My time in Tasmania was severely limited, so after going only a little ways into this beautiful place, I had to curve back around to the port where the ferry was waiting.
Early in the day I heard an odd squeak coming from my rear wheel, and discovered a broken spoke. Luckily I had a little string-and-clamp device for a temporary fix.
Broke a spoke, and had to make field repairs before things got worse…
One afternoon in Tasmania, I remember stopping and thinking to myself,
“This is what it used to be like, back home. The trees are cacophonous with birdsong. The ground is electric with bugs. The rivers are jostling with life. You can’t take three straight steps without blundering into the path of some new animal. Back home, the ground has been paved silent, the rivers have been fished empty, the trees echo, and you could walk all day without seeing a creature that isn’t wearing clothes or blundering around in a domesticated fog.”
I sat by the side of the road, drinking water and listening to that almost overwhelming wave of insect sounds, and thought back.
When I was a kid, I used to catch crayfish down in the forest near my house, pulling them out of the little stream, inspecting them as they waved their claws around energetically, and then dropping them back in with a “plop”. I returned to that stream a few years ago and looked at it, and found no crayfish, and the rainbow sheen of industrial pollution instead. I felt sad at the time, for the loss of something that I’d assumed would always be there.
But by the side of the road in Tasmania, I felt even worse about that memory. I was suddenly, overwhelmingly clear to me that the departed signs of life that I enjoyed as a child and mourned as an adult were themselves a meager shadow of a diversity and fertility that I never even knew about, driven out and poisoned by people I never met, who either didn’t care – or more likely didn’t even suspect – that their environment could become so quiet, and empty, and would eventually be haunted by near-invisible chemical ghosts that would drive even their own children away.
I had made the same mistake they did.
That trip, that day on the trip, was a rude awakening. One can’t be immersed in an environment like that and not be overwhelmed by the contrast between there and home. You think you know what to expect, because you read “The Lorax” when you were a kid, or maybe “Walden”, and you can relate to what he was saying in an abstract way, but then it hits you in the face – and the ears, and the nose, and the lungs, all at once – and you realize that it’s not just a philosophy or a political stance or an ideology, it’s a physical process, and you are directly involved in it, regardless of what you think. It is happening to you.
I’m in Sheffield, Tasmania, at a local rotary club diner. People’s local accents are so thick here that I can only barely understand them. You ever have one of those dreams where people speak to you, and you can hear every sound clearly, but not a single word emerges? It’s like that. It’s English – the words are all English – but unless I concentrate really hard, they all run together into a kind of vocal slurry. To add to the surreality, the folks at the bar just fired up the jukebox and it’s blaring honky-tonk music.
I’ve been riding all day and seen AMAZING THINGS!
Bizarre stands of trees, neat spiders, a whole mess of mud crabs wandering around, a beautiful swampy region, a pooped dragonfly that walked on my gloved hand for many photos, a lakeshore TEEMING with tiny frogs, so thick they had to hop out of the way en masse with each footfall, wild parrots, a local bicycle race, wild CHICKENS, a big ol’ snake sunbathing, many tame llamas and cows and sheep, a freaking SKINK (recently dead in the road, alas), ants as wide as my thumb … HUGE buggers! … Geese and trails of goslings, enormous ferns … Oh and at least five dead marsupials by the side of the road that I couldn’t quite identify. And I only rode through a tiny, well populated piece of Tasmania, too.
Dude. Just look at that. Lush and foreign-looking – unfamiliar plants all around – but with each plant filling a niche so it all adds up unmistakably to a riverbank.
And here I am riding straight through a thicket! This is a stand of Ti trees, I believe. They look just like ginormous shrubs. In both of these scenes I could hear a very intense, high buzzing sound, from all the millions of insects in the vicinity. It was much louder than any equivalent sound I’ve heard back home.
Oddly enough, I didn’t get bitten by anything. I didn’t see a single mosquito either. Wrong season perhaps.
Here’s another view of those trees. They’re very top-heavy. It’s like they’ve evolved to compete for sunlight very fiercely with each other, and their tactic versus other plants is to grow so close together that they starve out everything beneath them.
