see Australia's oldest brewery:

Two things were obvious from the above photo: somebody had said to me "Do a wanky laugh pose like on a tampon commercial" and that some of Tassie's roads were old-school concrete.. Being Australia Day and the fact that I was being a tightarse, we didn't go on the brewery tour but the lovely Cascade Gardens across the road were open.

















With the gift store closed, there was only beer drinking to get underway. Pictured in front of Mat in the photo are an Amber Ale, a Blonde and a Premium Light. I also enjoyed, in my own opinion, Australia's 3rd best beer, a Cascade Premium Lager later on. We spent about an hour at the gardens before we were given the arse to make way for what seemed to be a wedding. On leaving, Mat decided to program a few tunes into the automatic jukebox machine..














From Cascade we went for a rally-like trip up to the top of Mt Wellington. With only 2 metres left to drive to the car park, I had to let Nhi out of the car who was threatening to projectile vomit all over me from my mad-az driving skillz. I pwned Mt Wellington - I pwned it good.




Atop Mt Wello, I had the great idea to take my shirt off and climb to the highest part in what would have been 90km/h winds coming straight off Antarctica.







After waiting for what seemed a good 5 minutes for Crystal to take a picture of my stupidity, I quickly returned to shirtdom and enjoyed the view. The feeling of renewed warmth was swiftly replaced with a feeling of freezing my arse off as shown in front of the large concrete pole which I had no idea what its purpose was..





The light and perception of time in Hobart often caught me out on this trip and we were a little pressed for time to get back down the mountain to get ready for the Dub:Bass gig later on in the evening. After picking up a few beers and some more complaints from the girls about my vomit-inducing race driving, we cabbed it into North Hobart.





On arrival at North Hobart, we were decidedly starving and we chose the packed Indian restaurant across the street from the Republic Bar. After choosing to order wine and beers, we got amply toasted waiting an HOUR!! for our food. The service and the wait were ridiculous, both facts were kindly pointed out to the waitstaff by everyone else bar me at the table, however, the food was very good and it hit the spot. After talking some members of the party out of doing a runner, we paid and headed across to the gig.























Ow my freaking ears! The music wasn't that loud, I just like quoting Todd Flanders. I had been keen on visiting the Republic Bar ever since I was last in Hobart as it seems to be the venue of choice for most touring bands. It had the same trashy/grubby feel that I like about The Zoo in Bris and the people inside didn't look too much different. At the front bar was the drum 'n' bass decks and out "the back nine" was the Reggae stage under an open shed.

Mat, connoisseur of DnB, wasn't a big fan of the music on offer as it was quite hard. Hard beats are a fav of mine, so after a few beers I was up on the floor having a jolly good dance - I don't get out much to these type of shindigs as of late.. After an ample amount of dancing, I could tell everyone was ready to call it a night so we left to see if the afterparty was started in the CBD along with picking up some late night greasies. Nothing was happening in the CBD except for two drunk QLDers riding a white pig. We were in bed before 12am Brisbane time.

On the way back home that evening, I had said what time we were going to be in St Helens by, and therefore had calculated what time we were going to wake up in the morning. After being woken up by Mat the next morning, I had noticed that we had lost an hour because I had forgotten the time difference and this had us getting into St Helens at approx. 3pm instead of 2pm - I figured an hour later would mean the water at the beach would be twice as cold..

Before we left Hobart, it was Saturday morning and the Salamanca Markets are one of the items I didn't get to cross off on my original visit to Tassie. So an hour was planned to get through two hours worth of market action. I think passing a billboard with Dr Harry Cooper inspired me to buy my driving hat.

First stop was a quick coffee, which in Tasmania speak, was a 10 minute wait.. We walked with our "coffees to go" around the corner to be faced with another golden example of Tasmanian inhabitants.. As Nhi was taking the happy snaps, the moment got even better when the off-key family began to crank out "Say G'day, and how're ya goin? - Whaddya know, and say g'day.." The "Say g'day g'day g'day g'day g'day" song became an oft-repeated anthem of the trip.

