Launceston - milking a broken foot for all its worth

We strolled (hobbled) out of our Melbourne hostel bleary eyed at around 6am on, what we quickly realised was, a Monday morning.  Backpacking leaves you oblivious to days and dates, but if the tube and bus journey didn't jog that realisation, then the airport certainly did.

7am at Melbourne airport on a Monday was total carnage.  Checking queues were basically out of the door; the broken foot had to be called into action.

The help desk was the first conquered.  Full hobble and matching grimace from Bex got us directly to the front of a priority queue, we checked in baggage, traded foot injury stories with the friendly clerk (she even showed us her scars) and awaited delivery of our attractive orange Jetstar wheel chair.

Yeah, we were taking it to that level.

We strapped Bex into the wheelchair, and pushed our way through to security and directly through, no explanation needed!

Result.  We'd smashed ourselves through (what we later learned to be) well over an hour of queuing.  We just chilled in the departure lounge and treated ourselves to a Hungry Jacks (Burger King) breakfast while the rest of Melbourne airport had a thoroughly terrible time.

The flight was (unsurprisingly) delayed, with little bother to us, and in no time at all we were in Tasmania.  We declined the offer of another wheelchair in Launceston airport and shuttle bused straight to the delightful Arthouse Hostel in town.

 The Arthouse hostel, great for putting your feet up!

Everyone at the airport was super friendly and the old man running the shuttle bus was excited to show us his town and island, chatting to us all the way.  The girl in the hostel greeted Bex like a long lost sister and was thoroughly moved by the tale of broken foot woe, which had shattered the Tasmania east coast cycling dream.  It was far too early for our dorm beds to be ready so we headed off to see the town and to try to work out if the new plan for Tasmania (2.0) was going to work out for us.

We returned after lunch reasonably happy that our new plans would be cost effective and (hopefully) as awesome as the cycling would have been, things were looking up.  Things continued to work out more than well in fact; in light of Bex's injury the hostel upgraded us to a private double room for the next three nights for free!  We chatted with the lovely staff who helped us plot out a few things to do in town and ink in Tasmania 2.0

We loved Tasmania after a single day, the broken foot would not hold us back!

 Gotta keep the place clean...

A sign of things to come...