A weekend away on a cold island, dinning on delicious delights and drinking fine wine, that’s what I needed and that what I got.
As a thank you for my surprise birthday weekend I took Princess Nicole to wintery Tasmania for a ultra quick getaway. As I have said before it was going to be a big surprise but when she was convinced that we were going on a tropical getaway I had to tell her otherwise it would have been bikinis and sarongs instead of coats, and gloves!
We took off on Friday night had a fabulous meal on the Hobart waterfront which The Princess said “she would remember forever”. It was nice. Saturday we met up with my Dad who delighted in giving The Princess an executive tour around Hobart, with lots of funny Dad commentary “this is the best place to Park in the city” and we also visited most of the places that I lived throughout my teen years and uni,
“That’s where Leish went to school”
“That’s were she once at a sandwich,”
“That place sells good bread”
It was fun and we laughed a lot. I would recommend Dad as a tour guide, maybe he should take it up as a hobby.
We then walked through the Salamanca Market. They are the thing to do as a tourist in Hobart. There are lots of jingle jangles, junk, expensive touristy things, arty things, hippies and our favourite patterned hoodies. There seems to be some sort of fashion frenzy happening in Hobart, a southern based fad and that is every kid under 20 is wearing a patterned hoody. It became our Where’s Wally game of the weekend.
Princess Nicole:
And the meal was fabulous….patterned hoody!!
(as pack of youth clad in hoodies walked by)

A rack of patterned hoodies

We also spotted these stupid hats and a disturbing mannequin with a dodgy beard.
What weird and ridiculous fashion fads have you noticed recently?
We drove past the Republic Hotel, a popular live music venue and I noticed that Lowrider where playing that night.
Princess Nicole:
Oh my God, I love them. We have to go….it would be the best holiday ever if we went….please can we go?
Ted called the venue for us and it was a no go, sold out. The Princess was sad, I called the venue again,
LeishBlog:
Hello, can we please have some Lowrider tickets? Prett please we have come al the way from Sydney and we missed them there and we really do want to see them. !
Pub Guy:
Well I suppose we could sell you some tickets… (woman in the back ground telling him it is “Sold Out! Roger”) Yeah you can have tickets!
LeishBlog:
Yipeeeeeee
Princess Nicole:
Yippeeeeee! Best holiday ever!
We went to a very swanky restaurant for dinner with Ted an Rae and ate lots of little tapas style meals and drank lots of wine and told stories of a sexual nature loudly! (I think that was just me) but we were pretty rowdy.
The gig was awesome, great band and I felt old because there where lots of young boys and drunk girls, one of which was so smashed (and I am guessing it wasn’t just booze she was affected by), that her singlet top kept falling off (hello boys) and there was quite a lot of Tara Reid style bosom exposure. We bopped a lot and pushed against the crowd…some people are really rude when it comes to crowds….I am a gig prude.
The Princess had one request when it came to Tassie, that she saw a Tasmanian Devil.

Princess Nicole:
Are they everywhere babe, just roaming around?
LeishBlog:
No babe I’ve only ever seen them dead on the road.
We decided to go to a tourist place called Zoo Doo to fulfil her request…..yeah interesting decision.
Ted and I had never been to Zoo Doo. You don’t usually do tourist things when you live in the area. The brochure shows lots of animals, Tasmanian devils and Tigers.

Ridiculous
The first horrific moment of the Zoo visit was upon entry we were told to go and watch a pony race, a race that immediately made Ted and I tear up. I was so sad, seeing pony’s with fake monkeys attached to their backs jumping broom heads.

Next was the nursery, where we worked out that there were no rules at this hick zoo. You could do what you want, go in and out of enclosures and there seemed to be no supervision.

It was mental and it also appeared that you could buy most of the animals.

Christ.

We saw a monkey eating a lollypop. That’s got to be bad for them.

I was looking forward to the ‘rides’ that were advertised in the brochure.

Too Bad.

There were dead things on wall……in a zoo you ask? Not any Zoo…this is redneck Zoo Doo
(this was the look on Teds face for most of the Zoo Doo experience, a mixture of horror and sadness)

I fed some confident Kangaroos and deers.

Princess Nicole thought I was going to die.
As we went to leave in a state of mild disgust over the shambles that was called a zoo I said to Princess Nicole,
LeishBlog:
Babe I am so sorry that this place is the stuff of nightmares and that we didn’t see any Devils, they must be all tie tie and having a special nap. (then I spotted a couple). Babe look….it must be good karma, Tassie Devils!!
Princess Nicole:
OMG I love them, I want to take them home!
LeishBlog:
They would eat your face off, they aren’t cuddly….

We watched them fight and chase each other Benny Hill style for a while.
It was fun.
I left that zoo wanting to buy all of the animals and donate them to a proper wildlife sanctuary. If anyone has any coin to spare, please buy the animals.
The whole weekend was great and now I am tie tie and need a nap.