Somewhere Between

The little white Mazda had the acceleration of a fat American running up a hill and drank petrol like a melancholic Irishman drinks whisky. Despite this, I was getting quite attached to it until I made my petrol stop following my night spent at the tourist town of Strahan on the west coast of Tasmania. A guy came out to pump the gas with a smirk on his face and when I followed him in to pay, a woman appeared who seemed equally amused. "I was just saying to my husband, you should go out and serve this lady that's pulling up," she said, "We had to laugh when you got out."
I looked from them to the Mazda and must admit, it did look like a girl’s car. "I must admit, it does look like a girl’s car," I said, quickly adding defensively, "But it's not mine - it's a hire car and this is all they could offer me. Maybe I should go and get it painted red." "Yeah, at least then it might go faster," she said. I left them smirking away. I wish I'd said blue. I'd covered the central and western regions of the island, taking in Lake St. Claire along the way. It looked an easy drive from the south west up to Strahan but the roads wound up and down valleys through the mountains, through territory that apart from the roads was largely untouched by man. The miles I covered as the crow flies were puny compared to the hours it was taking me to do so. There were signs warning road users not to drive after dark because of the dangers of wildlife stepping in front of the oncoming traffic.
As the sun got lower in the sky, I eventually rounded one corner in the hills that overlooked a valley. The landscape had suddenly changed dramatically, the hills that had been thick with forest was now bare. In the valley below was the town of Queenstown, built on first gold and then subsequently copper mining, the trees had long since been used to feed the smelter and the land polluted by sulphur from processing. The road wound down toward the town which seemed deserted, the population in steady decline as the last few mines completed their life’s work.
I pulled into Strahan after dark, tired from the full day’s drive. The Strahan YHA at least wasn’t busy enough for me to have a dorm mate in the tiny two bed room, though the school group that were staying on the premises made enough noise for the whole town. First a small fishing village, Strahan is the only place of substantial size on the entire west coast and has become somewhat of a Mecca for ecotourists. In the early morning I took a quick drive along the quiet waterfront and around the various holiday cabin parks before setting out for Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain.
When I got there, there was a foot of snow and threatening clouds that obscured the view of the mountain. I decided to give the hiking a rest - not because I was being a wimp and didn't want to go out in the cold - but because my 24 hour national parks pass had run out. So I stayed with the car, ready to make a quick get away should a ranger show up. As I took one of my walks around the car a 4x4 pulled up and out stepped a man in his late 30s. He was either wearing everything he owned, or else he was very heavily built. I guess the truth was somewhere between the two. I was wondering if I was wasting my time and wondered if I could claim to have seen some of the mountain, all be it just a small section of it.
"Hey mate," I called to him, "Is that the base of Cradle Mountain?" I enquired, pointing to the bottom of one of the mountains at the other side of the lake.
"Na, it's further back, behind and to the side of the one you're looking at," he replied.
"What do you reckon are the chances of actually seeing it?"
"Well, the mountain's obscured by cloud for 300 days of the year. You need to be pretty lucky." My disappointment grew. "But I was here just last week," he continued, "You think the snow's bad now, we had heaps a few weeks ago, up to your hips it was. I come down here during my lunch break as much as I can, last week it was just like this then all of a sudden the clouds lifted and I was treated to a magnificent view." He handed me his digital camera and I scrolled through the pictures of the snow-covered mountain under blue skies. I looked up, there was a small glint of blue to the south in the sea of grey.
"Hey there's some blue sky over there I said. We might get lucky again," I said hopefully.
"Well you never know," he replied without much conviction. The blue in the heavens slowly began eating away at the grey while he quizzed me about my travels but time was getting on.
"Well must get back to work," he said. "Good luck," he said nodding toward the mountain. He got back into the 4x4 and drove off.
Half an hour later and my patience paid off when the mist cleared enough to present the mountain. It was well worth the waiting and the cold I had endured.
I drove on for that nights planned stay in Stanley on the north west coast, home to The Nut, the rocky remains of an ancient volcano separated by a fine spit from the mainland. In the YHA hostel there was only one other guest but he could also have been called The Nut. He was shaven headed with a goatee beard, looked to be in his mid-forties with a tattoo of a spider on his neck and another of flames on his wrists all of which complemented the ring he had through his nose. He was wearing a grey T-shirt and black leggings, over which he had a grey skirt which at least took the attention away from his bare hobbit-like feet. There was a scar on the top of his head, either from the last punch-up he'd had or else from the operation where he'd had a portion of brain removed. He was sitting watching TV with the sound turned off. After we exchanged hellos, I asked if I could put the sound on. "I'd rather not, it annoys me," he said in his Aussie tinged but unmistakably Scottish accent. "So you just like looking at the picture?" I said. "No, I hate TV. It changes people moods." I left him to it to sort out my kit while I tried to figure out if I'd missed something. I had just enough of the day left to take the 152 metre climb up and around The Nut and have a look around the pleasant little town.
Later, despite my growing fears, I started chatting with The Nut back at the hostel after he asked to borrow some of my newly purchased coffee. I'd just gone shopping and decided that it was silly for someone with such a caffeine addiction as me to be relying on there being free hostel tea and coffee wherever I stayed. It had only taken four months to conclude this. After helping himself to a second mugs worth, The Nut confessed that he was there as he was on the run but he wouldn't tell me from whom or why. He did tell me that he couldn’t go back to the mainland because the police were also after him and he’d had his passport confiscated. He admitted to being violent in the past, especially when he’d been drinking though he'd given that up. I was glad Stanley only had the one pub.
