Tasmania: Day 4 - "Here: Loonagana"

THEME SONGS FOR THE DAY:

1. "Society", by Eddie Vedder, from the Into The Wild soundtrack
2. "Indifference", by Ben Harper and Eddie Vedder

PETER BEDFORD:
THE MYTH, THE MAN, THE BLOODY LEGEND

Urgh. After 10 hours on the road yesterday I'm not sure it was a good idea to stay up until 5am drinking wine with our Couchsurfing host and new friend, Peter Bedford... but geeeez his wine is good!

Home-made from blueberries, raspberries, and loganberries grown organically in the garden patches right outside the main house, there are jugs of new batches bubbling away in the kitchen. We made a pretty good dent in their supply getting to know each other last night...

Surprisingly, I'm not hungover, just tired from being on the road and then staying awake for so long. Guess that's what happens when you drink wine that is made from organic fruits, with no preservatives or additives - the wines taste clean, crisp, and fresh, like we are nuzzling from the bosom of the earth.

Aside from sharing our stories and drinking copious amounts of wine, last night - or rather, this morning - we learnt how to find due south by lining up the stars of the Southern Cross with the Pointer Sisters [with Peter's bright green laser pointer which seemed to touch the stars], and were given a tour of the place in near-total darkness. When I finally rise at around 10am, I jump out of bed eager to explore the place in the daylight.

FROST ON THE GROUND IN THE MORNING

The sun has cleared the mountains and the temperature hovers near 4 degrees C, only one degree warmer than last night. I walk down to the dam to get a better look at the "luxury camping" compound that Peter has built for his family over the years. A builder by trade, the building have all been constructed of materials reclaimed from old tear-down houses in the area, or timber milled on-site from the few trees they felled to create the clearing in which the houses sit.

BEDFORD LUXURY CAMPGROUNDS

For the first 18 months or so, the Bedfords would hike in from the main entrance and camp around the fire pit seen in the middle of the photo. The fire's embers were kept glowing 24 hours/day to give the family warmth and cooking capacity until a double wood-fired oven, barbeque grill, and covered dining table were all added later to finish out the heart of the compound. The original structure, which can be seen to the right, was built; then the family moved their tents into this shelter.

THE ORIGINAL HOUSE

This structure was later expanded into what it is today: carpets cover the original earth floors on one side, and a wood-fired stove sitting on carpet-covered brick floors warms the cottage from the other. It feels like a writer's cabin in the woods, complete with a corner desk that overlooks the dam and is bathed in sunlight each morning.

INSIDE THE BATHOUSE

The bath-house can be seen to the left of the photo above: inspired by the bathtub cauldrons used to skin slaughtered
pigs, Peter has built a wood-fired hot-tub out of brick and a reclaimed cast-iron bathtub. Fresh dam water is used, the color of weak herbal tea from being seeped with eucaplytus tannins. A chimney pipes out all the smoke from the fire, and a very high-tech system of pulling the plug to drain water while turning the tap to let in more cold water is used by the bather to regulate the temperature and prevent themselves from becoming boiled soup.

The veggie gardens sit above this area, well fenced to keep out unwelcome guests. The growbeds are raised, sitting on the north-facing aspect of the gentle slope everything is built on, and are a combination of worm castings and compost that has been cultivated on-site over the years. Most of the veggies have been harvested, though a few heads of lettuce and other yummy munchies can be seen growing; the seasons are shifting and the winter veggies will be grown in the two hothouses that have been built.

Peter uses what he calls "organic worms", which live in worm baths that sit in the shadows of a grove of eucalyptus at the edge of the compound. These worms are happiest munching on a combination of kitchen scraps and horse manure, and differ from regular earthworms in the quality of worm casting they produce. Buckets sit at the bottom ends of the worm baths collecting "worm tea", which is a nutrient-rich liquid fertilizer that is used throughout the gardens.