It’s CrabeOpolous! I looked out at the mudbank in front of me and saw at least A HUNDRED of them moving around. They blend in very well. They’re Camocrabes! Precisely the color of the mud. I bet it didn’t take many hundreds of years either, for the birds to apply enough selection pressure, in isolation on this island.
As I watched, they competed for territory by waving their claws up in the air at each other, in a kind of haranguing gesture that put me in mind of a New York pedestrian arguing on a crosswalk. “I’M WALKIN’ HERE!!!”
Which reminds me. I need a cheap t-shirt of Christopher Walken with his arms up in the air, and the caption, “I’M WALKEN HERE.” Make it. Make it now.
Time for another round of CrabeCount 2011! Twenty at least! And lots of pointy snails!
By the way. I call them crabes, instead of crabs, on account of a joke Ken Bell and I made in our UCSC days, about twelve years ago. We originally found the spelling in an old Red Meat comic. Imagine a four-year-old running around shouting, “OH NO! CRABES!”
These fellows were all hanging around scooping bits and pieces out of the puddles left by the receding tide.
They’re pretty low-key as far as lizards go, but you wouldn’t wanna get chomped by one without gloves – it could break the skin and transmit disease. They have tiny teeth but robust jaws, like the alligator lizards they resemble from the forests I tromp through back home. I used to catch alligator lizards by grabbing them in one hand and then offering them a finger from my other, which they would bite and gnaw harmlessly on for a little while, exhausting themselves into docility. Then you could just carry them around and show them stuff. You wouldn’t want to try that tactic with a skink of course.
Around here, bugs just fall out of the sky and land on you as you go. I hear it’s a good thing I didn’t smoosh this guy because the species lets out a repulsive stink.
I was biking slowly up a long hill, and I glanced to my left over the edge of the embankment into the woods, and I saw a CHICKEN HEAD looking back at me.
I thought “what the heck is going on here?” and stopped. The chicken head turned to follow me.
I thought “it’s picture time,” and I unwrapped the camera, put it on, took off the lenscap, and flipped the on switch, and the whole time, the chicken stood there gawking. So I started talking to it and walked closer. The chicken held its ground as I walked to the edge of the road, and over the edge I could see a second chicken, just ten feet into the woods.
I took a few photos, chatting the whole time, then walked back to the bike and got out some chocolate mint popcorn I’d bought earlier that day. I threw a few bits out, and the chickens stepped eagerly up to the bike to investigate. They didn’t eat the popcorn – must have smelled wrong – but they stood there while I got a few more photos.
I didn’t have the resources to adopt chickens just then, though I was tempted, so I said goodbye to them, ordered them to stay out of the road, remounted the bike, and rode on.
I saw so many things today that I would have NEVER seen if I’d been in a car, or on a motorbike … and I’d never have seen it all if I’d been walking.
… Then I turned over some bark and found an ant nest.
Gah, look at all those ants. They were dragging their eggs around to hide them – an act that almost evoked pity in me until I remembered that even without disturbing them, they would have happily chewed my leg off. If I’d laid down on their nest they would have cut me into sections and fed me to their larvae.
The lakeshore was teeming with them. Every few steps, I saw them jump out of my way in groups of two or three. Their tadpoles fluttered just under the water. If this is an indigenous species, it’s been unique to Tasmania for a long time … Amphibians cannot cross ocean, so this frog can only be here by means of plate tectonics or human interference. (Salt water is lethal to amphibians at any life-stage.)
Here’s a frog still in transition. This would have been a better shot except I had to go with the preliminary, because when I got close, the little bugger bounced right off that tree and leapt into the water in less than a second, in one emphatic squiggle.
This guy was clinging to life even though he’d been smacked by a car and damaged his “lungs”.
When I picked him up he had ants all over him already, trying to dismember him, but I shook them off and crushed them. He had just enough strength to hold on against the wind. I set him down to ride along the back of my bike for a while. One last trip through the air. About half a mile later I checked, and he was gone.
