I tried sleeping last night, but I found myself tossing and turning, dreaming vividly of what has been or what may come of all this. I was expecting it though, the dreams you have before one sets off on a new journey. The excitement built up inside like a volcano ready to erupt.
So tomorrow sometime I’ll be arriving in Tasmania. The first on the agenda will be to catch up with Miss Em over at “Can you me point me to the bar?” ironically, as I hope she can point me to the bar herself. Anyway this will probably end in a nasty tangle, a silver sack and a park bench. Never fear, I’m experienced.
Moving right alone, what I haven’t declared at this stage is that I’m planning, with the Old Boy, who I have dragged along for the first month, is to take on a substantial tramp. If you can recall, Tasmania is a resource rich environment with mountains, river and all that sweet wilderness stuff. Some time in the past, 70’s or 80’s by recollection a large area of the island was reserved as National Park, and later recognised as World Heritage. This was much to the dislike of fat cats and greasy wheelers alike who had already handsomely capitalized by the industrial movement of earlier years without restrain.
‘Forty miles due west of Hobart is a veritable “No Man’s Land”, where any lone traveller would be taking his own life in his hands. It is an inferno of mountains, gorges and impenetrable forests’ ~ ET Emmett, Director of Tasmanian Tourist Bureau, 1953.
“That’s where I want to go” I mumble to Dad one late night in the softly lit lounge room. “Me too” he confirms, “I feel like I’m dying here, on this couch”.. He reaches over and takes another large swig of cheap red, grumbles a little then rest’s his head on the rocker again. I swivel the chair I’m sitting in to face the geek space. I quickly clatter at some keys, pull out the credit card. “Click, click, click”. “Happy 60th Birthday Dad” I resound, “Now you have no piss weak excuse”. “What” he grumbles from his shallow slumber. “We’re going to Tasmania to walk through the wilderness” I announce in a somewhat nonchalant voice. I’ve only been living with him a few week’s, as he moved out when I was pretty young. It’s apparent he has no idea how I operate through life, uneducated and ready to burn.
So this is how it all started. And now some months later we are ready to challenge ourselves beyond the mundane existence of dull suburbia. The plan, being that we are planning to spend 18 days in the wild with everything we need to survive carried on our back. We studied some maps and decided on four tracks, being 181km in total: The Huon, The MacKay, Port Davey and South West Coast, hence why I’ve been using the word training loosely around here.
Anyway with this I say goodbye to West OZ yet again. Let the adventures begin.