THE KIDS' HOUSE

The "main house" that we pulled up to last night is the most recently built structure on the premises: also built almost entirely from reclaimed building materials and timbers milled on-site, it features heated floors. A concrete slab was poured with copper pipes laid throughout that connect to a modified wood-fired stove in the middle of the house. Water fills a chamber surrounding the fire chamber, and a small pump helps circulate the water to keep the house warm in the cold winter nights.

The north-facing wall is almost entirely glass, bought for $100 from windows reclaimed from another tear-down house in the area. Growbeds line this wall, about three 1/2 feet off the ground so that tomatos and other veggies can be grown inside the house throughout winter. It's also a handy feature to be able to throw your dry scraps right onto the garden to be composted. Originallly intended to be the "kid's house", this structure has become the main living area, with a large kitchen bench to hang out around, and plenty of room to hang out wet gear.

A flat screen TV and impressive collection of dvds and video games look like any other suburban kid's living room, though these kids are hardly what you'd call any other suburban kid. Wilbur is 23 years old and is currently in Norway leading whitewater kyaking expeditions, while 16-year old Oscar is away with Mum whitewater kyaking somewhere near the Walls of Jerusalem national park in the middle of Tasmania.

We strike out towards the waterfall that can be heard in the background, and follow a large trek leading away from the ompound. The stream at the top of the waterfall is narrow enough to jump across, and seems harldy capable of producing the roar of falling water humming in our chests. There are a couple eucalyptus trees here that would take four men holding hands to span its circumference, and soar majestically 30 stories above the forest floor.

At the bottom of the falls, we are humbled by the sight which greets us. Only a handful of humans have ever born witness to this place, Peter tells us later that the locals didn't even know it existed until he moved in and discovered it himself.

We are standing at the bottom of a small canyon, whitewater falling in slow motion over glistening black boulders that are almost perfect squares, tempting me to climb this beautiful natural staircase. Massive tree ferns lining the canyon walls create perfect acoustics for the water to gently echo around this room, and we stand in silence for quite some time in awe and gratitude of this discovery. It feels wrong to cheapen the moment by snapping photos, so we quietly say our thanks and move on back up to the house.

Electricity for the entire compound is generated from one turbine at the base of the falls, and is pumped into a converter and battery store room where power levels can be easily monitored. Sitting around under one light bulb in the middle of the night no longer seems creepy once we've walked down to the turbine and followed the power cables all the way back up to the house.

They don’t get many visitors this far out into the bush, as Peter explains, “those who are meant to find us, eventually do…” This afternoon he is picking up 18-year old Aoba [pronounced “Oh-bah”], whose Couchsurfing sister has arranged for a two-week stay to get her out of the city and broaden her horizons.

She barely speaks English, and I am lounging naked in the hot-tub when she arrives late in the afternoon and is given the tour. “Can I take photo?” she says, and I nod vaguely through the clouds of eucalyptus steam.

Who woulda thought that I would be snapped nude by a Japanese tourist out in the wilderness of Tasmania?

# # #

"KIDS' HOUSE"
AND VEGGIE GARDENS


STORAGE SHED, CUBBY HOUSE AND FLYING FOX


MAXIMUS PLAYING AROUND THE DAM


WOOD-FIRED OVEN


OUTDOOR DINING TABLE


BUNKHOUSE




# # #

Tasmania: Day 3 - "Guns Don't Kill People; People With Moustaches Kill People."

Theme [Road Trip] Songs For The Day:

1. "Ramble On", by Led Zeppelin
2. "Never Going Back Again", by Fleetwood Mac
3. "A.M. 180", by Grandaddy
   

ROADTRIPS ROCK!

Today's mission is to make the four hour drive up to Launceston in time to meet up with another traveling friend for lunch, then make the two-hour journey up through Devonport to Ulverstone, where we will find our way to the Bedford's property in the mountain bush in time for dinner.

The drive up through Tassie's Midland Highway takes us through the agricultural center of the state. The sky is filled with puffy, backlit clouds, the asphalt disappears quickly beneath the campervan, and the iPod is cranking out some great road tunes.

