Forgotten How To Laugh

I arrived in Adelaide just before the dawn did. A recharging cappuccino at the bus station gave me just enough energy for the walk with my backpack to the hostel Annie’s Place that had a famous namesake in Alice Springs under the same management with a reputation as one of the best hostels going. I was looking forward to getting there and catching up on some sleep.
The Irish girl on the morning shift on reception surfaced – eventually – to check me in and I collapsed into bed just in time for my new dormitory mates to start getting on with their day. Their fumbling and rummaging disturbed my attempts at slumber to the extent that I decided my first few hours in Adelaide would be better served washing the outback dust from my clothes and going out to get acquainted with the first conventional town I’d been in for a while.
Adelaide must be the dullest city in the world. It’s a struggle to find the words to describe it or think of anywhere to compare it. As the first completely planned Australian city I’d thought a better job could have been made of it. A grid system one mile square forms the centre with all the usual chain stores and a Starbucks or McDonalds on every other corner. The Chinatown and central market was as interesting as it got. Further out, green leafy parklands spanned the suburbs. The happy-go-lucky Aussie attitude seemed to be distinctly lacking; the smiles and good natured atmosphere were replaced by a more British-like pessimistic attitude toward life.
A tram ran from the city centre to the suburb of Glenig, a mildly interesting seaside area at best when in the midst of winter. The beach itself was uninviting and the couple of thousand dollars it was to do an out of season dive with Great White Sharks in the South Australian waters would have been more daredevil with the budget then that of the body and mind.
It got to the point where I decided to fill the day by going to museums. However, the immigration museum actually turned out to be really good. It was brutally honest, hiding nothing about the early shameful treatment of Aborigines or that of suspected communists, Germans during the Second World War or nationalities that Australia just didn't want to be allowed in. For example, a Japanese applicant might have been given a language test to be allowed to enter. Fair enough you'd think, but the test would be in Swedish to ensure failure.
The most moving part of the whole experience for me though was some artwork by Aborigines. This included a painting with two Aborigines walking in a desert scene, casting white shadows. An Aboriginal child was depicted writing decreasing fractions on a blackboard with a picture of the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger. And a picture of the planet made up of the dry hard outback desert being encroached by white colouring stuck in the memory. Powerful stuff.
After passing through the exhibits, a comment board with visitor’s notes showed the strong feelings from both sides over Australia's complex historical immigration history. Many notes commended the museum’s sobering unabashed depictions whilst others voiced disgust and pointed to a lack of patriotism.
I also visited Adelaide Goal that had been holding prisoners up until the eighties. Some of the corpses of the 45 people that were executed remain buried in the grounds making the place slightly creepy. Tales of a haunted cellblock were amongst the stories on the audio tour about life in the goal. I must admit that the single cells didn't look too bad, I'd certainly stayed in worse places and at least the prisoners didn't have to put up with the snoring of a German or a Dutch couple having sex in the same room.
More experienced travellers that I’d met had talked about being on the road for four months and beginning to tire of the lifestyle. I was finding that to be true. I was aching to have my own room again or not having to write my name on my food before trying to stuff it into an over-crowded hostel fridge. Having the same initial conversation when meeting new people all the time was becoming tiresome. It was hard to put in any effort knowing that people met would probably only be in my life for a day or two.
I discovered that Tera was coincidentally in Adelaide at the same time as me and it was good to meet up with her. She was suffering too, and was even contemplating going back home to Canada early. We spent an evening in a quiet bar having a much-needed moan to each other. I blamed Adelaide. It was a Saturday night and we explored a few streets, any sense of jovial atmosphere was lacking as the rain came down to underline our moods. The bars were deserted, the people of Adelaide seemingly to be either small in number or with more important things to do then go out on the town and enjoy themselves.
After so much missed sleep travelling on the overnight buses perhaps my mood was down to tiredness. I could at least take comfort in a bed of much greater snugness then a bus seat with an ensuite bathroom and a free, if simple breakfast at Annie’s Place for a couple of days until I’d caught up with some sleep. That was until the broken fire alarm that repeatedly kept going off through all hours of the night. I put it down to fate’s way of telling me to get out of Adelaide.
And so I flew to Hobart as soon as I could. As the plane passed over Tasmania I could see from the window that it was a complete departure from the mainland with beautiful rolling hills, lush forests and unending greenery.
Tasmania had somewhat of a negative reputation with the people on the mainland that I’d met, those that I talked to about the state describing Tasmanians as ‘backward’ with surprise that I wanted to go there. True, the island wasn’t near the top of the places that I wanted to see before I went to Australia, but I had a good reason to make a stop.
