Lost Luggage

Day 256

"Far across the world
The villages go by like trees
the rivers and the hills
The forest and the streams"

This time there really isn't anything write about. I just checked my camera and noticed that I haven't taken a single picture after the 6-day tour around Tasmania ended. So no new pics unfortunately.

After tour I stayed an extra 2 days in Hobart to sort out the lost luggage issue. Turns out it's not really that big deal. Since I had left most of my stuff back in the hostel, Passport was the only really valuable item in the bag. All other stuff was just toiletries and cheap clothes. If I would have lost my credit cards, then I wouold have been seriously fucked. So I had chance to do some serious shopping hehe.

I also booked flight to Sydney next tuesday to visit consulate. It turned out that Sydney consulate is only place in Australia, New Zealand or South Pacific where Finnish citizen is able to get new passport. Its stroke of luck that this event happened relatively close to Sydney and not in...lets say Cook Islands where there are no direct flights to Sydney. What will happen is that I go to consulate, enter my details and have my passport pictures taken and after that it will take about 3 weeks for the passport to arrive here. After that consulate in Sydney will send it to "sub-consulate" in Perth where my flight away from Australia is departing. So I will just pick it up before I fly away to get out of the country, easy :-)

I also managed to sort out myh next 2 weeks. After flight to Sydney I'm heading to Sorrento, hour south from Melbourne to spend some time exploring Morento Peninsula wineries and celebrate my b-day with Tom and Tess(couple I met in Broome last July). After that I can hopefully grab tickets to AFL season opener on 26th and 27th and on 28th head out from Melbourne and F1-fanatics. Yea, one might wonder why I am skipping F1 when I'm so close to it, but to be honest, not that interested of that sport and besides getting any kind of accomodation in Melbourne at that weekend is pain in the ass. Already most hostels are fully booked. I feel like moving on toward Adelaide and Western Australia.

Back to Hobart...luckily 2 people - Stef and Hester - from my Tasmania tour stayed in town as well so I spent some time with them whenever I didn't have to meet up with the police. Wednesday I left Hobart to Launceston for 3 nights. Plan was to take winery tour on one day and brewery tour on one day. Arranging winery tour turned out to be quite difficult. There are 2 operators in Launceston but neither had any bookings for thursday or friday so no wineries :( I was able to squueze myself into "Beer Lovers" brewery tour to Boag's brewery though. Boag's beers are among the most highly awarded beers in entire world. Have won many gold medals and after full tasting...I can understand why. They do have lot more taste than your average VB crap :-)

Now I'm still in Launceston watching thunderstorm outside and waiting for my bus to Devonport and ferry to take me back to Melbourne. Tomorrow my plan is to file insurance claim to IF and hopefully get around 500 euros back from them. On monday I'm hoping to book winery tour to Victoria's most famous wine area, Yarra Yarra Valley and buy some nice b-day wines for myself and b-day guests.

Bah, just realized that within 59 days I will be in home again...I don't want to leave from here :-/