We then proceeded to sashay our way through the market stalls with our very empty stomachs. Before we got our food, I decided to pick up a Blueberry Pound Cake for Kat when we arrived in St Helens.

I pulled into the most obscure looking food vendor and ordered a bag of Dutch Doughnuts, which Nhi is pictured eating, and a cup full of tempura mushrooms.

Whilst I was waiting for my mushrooms to cook, nature called - big time.. I swiftly excused myself from the group and frantically searched for a toilet. The toilet signs at the park end of the markets pointed to each other and I would have spent what seemed a good
three minutes desperately looking for the toilet. After asking a few people, I was pointed up the road, which was about 700 metres up the road. Mat is preparing to take a bite of the cake I bought for Kat out of boredom waiting for me to come back. On route to the toilet, I thought many a time about parkin' one behind a tree as I was experiencing one of the most painful poo sessions ever endured. I only just freed myself from thy pantaloons in time to relieve myself. I ran back to the group and we continued our marketeering.


Just after I had bought a kilo of really delish Huon cherries and my driving hat, my eyes popped out of my head when I saw the pink fudge lady. Freak shot photo op!! After very nicely asking if I could get a snap with her, Nhi and I posed for another one in the collection.




After I made an executive decision, we ended our Salamanca experience and I spun the driving hat around along with donning the new pair of sunnies I acquired from the Dub:Bass gig last night to begin our big drive up to St Helens.





The drive up to St Helens was a dub filled adventure. I nominated the local, Mat, to be my wingman to give me directions from the street directory in front of him. He suggested that we head for Sorell then follow the east coast road to get to St Helens. So for the next 4 sets of signs pointing to Sorell that we passed, I repeatedly asked "Do we take this turn?". I have previously driven from Hobart to Launceston on the inland highway and the road we were taking was all too familiar. Before we approached Bagdad, I pulled over and discovered I was getting a bum steer.

The main aim was to make sure we didn't pass through the inland town of Oatlands. I foolishly decided to pull into Oatlands twice on my HBA <-> LST trip. I resigned to the fact that we had missed Sorell and we could get back onto the east coast road by cutting through Richmond and passing the "Zoo Doo Fun Park". Whatever that was.

On reaching Richmond, Nhi needed to use the ladies but was rejected by the shopkeeper because she hadn't purchased anything. Nhi returned to the car, I requested a lemon ice tea with Nhi not only bringing my ice tea but also a receipt with her name ornately written in calligraphy.

We pressed forward, after letting Nhi drive for a little while, past the spectacular Prosser River (pictured two pics above) and through the towns of Orford and Bicheno. When we got to Swansea, it was time for lunch at a cafe with "duck" in its title. With some great Tassie coast views, we waited again for a delayed meal and I decided to get moving again after the town appeared to be overrun by a Hells Angels convoy.

Driving north again, we passed through the eerie blackened forests just outside of Scamander that had been under threat from major bushfires in December. I love saying Scamander.

St Helens was the next town and to alleviate some passenger's whinging/sick feelings, I requested that the cherries be brought out for consumption. The fun part of eating cherries whilst travelling at 110km/h is spitting the seeds out the window. It was fun for the whole family - even Kat admitted later on that she finds great merriment in doing so.

Yay! We arrived at Katty Kat Kat Kat Kat's place around 3.30pm Tas time.












After an unpack and one of Kat's world famous Chai Affogatos, I called the "travel agent" to see if we were going to be able to fly back from Hobart tomorrow. The news was good, we had to spend another night in Hobart, which meant that we could stay the night at Kat's. The ladies needed to "go", so I had to lead them down the back to the awesome outdoor dunny..













Upon returning from our trek down the "back nine", we let Kat's love affair with Telstra continue..

I then shaved off my beard before suggesting that we all head down to the beach and off we went in Kat's unreal '67 Kingswood..




The beaches at St Helens are completely.. wow!! The sand is really white and powdery, and the surf is so clear that the waves cast a shadow on the sand underneath the water.