Trucks shake the van as they thunder past in the opposite lane,while the gently rolling hills and greenery stretch all the way to the mountains carpeted in dark green eucalyptus stretch on the horizon, punctuated every now and then with a craggy cliff face yawning skywards. These mountains beckon silently, persistently: "Come, explore us, hike us, wander us...there is much to discover."

AUTUMN IN LAUNCESTON

Launceston sneaks up on us at around 2pm, and the autumn sun is shining brightly. This town looks and feels very much like Hobart, with its short, squat buildings and no-nonsense vibe. Autumn is still very much in effect here, and the afternoon sunlight sets the orange and yellow leaves ablaze. I am always so impressed with Autumn, and the warm, brightly shifting hues that celebrate its arrival.

We make contact with Aisha, a friend of Jill's who has just completed a week's worth of WWOOFing on a horse ranch in the area we are headed towards. There is time to kill before she can meet up, so we find our way to the public library for some quick internet access to check email accounts after two whole days without internet access. I am amazed that I have survived 48 hours without updating my Facebook status... hanging out @ home for the last few weeks, I have been updating my FB status 20 or 30 times daily, cliffhanger updates and deep thoughts such as "eating toast" and "gone out for another coffee" and "why do we have toes anyways??"...

100 new emails later, I find myself being kicked off the computer by an annoyed librarian, so I head out to catch up with the girls who have gone ahead in search of lunch. Launceston is a wonderfully small city - more like a country town - you can almost see horse & carriages being driven around the wide streets here. I pass a group of Harley riders relaxing in front of a two-story brick government building with tudor windows that is right out of an old British colonial movie. I walk around a few city blocks with my mobile phone thrust infront of me, snapping pics every 10 steps or so, fascinated with the long shadows and dramatic lighting that the afternoon sun is casting.

Aisha is catching Jill up on her travel adventures since the last time they saw each other, and they are poring over highlighted maps in their guidebooks when I find the cafe they have been hiding in. We slow down to 5km/h and push her out of the back of the campervan to drop her off at her hostel and cheerfully wave goodbye in the rearview mirror on our way out of town; it is 4:30pm by the time we leave Launceston and strike out for Ulverstone.

The LET'S GO IN AUSTRALIA guidebook says that the best view of Devonport "is from the rearview mirror", but as we approach this town the sun is setting dramatically right in front of us. Nature's lightshow is expansive and brilliant and dramatic and calming all at the same time, and oooohs and ahhhhs bubble from my lips unconsciously as the spectacle unfolds.

SUNSET ON THE ROAD TO DEVONPORT

Problem is, the late departure from Launceston mens that we arrive into Ulverstone, another quaint coastal town [from what can be seen], well after dark. Now we are faced with the task of finding our host, who lives deep in the mountains on a self-sufficient compound that he has built to escape from society. What's more, he doesn't really want to be found. The directions to his place are somehwat cryptic:

"Not easy to find, its better to phone with a map in front of you. If your in Ulverstone head to Sprent, Castra, Nietta, Leven Canyon, go past Leven Canyon until the bitumin, continue for 4.8 Klm, we are on the right just past 6 or 7 letter boxes that will be on your left."

In hindsight, the directions actually make perfect sense... though not while winding through unfamiliar narrow roads in the darkness from Ulverstone. The road gets progressively narrower and more unsealed, and a couple of logging trucks barrel down past us, their bright lights looking like alien motherships in the complete absence of streetlights. The campervan shudders as the roar past and I pull nervously onto the shoulder to give them a wide berth.

We take a turn marked LEVYN CANYON and the road surface is no longer sealed - not quite blacktop, but not quite dirt road. A few turns in and I slow right down to about 40 km/h as the bouncing bottoms of some small furry creatures bound away from the headlights. Pairs of glowing eyes turn away and become bouncing tails disapperaing into the night. They look like plump, oversized rats on pogosticks, and for the longest time we are unable to catch a good look at them. We find out later that they are wallabies, very plentiful in this part of the world.

