Tasmania -

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I’m not good with boats and the Bass strait is known to be quite choppy, its very shallow about 100 Metres deep, which contributes apparently, and the night of my travel there was a full on storm out to sea, luckily it was flat as pancake.

As I roll off the ferry it hits me that this is it, the start of the trip from here on in I’ll be Motorbiking around Australia. It’s a scary getting used to the bike, getting used to riding everyday, getting used to being somewhere new everyday. Also I suddenly start thinking about the whole idea and start to wonder why I am here doing this. One of the reasons I wanted to do this trip was to work out what to do with my life when I got back, I didn’t think it would come to me in a flash but I hoped on the way round I could at least take some time to think about it also I wanted to become a better rider, the way I figured doing thirty thousand km round Oz would teach me a few things about riding a bike, hopefully without too many painful lessons, or indeed expensive ones as the bikes been paid for on my credit card, I need to sell it at a decent price at the end of the trip so I don’t end up with a huge debt when I get home. I guess being on the road so much you have a lot of time to think about things, I’m not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing yet.




Well I’ve been travelling around Tassy now for about two weeks, its beautiful. Really beautiful. I’ve never been to the Scottish Highlands but Tasmania is what I imagine them to be like. The problem here is having too much to see, you simply can’t stop at every place you would want to. It’s giving me a lot to think of for the rest of the trip, you can’t see everything, I have to make decisions about what I want to see and what I don’t mind missing. It makes me think about my life in a broader sense, everything so far has been done as I normally do things, everything is last minute, I don’t plan ahead, I’m always winging it, leaving it all to the final possible moment. So I planned an intinerary for the rest of my trip, round Tassy not the whole way round, but this only caused other problems, once you make a plan it becomes very difficult to break it you start to think ‘I should be in this place by this time’ irrespective of what the weather is like, or who I meet or what I miss on the way. I guess you should plan things but you should always be willing to change those plans, it’s a difficult balancing act.

Tasmania is cold this time of year, I camped the first night but quickly decided no more camping until I hit the mainland again. As for riding Tasmania has been a baptism of fire, its mountainous, the roads are all windey and it can get exceptionally windy, on one day as I crossed over two spits of land built up over water the bike was bent over at a 30 or 40 degree angle just to ride straight. In the city I can see the gaps in traffic, I can tell the scooter rider who probably won’t be around next year, I’m not a great rider but I can get by, in the country my failures are huge. Taking winding mountain roads at speed shows up all my nervousness, at the moment I’m testing my limits not the bikes. Throwing the bike over into some of these corners is a scary experience the bike will do more I just have to trust that I can too. Having said this there is a lot to contend with over here, the road is covered with roadkill, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, possums everywhere, this is why I never travel after Dusk its just too dangerous. In Hobart at the hostel I stayed five taiwanese on a roadtrip swerved to avoid a Kangaroo that jumped into the road and hit an oncoming car, three died, one was still in a coma with brain damage last I heard and another can’t recognise her own family. They put gravel on the side of the roads so when anyone overshoots, which must happen a lot, gravel gets spread over the road which isn’t something you want in the middle of a corner when your taking it at 90/100 km/h. In Australia a lot of the trees shed their bark rather than their leaves this ends up on the road adding yet another slipping hazard. So I’m learning a lot about so riding and about my limits, even the little things like how I use my gears and my revs to give me more control of the bike when I am twisting and turning through lots of corners as opposed to when I am on long stretched and can use lower revs to save fuel.

So what else am I learning, well I guess I am just trying to figure out what the trip is about, am I doing this to see things, or meet people, do I want to meet other travellers or locals, am I trying to find out about myself or about the world. I dont know, I don’t know what this is all about but I suppose thats OK, I think its all part of the journey and hopefully it’ll all become obvious over time. I’m having to face a lot of my faults, my impatience, my quickness to anger is becoming obvious to me and as I am faced with it everyday it is becoming more imperative to me to change it. It is a great test of my patience to have to unload and reload the bike every day.

One of the reasons I chose to ride all the way around Australia is that is has a definate start and a definate finish, in my life I think one of my big problems has been the inability to finish anything, I have lots of ideas but never carry them out or see them through to the end. I think fear is a big part of that the fear of failure stops me from taking things from conception to completion. I think on a personal level this inablilty to see things through has stopped me from being successful in life, successful as I see it not necessarily as society perceives it. I am starting to feel that I’m not really seeing life to the full, the thing that stops me throwing the bike over to a stupid angle in every corner is the same thing that stops me speaking to the girl or writing the story or making the film or whatever. I feel I need to take part in life a bit more, theres no point being here and pussying out on all the important stuff now is there.

So enough of all that, what can I tell you about Tasmania. If you ever come over to Australia you should visit Tasmania its a great place with a great people and its very different to the mainland. Life over here is much simpler, it’s like travelling back in time but in a good way. If you’re on vodafone you wont get any signal outside the two main cities of Hobart and Launceston, shops shut at 5 or 6 even in Hobart, which is the state the capital, in fact in Hobart after about 7 or 8 the city centre seems deserted. I liked Hobart a lot, the best description I can give it is to compare it to the arty part of your city but because of the size, only about 200,000 people, thats the whole thing. It feels relaxed and excepting. It’s a great place just don’t expect to be able to get what you want when you want it, over here you have to learn to except their timescale. Launceston seems like the more industrial city of Tasmania which makes sense as it is in the north closer to the links to the mainland, it has only 100,000 people living there and has a bit of a’ Melbourne’ to Hobarts ‘Sydney’ to it, a bit of jealousy.

A good example of how people are different down here is a conversation I had with a lad I was working with, he’s 18 and was working to save $4000 dollars. When I asked him what he was saving for... 100 head of sheep, people and life are just that little bit simpler over here.

I travelled through a place called Queenstown on the way down from the north west down to Hobart, it’s an old mining town and a good advert for the damage we are doing to our planet. The river running through it is brown and frothy, although I later found out the Brown colour is the Tannins from the forests in the area, and all around looks like a mars landscape its barren nothing much grows there anymore and with the death of mining in the area they are now trying to sell it as a tourist destination!

Port Arthur is where they sent the criminals who just kept breaking the rules, it’s on the south eastern tip of Tasmania from there 800 nautical miles south is Antarctica. It sounds like it was hell from what the guides tell you, the only problem is the area is so beautiful its hard to imagine it as a living nightmare. It is interesting to see the criminal past however and a computer list of every inmate showed no less then 6 Perrys were sent to Port Arthur.

Freycinet National Park is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, the beaches are amazing the water is turquoise the air is fresh and the water comes from the local river. Even though it is only a couple of hundred K’s from Launceston it feels like the edge of the world. I’m sure when you see the pictures it won’t do any justice to just how beautiful wineglass bay and the surroundings are. It’s possible to camp out here and do a three day trek through the park, if I had time and some other people with me I’d do it, if I ever come back I will.

So thats it up to now, I’m back in Melbourne for about a week then I’m off to Adelaide so I’ll be in touch soon.

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