As the time was around 4pm Tas time when we got to the beach, no-one except for me was keen on going for a swim. Knowing that this might happen, on the trip up to St Helens, I pledged to "do nudies" if nobody was going to swim with me - so much to everyone's delight, Nhi took one for the team and everyone was spared nudies..

Well, not quite.. The photo above shows Nhi walking out of the freezing water and me still doing up my drawstring on my boardies after we had "exposed bot" to the onlookers at the beach. After thawing out in the fading sun, I had a good catch up with Kat and about an hour later, we headed home after stopping into the bottle-o for a few bottles of red. The drive home was also accentuated by the playing of Kat's "superheroes" cassette..

When we got back to Katty Kat Kat's, I asked Kat if there was a multitude of "blokey" things that needed to be done.. She needed some wood to be put in the back of her trailer for the fire that dinner was to be cooked on. Wanting to go right out of my way to impress Kat, I ordered the girls to help Mat and I lift up what seemed to be an entire short tree into her trailer. Hats off to the girls who toughed out quite a heavy lift without getting too scratched up along the way. I then had the distinguished pleasure of driving the Kingswood back to the cooking area.




After slave driving the girls, we had a another go at the tightrope setup at the front of Kat's house. I completed it first and Nhi had successfully crossed it as well.






















Prior to our pro-Communist solidarity posing, I successfully made Nhi smell my armpit..










The real work began after all of the fun and games. The ladies were inside creating and cooking a large Pumpkin Soup that was accentuated with a hint of ginger. The guys were outside chopping up the tree that was in Kat's trailer. It was my first experience chopping wood and it really burnt my muscles out very quickly. I now want to take up woodchopping as an extracurricular activity outside of the gym to improve my upper body strength and endurance. As a result of our hardwork, we were rewarded with Kat's remaining Boags Draught tinnies..

The fire was burning well and the soup was being enjoyed with the sausages - it was a good meal washed down with some great red wine. After a lengthy chat, we all decided to retire for the night..

We awoke to a brisk Tassie morning and, after a persuasive chat with everyone, we were headed to another bay near St Helens armed with 5 screwdrivers. Seeing as Kat was our local guide, she had suggested yesterday that we go oystering. We took the Outlander and I played more dub which Kat got right into. We arrived at a calm bay and began a 10 minute walk that seemed to follow the coastline to get to the first oyster-laden rock. Kat jemmied open the first oyster, washed it in the Tassie water and ate it whole. Whilst the others were a little hesitant at the beginning, a little bit of peer pressure had everyone eating some of the most delicious oysters fresh off the rock. Apparently the oysters were fugitive oysters from nearby oyster farms. I was just glad I could do my part by bringing these outlaw oysters to justice.


We returned to the car after we had our fill of oysters and drove through Binalong Bay then back into St Helens for lunch. I bought a steak and mushroom pie from Banjo's which would have to be Australia's best meat pie. The pie easily relegated the chunky steak and caramellised onion pie from Dough Fusion at Coolum to second place.

After lunch, we headed to another beach with Kat and I having long swims in the pristine surf. I was starting to realise that I had to leave St Helens soon and it was really hard to get out of the water because I knew I was going to really miss it all. From the beach we headed back to Kat's to gather everything and say goodbye to Katty Kat Kat Kat..


Before we left, we all wrote an entry into the guestbook of the house which dated back quite a few years and had some very interesting stories and pics within..

The drive back was a good run and was filled with much singing and general carrying-on. I would start singing out of nowhere and the girls would join in with me.. We also had the opportunity to drive through Sorell on the way back which had us crossing the Sorell Causeway and coming through Hobart from the direction of the airport (ie. over the Derwent bridge again)..

Shortly after getting back to Mat's, we headed out for dinner at Salamanca and ended up at a nice restaurant that accommodated us at 9pm Tas time.. When we returned from dinner, the girls crashed out and I had a few beers with Mat before heading off to bed for a 4am wakeup Bris time.

It was pretty amazing fitting 6 days worth of things to do within 3. Thanks to the girls for coming along for the adventure, and a big thanks to Mat-O and Katty Kat Kat Kat for being great hosts. I'm looking forward to visting again soon..