Andrei, a former work colleague back in the UK picked me up from the airport. It was good to see an old friend – one that I thought I wouldn’t see again when he left the UK to return to his native Australia. As he was originally a Sydneysider, I had to wait a little longer to meet a Tasmanian. It didn’t take long for me to realise what the mainlanders were talking about as we made a stop at the Narrara Backpackers Hostel for me to check in and drop off my bags. I’m not sure if the way of talking that the manager had was due to shyness or bluntness.
"Are there Internet facilities here?" I asked.
"Nope." He replied. I expected him to expand on where I might go so let the silence hang for a moment. He just smiled and looked at me.
“So… is there a library or Internet café nearby where I might be able to get on-line?”
“Yep.”
Again silence. It was going to take some coaxing to get the desired info out of him. “So…can you tell me where?”
Hobart itself was a beautiful city, sitting at the mouth of the Derwant River and shielded from the harsher weather by the impressive Mount Wellington that looms over the town. The state capital of Tasmania and Australia’s second oldest city, it had certainly come a long way since its beginnings as a penal colony.
Andrei took me back to his house and It was really good spend time in the company of his family as we talked about old times over a few beers and a barbecue while listening to his 60s/70s Aussie rock collection. I must still be getting used to Australian beer as he whipped me at the game of table tennis we had on the table he had in his shed. It was one of the nicest days I'd had in a while and reminded me of all the homely comforts I was missing by being on the road. It almost made me want to get back to a normal life.
Almost.
I staggered back into the hostel, pausing for a brief chat with one of the other guests who was sitting on the porch. He had long dark hair, the clothes of a hippy and I put his one word answers down to him appearing more out of it then I was, not because he was from Hobart.
But despite the slight eccentricities, I was finding the local people charming and among the friendliest Aussies I've met. When I awoke in the morning, the hangover not as bad as I’d been expecting, I got talking to Peter who was my only dorm mate. A taxi driver from out of town, he used the hostel as a base while working the state capital and he proudly talked me through what the island had to offer. I headed out for my first look around Hobart in full tourist mode.
Salamanca Place and Battery Point at the harbour was the central hub for the visitor, with rows of Georgian buildings with classy restaurants, café’s and shops. The area also plays host to the Saturday market, an affair that the locals take great pride in, but an inferior rival compared to the experience of the Mindel Beach Sunset market in Darwin. I stopped at a tourist office near the waterfront to investigate some of the things to do as had been laid out by Andrei and Peter.
"Do you do tours to Port Arthur?" I asked the elderly bolding grey-haired gentleman behind the counter.
"Yes." Came the reply. I expected him to expand on this so let the silence hang for a moment. He just looked at me and smiled.
“OK… how much are they?”
He just handed me a leaflet without a word.
“Riiiight. Thanks. Um, what about Russell Falls, do you do tours out there?”
“Yep.”
More silence. I gave him my best quizzical look. After a moment he handed me another leaflet.

* * *

I spent a very pleasant day climbing the 1270 metres of Mount Wellington, though was disappointed to find out that toward the north, Mount Ossa at 1617 metres beats it for height.
"Why would you want to climb Mount Wellington?" asked Andrei's son Matthew when I met up with them later.
"Um…because it's there," was the only reply I could think of.
"Haven’t you ever heard of the phrase 'mad dogs and Englishmen'?" said Andrei.
I almost didn't make it. Halfway up it started to snow and there was already a layer of the stuff making the path slippery. I'd slipped a couple of times as the friction of my boots let me down. Maybe it was nature’s way of stopping me singing She'll be coming round the mountain.
"If you don't like the weather in Tas, wait five minutes." I remember Andrei telling me. I did, the snow stopped, and I made it to the freezing, windy top for a spectacular view of the town.
Next day, I took a tour to Port Arthur, over the narrow Eaglehawk Neck connection to the Tasmanian Peninsula where a statue stands in testament to the site where once guard dogs kept would-be escapees from getting away. Port Arthur was where the badest of the bad criminals were sent, though some of the initial sentences seemed harsh; deportation to Australia for 'being drunken' or 'being idle'. I pondered on the relative populations that Britain and Australia would have now if these policies were still in force. I saw and heard about the punishments the convicts would get such as up to 100 lashings that 'felt like being hit with barbed wire' or the solitary confinement cells that would turn some men to lunacy. ‘I have quite forgotten how to laugh…’ was the quote from one William Smith O’Brien from 1850, an Irish Protestant who was sent to Van Diemen’s land for his part as a leader after a failed uprising. A ferry cruise took us past the Isle of the Dead, where 1100 convicts and guards are buried in a lump of land that looked smaller then a football pitch. Looking south of the bay, the next landmass would be that of Antarctica.
