Tasmania: Devenport, food trails, and Launceston

Our first day in Tasmania started early. We disembarked from the ferry at 6:30 AM, and then proceeded to cover every inch of tiny Devenport, looking for a place to get some brekky and wait for Toby's flight to come in. We finally saw another human being and decided they could only be heading toward coffee, so we followed her to a coffee shop where we scored some raisin toast and eggs. And coffee!!

In our lofty vision of the morning, we'd thought that we might find a cafe with some wi-fi and catch up on emails and such while we waited the couple of hours. This cafe was our first introduction to the Tassy experience: where you're lucky to get any cell phone reception at all, much less free wi-fi.

Our plans for taking the road southwest over to Cradle Mountain and hiking the Dove Lake loop were put into question because of Holly's cold and a pouring down cold rain. So after picking up Toby at the Devenport airport, we headed south of Devenport, with the new plan of checking out some Tasmanian food specialties, and maybe a hike if we could catch a break in the rain.

Cheese and chocolate

Throughout the day, we made stops at House of Anvers (chocolate) and Ashgrove Cheese. Tasmania is fairly well-known in this part of the world for their produce, and cheese is one of the big ones.

House of Anvers was our first stop. There were samples - hooray!

There was also a cafe where you could have all kinds of chocolate-inspired dishes. Holly and I were more interested in the fireplace. That should give you an idea of how cold it was!

All-in-all, a good first stop!

We stopped at Ashgrove Cheese later in the day - around lunchtime. There were lots of great cheese samples, and other local Tasmania foods in the shop. We all got grilled cheese sandwiches, of course! Tasty tasty!

Alum Cliffs

The main activity for the day was a short hike to Alum Cliffs. This involved a drive our west toward Mole Creek. It was on this drive that we learned the concept of A, B, and C roads. A roads are main highway roads. B roads are narrow, tiny roads, but they still have lines. C roads are just surfaced or barely-surfaced roads that don't have lines and may or many not fit more than one car. Our journey out to Alum Cliffs took us on all three kinds of roads, but mainly B and C. We were getting a little worried once we were on the C road and only seeing sheep, but we got there in the end!
It was a bit rainy, but beautiful.

Unfortunately, the rain didn't stop by the time we got to the hiking area. Since Holly still had a cold and hiking in the rain didn't seem all that prudent, we struck a bargain: she could hike, but it had to be really, really fast paced. So off she went!

It was cold and rainy, but the view at the end was worth it!

Launceston and Mexican food

We headed east to Launceston after our hike. We had planned to stay in Launceston as a jumping-off point for the next day, but didn't really have any plans in the town. That was just as well, since there didn't seem to be that much going on for a Saturday night.

After checking into our hotel and figuring out we needed to put the key in the slot to turn on lights, heat, etc., we decided to go out for dinner. As hard as figuring out how to turn the lights on was, figuring out dinner was harder. It seems that all restaurants in Launceston close between lunch and dinner, that is, if they're open on weekends at all.

We ended up at a Mexican restaurant. Toby and I had mentioned to Holly once or twice how bad the Mexican food is in Australia and how much we miss it. But this place was one of the few restaurants open, and the descriptions on the menu actually sounded like legitimate Mexican dishes. So we went for it!
Under no circumstances would I say our food was good, or even Mexican. But it was such an entertaining dinner, I wouldn't change a thing about it. Here are the highlights as captured by Holly and Toby that night afterwards in our room:

• We should have known the queso appetizer would be disappointing after the server called it "kway-so." But nothing would have prepared us for what we got: it was a cold, creamy kind of green dish, with no taste of cheese, very citrusy but so spicy we couldn't eat it. We actually asked the server if it was actually the queso and not guacamole or some other dip. She assured us that it was the "kway-so" and it was the "jall-a-penos" giving it the citrus taste.
• Holly and I both ordered tacos, but Holly asked if she could have them on soft shells instead of crunchy. This was clearly not a request they'd ever heard before, as the server just looked at Holly puzzled and sort of repeated it back to her. The poor server then suggested that Holly get enchiladas instead, since that was the same as tacos, but with a soft tortilla. Holly wisely decided to just retreat from the request and enjoy her tacos crunchy-style.
• The menu listed that the tacos came with tomato salsa, and not being a fan of raw onions, I asked it the salsa had onion in it. The server went to the kitchen to ask about this, and came back to report that it did, in fact, have onions. So I just requested no salsa on my tacos, and we carried on. A few minutes after we'd ordered, a man came out from the kitchen, walked over to our table, and asked if I was the person asking about the salsa. When I said yes, he said, "If you don't want salsa, you should just have a quesadilla." At this point, I was second-guessing the whole notion of having tacos at all, but I just said I'd stick with my order (and silently hope for the best).
• As it turns out, I didn't need to worry about the salsa at all, because Toby and Holly both had "salsa" on their food. Sadly, it was just straight-up tomato paste, with nothing like onions or any non-tomato flavoring to be had!
• All of these food mysteries pale in comparison to the deer head that watched over us as we ate. It was unexpected decor in an Australian Mexican restaurant to say the least. It was so strange, we asked the server about it, and she said that a Tassy couple had shot it and given it to the restaurant, and in fact, had "come in to see it" a couple weeks before. And those were the details on that!

Anyway, it was a hilarious dinner our and as disappointing as the food part was, we were so happy to have a nice warm dinner in our bellies after the cold day, and happy to have shared such a funny experience together.

All in all, our first day in Tassy was full of good food and bad food, beautiful views, and a lot of rain.

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