I've got a 3 bed room to myself, a half drunk of surprisingly bad Peter Lehman Shiraz, a huge bag of Cadbury chocolate and a little pair of speakers pumping out nothing but pure emotions. My friendly host for the last 2 weeks has got on with her life and I've discovered that i become claustrophobic in a very short period of time staying with someone 24/7, that I'm not comfortable with the subtle power change/dependence of having someone show you around, that there are too many good books in the world and that Tasmania is beautiful.
Launceston, Burnie, Sisters Beach, Stanley, Cradle Mountain, Penguin, Campbell Town, Bicheno, Freycinet, Wineglass Bay, Port Arthur and Hobbart. A fair amount of places in a fairly short time, and yet we certainly didn't hurry. My finely honed malaise from travelling so long would find that difficult.
I would have liked to have seen more places, done more walking, seen duck-billed platypus, echidnas and Tasmanian devils - but hey it's my fault i didn't and I'm grateful for what i did see and do. I've walked up Stanley nut (aka knob), over parts of the Overland track, around Wine glass bay and I've seen wild possums, wombats, wallabies, and little penguins - a lot of animals have been road kill though :-( I've travelled from the 'good enough to eat' chocolate brown soil of the north east to the culture rich, tourist targeted (but still tourist absent), beautiful east coast. Although the weather has been fantastic, I've spent a lot of my time wearing one or two coats - it doesn't take long for 8 months of Asian heat to leave your bones. I'm still surprised at the culture and climate change. Genuinely friendly people, cars that drive on the left and that are driven like there are rules, shops that close at 5.30, supermarkets that don't sell alcohol, pubs that don't contain smoke, streets that don't have wild dogs that want to chase me, no roaming chickens and no overbalanced, child population doing there best to live. Tie it in with an overwhelming, childhood linked, dose of freshly cut grass - they say that smell is closely linked to memory - and you've got a place that i love.
Physically so many things are familiar:
"close your eyes"
"now open them again...where are you?"
I often ask this, and too often the answer is a surrealists dream. Now i seem to be in England: familiar buildings, people, food, layouts, thinking, colours...the list is endless. At the size of Scotland and a population less than half a million - no wonder i keep thinking about where i should live. Freycinet is just beautiful, Hobart is an attractive little city, Port Arther where we used to send our worst of the worst is culturally very interesting, the Cadbury factory smells wonderful and overall, Tasmania is GREAT.
Jan was my host for the 2 weeks, a lady i met in Croatia and travelled with for a bit. My first few nights and spent in what she calls a 'shack' at the beach - the shack is in fact a 4 bedroomed, 2 bathroomed dream amazing space, overlooking the beach. Having that view unfortunately only confirmed my belief that i need to live within sight of the sea...bugger. Jan was great: driving me around the sights, introducing me to friends, making me cycle, cooking me meals, telling me facts and figures...it's a pity i got claustrophobic and probably seemed ungrateful...bugger.
