Slowbart, Tasmania

Tasmania

So as I was was saying, there is very little civilization to be found in Tasmania, but great natural beauty. On our drive across the island, (which can be driven end to end at the longest points in under 8 hours,) we saw one amazing scene after another. We visited Cataract Gorge where a long suspension bridge hangs suspended over a river of rapids. We hiked trails Freycinet National Park, a place that resembles Arizona with its great boulders and rocky cliffs, before finally emerging several hundred feet in the air overlooking Wineglass Bay, (Tasmania's most famous coastline).

We even passed through Mt. Elephant on a road called Elephant Pass. The road was windy, hard to navigate, and at times was butted up against a shear rock walls with nothing between the car and a three-hundred foot drop but a flimsy guardrail. Sufficed to say there were several nerve racking moments as I drove our little car (on the other side of the road) through these narrow and treacherous passes, but looking back it beautiful... terrifying, but beautiful. As we climbed we actually entered the low-lying cloud cover surrounding the mountain's peak (which of course also obscured vision, made the roads wet and slippery, and cause sporadic and sudden rain downfalls.) I think Rebecca ripped the car's upholstery, she was digging her nails into the seat so tightly.

Yet, that seems to be life in Tassie. I say this because according to the map and the GPS, Elephant Pass is considered the main highway that leads from the island's interior to the eastern highway. And yet again, I find myself amazed at some people's definition of "main highway." The roads were so narrow that, when driving it often came to play games of chicken with oncoming cars. (This would not have been so bad, if for the fact that most oncoming cars were in fact 18-wheelers hauling tree trunks.) The second complication to a lack of civilization was, of course, the lack of radio stations. There were about 5 stations, and the one we finally settled on was a very local station called "The Star."



The music itself was not bad, though it was hard to pin down what kind of station it was. One minute they were playing classic rock and the next they were playing Kanye West. I found that the real joy listening to the station was in the commercial programming. "The Star FM is brought to you by Jim and Susan's Hardware Store. Located conveniently just behind the old Samson's Barn." I know this is a small thing, but when traveling I have found that it is often the small things that amaze me. Sometimes it is easier to see and cope with the bigger differences in the lives of foreign people. You can see that they live in tropical weather or in the desert, or they ride camels instead of cars, etc... However, when you get to the minutia of things you tend find something so familiar yet so different.

Cataract Gorge (the gorge with failing eyesight)



As an example of this, I present to you the city of Hobart. The capital city of Tasmania, the second oldest city after Sydney in all of Australia, the biggest center of civilization on Tasmania, and our final destination. From all appearance it is a city almost like any other major metropolitan areas of the world. There are buildings (even some tall ones), parks, grid-like roads, even confusing one-way streets with traffic lights. However, we soon discovered what set Hobart apart from other cities. Apparently it shuts down at about 6 PM, to awaken sometime around 9 or 10 AM... Now you might think I am not exaggerating to make a point or to try and be funny... I'm not.

After our arrival and a good old customary brother-sister fight, Rebecca and I set out to explore the city and maybe even find something to eat or at least a cup of coffee (or tea/hot chocolate for me). We walked the streets of Hobart in search of an open coffee shop, restaurant, or even convenience store. It was 9 o'clock at night and we found nothing open, except for two bars, both of promptly closed at 10 PM. The streets were deserted and it was only 9 on a Thursday. It felt like it should have been 2 AM. We did meet some people, most of which were creepily sitting in bus stop terminals, but the real creepy part is that we walked for an hour and did not see a single bus. I had to make sure we had not stepped into some children-of-the-corn-type horror movie.

Now, I'm not expecting every city to be like New York or even Philly, but I was hoping for a bit more life. I mean it did not seem an unreasonable request to find a cup of coffee at 9 PM, or to find a cup of coffee at 7 AM, which we could not do either. The next day we had to get up early to go on our planned trip to the prison of Port Arthur. We rose and wearily rolled out of the Hostel in search of food and caffeine. There were several coffee places we saw the night before in our wanderings and we headed toward them assuming that they would be open and serving food and drink for all those busy workers heading off to their jobs of employment... We were again wrong. They were all closed. We had to settle for getting breakfast at the only open establishment, Subway. I didn't even know Subway did breakfast. (They do.)

Wineglass Bay (drink it in)

By this time it was closing in on 8 in the morning, and shops and restaurant were still not open. This leads to my assumption that everyone in Hobart follows a work schedule more akin to college students, where you try to get up for a 10 AM class... if you feel like it. This was of course even more frustrating for me the next day when I had to return or rental car. According to policy it had to be returned on a full tank of gas (or petrol as they say.) So fine. I get up at about 7:30, because I have to return the car at 8. I almost didn't return it on time, because I drove around the city for 20 minutes trying to find an open gas station. I had to travel 4 miles outside the city to actually find one that was open and serving gas.

As I said it is the small difference in travel that tends to amaze me more, differences like the hours of operation of a city or coffee shops that open at 11 and close by 3. Radio stations sponsored by Ma and Pa's Sheep Feed, or even little unforeseen obstacles, like getting gas. However, in these difference you often find the similarities. Mostly you find them in the people you meet. Someone may be from Germany, France, Tasmania, Brisbane, or San Fransisco, but people are people. We met two very nice girls on our trip to Port Arthur, Julie from Brisbane and Laurel from San Fransisco (which I was amazed to meet another American). We all grew up in very different places with very different lives, but we all shared a lot of the same opinions and thoughts about the world. Humans, like the places we inhabit, can be strange and different and even weird, but no matter how different we are, you can always find something familiar if you look hard enough. That was true for the people we met and for the places we visited.

Because, for all Hobart's differences, I found a small convenience store in the middle of the city where they sold Hersey's candy bars. I have never seen them before anywhere else in Australia. What are the odds I would have found them in a small little convenience store in the middle of city that falls asleep before my grandparents? Maybe that is the real reason we travel, not to see the strange and the exotic but to find the familiar in that which we think is merely strange and exotic.