The road drops away on one side, and treetops can be made out at eye level - we are skirting the edge of a valley, or perhaps the sheer edge of a canoyon wall; we cannot tell in the darkness. After the two trucks, there are no other cars to be seen, and the houselights on either side of the road become fewer and further between, until eventually we are buzzing along in near-total darkness, with only a slim sliver of moon and the twenty meters or so of headlights lighting the way.

After an hour or so, we slow right down to make a sharp corner at the bottom of a switchback, and spot a lone house up a hill to the left. The sign says FIRE BRIGADE, and this touch of civilization gives us a surge of renewed confidence that we may be on the right track.

The night is teeming with wildlife, and as the bitumen (asphalt) ends, the campervan clatters on over corrugated dirt road and even more wallabies scatter out of headlight range. I swerve to avoid a large possum that looks like a cross between a large cat and a racoon, and is sitting adamantly in the middle of the road. A ghostly shape whispers through the air in front of us, and for a few moments we follow a tawny frogmouth hunting along the road on silent wings.

The road gets rougher and rougher, until it is clear that we are creeping along logging tracks now, massively wide tree trunks dimly visible through the thick underbrush caught in our headlights on either side of the road. We've gone 16 km past the end of the bitumen into the mountains, and I notice that the petrol tank gague is reading 1/4 full... time to turn around before we break an axle or run out of gas or get bogged or... HIT A WOMBAT..!

...a fat little ball of muscle and fur waddles calmly across the road directly in front of the van, and as I hit the brakes he doesn't skip a beat as he calmy walks under the front wheel well and off into the night. It is well known in Australia that if you hit a wombat, he is likely to do more damage to your vehicle than you are to it... this is an animal who evades his predators by burrowing into the ground and presenting his bum to his attacker, whose teeth are unable to penetrate the tough, bony hide there.

LOST IN THE BUSH

We continue back the way we came, deciding to ask directions from the last house we saw before the end of the bitumen, keeping our eyes peeled for those 6 or 7 mailboxes referred to in the directions. There are more possums and wallabies on the way back out, and some Tassie devils even lope along side the van for a few meters, do a couple of confused circles as we stop to get a closer look, then decide to explore the underbrush off the side of the road. As we near the end of the dirt road, a couple of very unhelpful cows look very bored when we stop and ask for directions and shrug us off without so much as a grunt or moo.

The Fire Brigade turns out to be an older white-haired couple who eye us suspiciously as I jump up and down to catch their attention. He sizes me up, this wild-haired, unwashed, brown-skinned traveler doing jumping jacks outside his window in the middle of the night in front a a rental campervan that reads HAVE A DEVIL OF A TIME on his driveway... he decides that yeah, he could take me... and comes outside into the cold to see what I want.

"Bedford is it?" he says, looking me straight in the eye. Then something like "Yeah, figures..." under his breath before he proceeds to give me directions on how to find the cluster of mailboxes at the side of the road that will tip us off to the entrance to the Bedford property.

5km after the end of the bitumen, we just make out the mailboxes at the edge of the headlights, and find tire tracks leading off into the woods to the right, so I gun the engine to get the van up the embankment. The "road" is rocky and the van slips and slides underneath us as we twist and turn and finally crest a hill. A cold, solitary light can be seen shining through the trees up ahead. The van slips down the slope and the headlights show us a junked car next to a horse shed, building materials scattered around the yard, and old Toyota 4wd parked backwards against the main house. The digital clock in the van blinks 10:07pm.

A moustached man in a beanie is moving around under the solitary compact flourescent lightbulb that lights the place, and as I kill the engine Jill says, "Good thing you didn't wear your moustache t-shirt today..." We jump out of the van bearing gifts, wine bottles in hand and are greeted by a happy, slobbering, leaping juvenille bulldog and the moustached man, who has a glass of wine in one hand.

I notice a severed wallaby head squinting up at us behind the two, and gulp as I reach out my hand to introduce myself: "We've brought wine!"