There was a memorial garden on the site to remember the 35 people that were shot dead by a crazed gunman on 28th April 1996. It was still a sensitive incident with notices asking visitors not to ask the staff about it. The area first appeared like a sleepy, pretty little village rather then a former prison. In such a beautiful part of the world with its forested hills and bays, it's hard to imagine the horrors of the history of the area.
I filled out my week visiting the city’s Cadbury chocolate factory and the beautiful botanical gardens as well as helping to drink more of Andrei’s beer. I was also given a tour of the city by Peter. He was exceedingly friendly and had been generous with his time, offering to show me around the suburbs and helped me to plan my trip around the island. However, at one stage the talk turned to immigration and the stereotypical Australian bloke came out.
“I'm not racist but...” and, “Why should I have to put up with the 99% of the bad people that come over, just for the 1% that do any good”. I did my best to take his points on board without agreeing with him, but it seems odd how people like this never think themselves racist and use completely made up statistics to back their weak arguments. I stopped pushing it after mentioning the Aborigines after which he really couldn’t stop himself. ‘Well, they were here first,’ I just about managed to stop myself from saying. Maybe I should have. I came to the country with an open mind, but I was disappointed to have heard this stuff said regularly. Strange how the Australian woman that I'd met seemed perfectly nice - it's a wonder how some of the Australian blokes manage to pull any of them.
I was looking forward to getting out of the Nararra Backpackers and Hobart. Along with Peter, the hostel was full of locals, down on their luck with nowhere else to stay, working simple jobs or just wasting away. It was a little unnerving being one of the few travellers there, though most either kept their distance or were friendly enough. Nick, the guy I’d met on the porch on the first night had actually been at one of his most astute moments, his days were spent drinking beer or smoking dope. It was fairly obvious that it was he who was responsible for the food that was going missing from the hostel fridge.
The main issue I faced was that with so few of them around at the time of year, the state shuts down for tourists. It's not easy or cheap to get around at the best of times, and I'd scanned through brochures and leaflets seeing things that sounded fun, only to spot 'does not run in August' in the small print. With my options limited I decided to hire a car.
It was fun driving again and really the best way to see the place, though was not without it’s challenges. On the first day’s driving I had snow, rain and high winds thrown at me in succession and came almighty close to running out of petrol on the deserted country roads. The roads twisted through the countryside to the extent that the speed limit signs are more of a personal challenge then the law. But the scenery was stunning. I visited Russell and Horseshoe falls, Hastings caves and I also visited the Tahurne forest air walk, walkways built up to 50 metres high in the forest canopy giving spectacular views of the eucalypt forest and the Huon and Picton rivers. It felt a shame that I only had the little Mazda for a week as I could have spent days exploring trails in the forest that I only took a few hours in.
I stayed in a small sized town called Geeveston at the edge of the southwest island wilds. Bob’s Bunkhouse, the charming small hostel that was my home for the night had just started up and the two gay men running it were struggling with the locals prejudices toward them, attitudes that could be considered 50 years out of date elsewhere in the world. The place was charming enough, gloriously warm and comfortable rooms with a fully equipped kitchen and cosy fire in the common area. The only other guest in the hostel was Martin, a middle aged man from New Zealand who seemed to have life sussed. He talked about how close he was to his kids after divorcing their mother and how he managed to work just enough so that he can travel and get his golf handicap down to six. I had no idea if that was any good, but he seemed pretty pleased.
We talked about the travelling lifestyle and the frustrating differences between travellers and tourists.
“What is it with those people - especially the Japanese and Koreans – who take rolls and rolls of pictures. They don’t actually stop and look at where they are and what they’re looking at, they just take their pictures and turn around,” he complained.
“Yeah. And why can’t people go somewhere without access to refreshments?” I said taking my turn. “You might just be making an hours journey on a ferry or train, and yet people still can’t go without paying stupid money for a cup of tea.”
“And why do people rush to use the toilets just before the plane lands? You know in a few minutes there’ll be access to a lot more comfortable facilities when you arrive.”
“Speaking of planes, why do people feel the need to rush to the front when boarding is called? The seats are allocated!”
We also agreed to the benefits of travelling alone, with no one else to get tired, hungry or bored before you do. And we both agreed that the number one crime inflicted upon the travelling humanity is the snorer. We chatted into the night and agreed that one of us should write a book on this stuff.