Just when I thought he couldn’t get much weirder, he did. “I keep seeing people with glasses,” he said. "Everywhere I go, there they are, people wearing glasses, looking at me through them."
“What’s wrong with people with glasses?” I asked.
“I dunno, something’s going on though, there’s definitely more people wearing them.” As conspiracy theories went, it seemed pretty lame to me. He nearly jumped out of his seat a few moments later when a guy on TV appeared with spectacles. After he calmed down he then spotted a man walking past out of the window with glasses and stood centurion-like looking out until he disappeared from view. “The bloke that was here last night wore glasses too,” he said, “He kept looking at me through them… I think he left this morning.” I couldn’t think why.
After a while I realised we hadn't formally introduced ourselves.
“By the way, my name’s David,” I said leaning over to shake his hand. I was expecting him to have a name that could be turned into a serial killer nickname like Buffalo Bill or Jack the Ripper.
“I’m Kevin.” I realised then that I was probably safe but even so, I left the coffee in the kitchen when I'd gone to bed, hoping that the gesture would keep him from murdering me during the night. I was glad I was put into my own dormitory and that the doors had locks. I left him in the common room with the mute TV.
When I got up in the morning, Kevin was still in the same position with the TV doing its stuff silently. Though I was a lot lighter on coffee, I was glad to be leaving.
It seemed funny that I could have built a snowman by Cradle Mountain, yet a day and three hours driving later, the sky was blue and the day pleasantly warm as I made my way across the North of the island, through small coastal fishing and port towns to Launceston. The Launceston Backpackers hostel was a grand old restored house with a cavernous kitchen and common areas that seemed a little out of scale for the few guests. I did get talking to an odd travelling couple - a well spoken, carefree English man who was with a very serious younger German lad. Launceston is Tasmania’s second largest city, but the town was easily explored by foot and the three of us took off to walk along Cataract Gorge, a spectacular valley with sheer cliff faces carved out by the South Esk River. The well-spoken man and myself were in our element tackling the hiking trails whilst the serious German moaned all the way at the slight physical effort involved.
The two of them epitomised the two sets of characters that I’d come across in the travelling community. The well-spoken man told me that he had a perfectly good job with good money but had reached a point where contentment was turning to boredom. Much like myself, he’d put his career on hold and taken the decision to see some of the world while he was still young enough. The serious German was on his way to university later on in the year and was in the group of pre or post students that were on the road looking for new places to drink beer. With no responsibilities and the opportunities of cheaper then ever travel that generations before lacked, they largely seemed there just because they could be.

I’d been getting to see a lot of the Tasmanian wildlife whilst driving around but unfortunately, most of it was splattered across the road surfaces. I'd seen Wombats, Possums, Wallabies and all sorts of other things that I couldn't identify that had got the bad news from the traffic. It was also interesting to get the chance to sample some Australian radio, from which I learnt that the majority of Australians would prefer to have a tail to a beak. With my last two days with the Mazda, I drove down the east coast, the tamer side of the island. These things are all relative though, when going for a bushwalk in Freycinet National Park there were signs reading 'Do not bring in pets or firearms to the park.' Did that mean that there were Tasmanians wandering around carrying guns for the rest of the time? Are there as many people with guns as pets? I just hoped that Kevin back in Stanley hadn't got hold of one.
I took the walk that afforded me the view of Wineglass Bay, one of Tasmania's most famous picturesque spots. Very nice it was too, though the complete five-hour hike over 11 kilometres was pretty tiring. I'd based myself at Bicheno an adorable little town by the sea and home to The Blowhole, a part of the rocky shoreline on the beachfront where the rock formation causes the launch of a powerful spout of water several meters into the air whenever any substantial waves turn up. It was also a great place to spot Penguins at night according to the manager of the adorable Bicheno Backpackers and so I headed back after dark armed with my mag-light. The noises they were making could have come from aliens in a sci-fi movie. I could hear them but couldn't see any of them at first. Then as I ventured closer to the sea front, the torchlight caught some movement. There were two of them, little fellas, no more then a foot tall waddling toward the shelter provided by the bush. They were having trouble negotiating the cracks in the rocky surface. One of them chanced it and jumped across. He made it but then stood there at the edge looking around to make sure his mate had seen his act of daring. The stupid sod then toppled into the gap.
Taking care not to shine the light into it's eyes, I peered down to see that it was wedged in between the rocks. Stupid Penguin. What now? Did my presence cause him to fall? I had to do something or else I might not sleep that night for the guilt. I didn't want to grab him as it might stress him to the point of him going to peck, bite or kick at me.
I went over to the bush to look for some something that I might use, though what I had no idea. And then my torch batteries died. In the pitch black I decided to abandon my ill-conceived rescue plan. I headed back to the hostel, the place deserted with the one other guest out for the evening. I made a point of returning to the beach next morning. The Penguin had vanished. I guess he'd made it out himself. That or some predator got a free breakfast. It was time to head back to Hobart, stopping at Andrei’s place for a cup of tea and to tell the tales of my adventures over the previous week before I returned the hire-car, pretty pleased it and I were back in one piece. The car rental guy gave it a quick glance and looked disappointed that it was OK. I think he was hankering after an insurance pay out for a new toy. Or maybe he had lost the office sweepstake over whether the Brit would kill himself on the winding roads of Tasmania.