"Finally found the place didjya?" he says quietly. "Yeah well it's not easy is it....I'm Poida, nice to meet ya. Come on, let's have some wine and then I'll give ya a tour of the place!" he says, with a handshake as hard as rocks.

Above, the moon has set, and the Milky Way stretches out across the entire night sky, silhouetting the tall eucalyptus trees that close in all around us.

I smile and blow warmth into my hands: Welcome to Tassmania.

'NUFF SAID.

# # #

Tasmania: Day 2 - The Tasman Penninsula

Theme Songs for the Day:

1. Oompa Loopma Remix, by G-Penguin
2. O Fortuna, composed by Carl Orff

THE TASMAN PENNINSULA
1 1/2 - 2 HOURS' DRIVE EAST FROM HOBART

I love the smell of coffee and chocolate in the morning.

It is the Breakfast of Champions, and for my money, certainly beats that other breakfast of champions and artistic types all over the world: coffee and a cigarette.

Ahhhh chocolate.... food for the soul...

O, chocolate, how do I love thee, let me count the ways...


THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY:

As we drove around the neighborhood last night looking for someplace to park the campervan, I kept spotting purple roadsigns reading "CADBURY" in that delicious cursive font that graces their chocolate bars. It was only because of the better judgement of my navigator that we did not camp out in the parking lot of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, just 4km up the road from the caravan park.

THE MORNING VIEW FROM

"TREASURE ISLAND" CARAVAN PARK

I walk along the dark waters in the cold morning to stretch sleep-twisted muscles, backlit clouds roll in overhead, while a wispy white cloudbank sweeps over a craggy rock face looming in the distance behind me.

This morning's mission is simple: get to the Chocolate Factory for a chocolatey morning meal with the fabled Oompa-Loompas, excuse me, "Little People" as they preferred to be called in this part of the world. There are no Little People to be seen anywhere on the premises and I use my Sherlock Holmes skills to deduce that they must be nocturnal, like so many other species of unique Aussie fauna.

The "tour" turns out to be a 30-minute audio/video presentation about the history and processes of the factory [who knew that chocolate is not fattening when consumed on a Thursday!?], Willy Wonka was not there [in fact I was nearly thrown out at the mention of his name; he owns the other chocolate company that begins with "N" and ends in "E"], and apparently rivers of chocolate dow not run through fields of candy at this chocolate factory. I thought it best not to ask if we could see the Great Glass Elevator.

Insiders' tip: the coffee in the cafe is forgettable, but the hot chocolate is amazing!! Check out the vintage posterboard advertisement that reads CHOCOLATE SAVES LIVES ...and stop by the gift shop to buy $50 worth of non-fattening-on-thursdays chocolate for like twenty bucks...


THE ROAD TO PORT ARTHUR:

Next stop: Port Arthur. Once the most feared penal colony in Australia, in high school I read a novel titled "Come Danger, Come Darkness" about a teen who is sent there from England for stealing a loaf of bread and escapes. The novel captured the harsh conditions endured by the convicts, and the stark contrast of this brutal human place set in the swirling mists of the Tasman Wilderness. I've been curious to visit ever since.

LOOK CLOSELY: YOU CAN SEE
GHOSTS OF TALL-MASTED PIRATE SHIPS
MOORED IN THE SHELTER OF THE BAY

It takes about an hour to get to the first distraction - a turnoff to Pirate Bay, Devil's Kitchen, and the Blowhole. The photo on the roadsign sells me in 3 seconds to take the next turnoff, and shortly thereafter we crest a turn and hear angel choirs singing as the view reveals itself. Unlike fast food menu pics, roadsign photos and postcards never capture the majesty of being enveloped by a sweeping vista in nature.

The road winds down to the water's edge, and we are greeted with a different roadsign: "WELCOME TO DOO-TOWN". Twenty or so endearingly quaint cottages in various stages of ramshackle are clustered around the small harbor at the end of the Bay, with names like "MUCH ADOO ABOUT NOTHING", "DOO ANYTHING", and "DOO F#&K ALL" [sic]. Sheer awesomeness. There are absolutely no people in and around the town.

The Blowhole is suitably impressive, a tunnel about 80 feet long, with an almost perfectly flat roof carved out of the sandstone leading from the ocean to a small pool which surges with the waves rolling through the tunnel. From the right angle, it looks like a very miniature ocean that has simply appeared in a rocky outcrop in the bushlands behind the beach, complete with tidal wave action and all. The oceans are calm today, so now and then the Blowhole half-heartedly spits up a lazy tendril of oceanspray.

Five minutes up the road from Doo-Town is the Devil's Kitchen, which is what I am excited aboot [sorry, The Canadian's accent is rubbing off on me...]. Lucifer is out today, or sleeping deep in the narrow cave we can see far below, while the ocean feature he has sculpted through his kitchen sends a wave or two at a time rolling through the massive canyon sounding like a giant sheet of paper slowly tearing.

The tallest trees you see at the top of the photo at right are 2-3 stories high...a natural sink and kitchen bench can be made out from our vantage point, and there is a rock shelf that makes up the floor which extends out 60-80 feet past the base of the cliffs, where Peter later tells us that they drop straight down as deep as they are high.

We hit the road and cross the narrow isthmus [seriously, how often do you get to use the word "isthmus" in a sentence??] of Eaglehawk Nest, where a pack of monster bulldogs on shackles just long enough to touch each other once guarded the crossing so that escaped convicts could not get through. That's what the statue of a massively rabid bulldog said, and that's the story I am sticking with. It is said to be true.

As I coax the campervan through the twisting roads towards Port Arthur, I can't help but think that were I an escaped convict, I would like nothing more than to carve out a patch of bushland here and live off the land... The waterways touch both sides of the road in places, the eucalyptus grows thickly to the water's edge, and the afternoon sunlight streams through the gathering mists.

When the roadsigns finally announce Port Arthur, we drive past 3 empty parking lots before pulling up in front of the vistor center entrance. The tours range from half-day walks to 3-day experiences, complete with breakfast & dinner packages. It costs $2 for a brochure and there are pricetags on everything else in the place. This is not the experience I came to Tassie for, so I quickly decide to leave before they charge us for breathing in the historic air.

Besides which, there was a Tasmanian Devil Reserve that we passed on the way in that looked like a whole lot of fun.


TASMANIAN DEVILS:

Three words to capture the essence of the infamous Tassie Devils.

Ferocious. Precocious. Capricocious. ...nope. Let's try again...

Lost. Dazed. Confused. ...yeah, that's it:

I am told that they are indeed quite feral and ferocious when feeding, but the Tassie Devils we meet this afternoon may have gotten into the Koalas' stash of the good green stuff that makes them so rasta-mellow... These guys lope around their enclosure amicably with silly gaping grins and vapid eyes, pausing often to remember what they were doing again, then doing little circles before loping away, thrilled to be coming around the corner to meet us again. Hours of entertainment for the whole family!

We meet three Locals at the Dunnaly Pub that evening, which I again cleverly deduce to be the original watering hole for convicts who managed to escape and avoid the rabid hounds of Eaglehawk Nest.

"Have a beer mate, you deserve it..." and again I imagine myself as that escaped convict, this time sitting at the bar top relishing my newfound freedom and wondering, Tasmanian-Devil-like, what my next move is going to be.

Anyways, I ask these three guys where we can go to get a good feed around here before 6 o'clock, and I don't miss the glint in their eyes as they glance at each other before answering: "Awwww yearh, nuh ...the foodssh roooly good he-yahh....youse should staaay it'd be well worth itt.... we come he-yah ev'ry Thursdeee noight!!". They are pissed as farts [American translation = "quite drunk"], enamored with The Canadian's blonde hair and blue eyes, and very entertaining, so we decide to stay and have a couple beers with them.

The Locals promptly decide to celebrate by stoking the fire to keep us warm, and proceed to fall over each other stuffing the fireplace so full of oversized logs that it may qualify for a bushfire instead of a glowing hearth of embers. In Tasmania, they don't use a fire poker to move the logs, they simply kick the fire around with their boots. And plumbers' crack is never attractive, but quite hilarious in the right context.

Oh, and they make a really great drop of port in this part of the world:

A RATHER NICE GLASS OF PORT

# # #

Tasmania: Day 1 - Blister in the Sun

Theme Songs of the Day:

1. "Blister in the Sun", by The Violent Femmes
2. "American Music", by The Violent Femmes

Q: What do rock & roll legends do when they retire?

A: Open a tea-house in Hobart, Tasmania.

Hobart is a beautiful old port town of short and squat historic buildings built to keep out the cold southern winds. Perched upon the waterfront of the Derwent River, which empties into Storm Bay, the Tasman Sea, and the Southern Ocean, I have never made the one-hour flight down to explore this corner of the world despite ten years of living in Melbourne.

The sun us setting and the clouds look as though they are glowing from the inside as we pull into the city center in search of Chado: The Way of Tea... A couple of short paragraphs grazed over the in-flight magazine on Tiger Airlines alerted us to the place, run by Brian Ritchie, bassist for the Violent Femmes, and his lovely wife Varuni Kulasekara.

There is one page of food items on the menu, and pages upon pages of exotic names with descriptions of the exotic teas served up. Our servers are a two beautiful women from Japan and India, who gracefully invite us in to sit and enjoy a meal - even though we are the only two people in the place.

Tea sets line the walls and a bamboo flute plays softly in the background. Apparently, Brian often stops by the shop to play for customers - not folk-punk bass guitar but the shakuhachi, or bamboo flute - and we missed him today as he played for the lunchtime crowd...

Dinner is delicious: bento boxes, Violent Femmes-style - served by the band's groupies with flaming sake bombs and everyone's favorite riff from everyone's favorite Femmes anthem blasting as the food comes out... "and we go ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, like a Blister in the Sun........"

Welcome to Tasmania, wild cultural hub of the southern oceans! This is going to be a good trip...

OK, SO MAYBE I EXAGGERATED ABOUT THE GROUPIES.
AND THE FLAMING SAKE BOMBS.
AND THE BLARING MUSIC.
BUT GEEZ, THAT FOOD WAS DELICIOUS!



# # #

Duelling With Devils

Theme Songs of the Day:

1. "Paper Aeroplanes", by Angus & Julia Stone
2. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", by Neil Young
3. "Neopolitan Dreams", by Lisa Mitchell
   

MAP OF TASMANIA, CIRCA 1916
APPROX 240KM SOUTH OF MELBOURNE

I'm going to Tassie. Tasmania, that is.

When I share that with the locals in Melbourne, I get one of two responses:

1. "Why??"
2. "Aw, yeahhhh, Tassie is BEAUTIFUL!"
   

I've heard that Tasmanian Devils really do spin around like in the Loony Tune cartoons. I've heard that Tasmanian Tigers aren't really extinct, if you know where to look for them. I've heard that some of the wildest places on earth are still pristine and hiding in this little corner or the world that most of mainland Australia has forgotten.

My travel companion for this leg of my journeys is Jill Rushton, the lovely Canadian that I met in Maui earlier this year at a pivotal time in my life:

After Christmas 2008, I sank rapidly into a fairly deep depression in which I did not make it out the front door of my house for most of January. I would lie awake at night waiting for sleep to arrive, listening to my inner monologue loop endlessly around thoughts of "Why did/didn't I do this; Why am I so far away from where I should be; How in the hell did I get myself into this mess; How the hell am I going to ever get myself out of this mess; Who do I think I am [bloody useless fool]; yadda-ydadda-yadda-doom-and-gloom-ever-downward-spiraling-blah-blah-blah......"

In the morning I would awake and lie catatonic, staring at the wall for an hour or so before mustering up the courage to get up and have a shower to face the sunlight. Being surrounded by so much natural beauty didn't help at all; it only heightened the contrast between how I felt within and the cheery surroundings without. I kept the blinds over the window to wallow in as much darkness as I could and found solace by distracting my mind with hours of mindless sessions on YouTube watching conspiracy theory movies, alien encounter clips, and other random obscurities.

My brother was a great support to me in this period, holding a safe space for me to move through this process, giving me room and permission to wallow without judging me, as if he knew all along that I wouldn't allow myself to linger for too long in this place of self-pity.

"I don't feel like doing anything, or seeing anyone today," I would announce gloomily. "Then don't!" was his cheerful reply.

I've never understood people who have had challenges with "depression", rather heartlessly writing the condition off as a sign of a weak and undisciplined mind. It's not. It is very real, and can be very scary - even to the most self-aware individuals. Depression is a very elusive, seductive creature: it beckons silently to you, lulling you into a sense of security and then drowning you in your own heavy thoughts. I can see now how the weight of it all could quickly add up and become unbearable, especially without the love and support of family and friends around you.

After a week or two of moping around the house all day and feeling lousy, I forced myself to get out into the sunshine, into nature, and do something, anything I could find joy in. This is when I started blogging, volunteering, hiking, sailing, swimming, surfing....anything to get me out of the house and having fun.

This was also a time to make peace with some lingering open wounds upon my heart, and move on into the next phase of relationship where you allow yourself to enjoy a person for who they are, wherever they are at, warts, old hurts, and all. After a two-year absence, I returned to Maui for Chinese New Year's Celebrations, which had become such a big part of my previous life, and was welcomed back with open arms, as if I had never left.

So it was there that I met The Canadian, her travel companion Kristen, and their chaperone [the perpetually hungover] Knuckles Tulio while stealing away to the hot-tub to relax muscles sore from a day's worth of Lion Dance and Kung-Fu performances. After two years fighting tooth-and-nail against brain cancer, Jill has recently lost the most important person in her life , and has embarked upon a journey to "rediscover both what's important to me and what makes me who I am." You can read her blog by clicking here.

Here I am, after moping around for the last month or so about losing everything, reawakened and finally enjoying all the beauty of life surrounding me... my breath is knocked out of me and silent tears stream down my face as I discover her story and see Facebook photos of good times....recent good times....shared with a loved one who has only recently left us. And again, I am reminded of what is truly important, and how lucky I really am. And of how beautiful, cruel, and beautiful life can be.

That experience has humbled me, and deepened my appreciation for the beauty of people and places surrounding me. I hope I never lose this perspective.

We're never really alone, are we? Our experiences may feel like we are the only ones going through this, indeed who has ever and will ever go through whatever it is that we are going through at that time... but the fact is that we are all more similar than we are diferent. We can find more that we relate to in others, than we can often find in ourselves. There is comfort and solace in the bond that exists between those who have had a shared, or shared a similar exerience. And we are all sharing a very similar experience - it's called the human experience.

"Are we human beings having a spiritual experience?
Or are we spiritual beings having a human experience?"
-overheard at a cafe, a long time ago-

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The Canadian has been traveling throughout Australia spending time with friends across the continent, blogging about her journeys here. The plan is to meet up in Melbourne, and head down to Tassie to share the cost of a campervan to explore the island for a week.

I've organized a stay with Peter Bedford, whose CouchSurfing profile says that he lives on 60 acres of wild bush in the mountains of Tasmania where "he and his family and working towards creating a self-sufficient lifestyle." Sounds wild.

The Guidebook to Hiking in Tasmania that I bought describes some amazingly beautiful multi-day treks, which I hope to somehow accomplish despite our lack of cold-weather gear. There is no agenda other than to explore, experience, and explore some more.

I am really looking forward to getting on the road again with new friends, and to making even more new friends, and to learning whatever lessons Tasmania has in store.

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