The marsh was a fascinating place to explore. The sheer density of plants and the unstable ground made it into a kind of maze, and you know how I love mazes!
Also apropos of nothing, the All Saints Church of England Cemetery. Maintained by the Central Coast Council and the family of Ernest Mason, who is buried somewhere around here in an unmarked grave.
Massive power lines march the energy away to the coastal cities. See those white cement markers near the base of each pole? I’m pretty those are to stop the locals from running donuts around the power pole and possibly smacking into it.
Celia tells me this is a Banksia tree. She used to have a fear of them because of how they were depicted in a well-known Australian childrens’ book. The little tufts of leaves on the branches were said to be tiny demons that could jump off and cause mischief.
My race time wasn’t improved by my tendency to stop and take photos of everything. Here it looks like the woods were damaged by a brushfire, then filled back in with ferns.
Sunset in Sheffield. At this point I’ve finished my fish and chips from the rotary club (they were decent, but the chips were too soggy) and checked in to a motel. To my great surprise the drinks in the mini-fridge came with a note saying “These are complementary, for our thirsty travelers.” First time I’ve ever seen that before. I was so impressed by it that I told the owner of the place.
I woke up after uneven intervals of sleep, packed up pretty efficiently, and was off by about 7:10am. I was worried I might be late, but I drafted just behind a large bicyclist, while a third cyclist drafted behind me, tucking me into a cushion of roiling air that greatly reduced my energy expenditure. I covered four quick miles this way, and gave a friendly nod to the cyclists as I turned off their route at a stoplight.
From there it was only a couple more miles to the terminal, where I took an elevator to the second floor and bought a last-minute ticket. My eyes felt strangely sore and tired, so I changed shirts and washed up in the nearby bathroom. The car exhaust perhaps? Pollen?
Onboard the ferry, I went through the cafeteria line and bought a fountain soda, since in Australia they are all flavored with cane sugar. This makes them a unique treat for an American, for whom all sodas, canned or otherwise, are made with high-fructose corn syrup. Corn isn’t heavily subsidized elsewhere in the world, so it’s just as economical to use cane sugar here. Hooray!
Of course, a few sips in, and I began to get that vague fuzzy-headed glycemic reaction I always get from soda nowadays. … So most of it went into the trash can.
Nobby’s Nuts. How cheeky. The second I saw this I thought of Lt. Cprl. J.W. “Nobby” DeNobbes Esq. I hear the advertising used to contain the phrase “Nibble Nobby’s nuts!”
Nothing to do on board except write, think, read, nap, and walk around. On, and shop. In the boat gift shop I bought myself a Tasmania hat, to compliment my Alaska hat.
Watching the people walk around, I have some bizarre thoughts. Many of them would be impolite if I voiced them.
For example, on the enclosed landing between two decks, I noticed a large plastic sign standing upright against the far wall. At the base of the sign was a gap, through which the floor was visible. In this narrow stretch of floor between the sign and the wall, a man had laid down beneath a sleeping bag. He was tall, dressed in cheap rugged clothing, tanned, and in good shape, and appeared to be in his mid-30’s. He also clearly had not bathed for a while. Curled across him, also beneath the sleeping bag, was a young woman, in her mid 20’s, dressed the same way and looking just as unkempt. Her head was on his chest and she had one leg thrown over his. The man and the women were both attempting to sleep.
Watching them, my mind went in many directions at once.
“They must be on a low-cost adventure. I wonder how many countries they’ve been through?”
“Why are they asleep? It’s ten in the morning on a Friday.”
“Wow, it appears their only footwear is flip-flops.”
“They must not be from around here – they’re actually embracing. So far Australian society has shown to be unapproving of public affection. I bet Kashy is right. I bet the San Francisco Bay Area is the most touch-friendly English-speaking region on Earth.”
“I bet the woman is deeply attached to the man, and sees him as a free spirit and a rebel and a protector all at once. I wonder if she’ll still be with him in five years, when he’s exactly the same as he is now but 40 years old, and she’s still in her 20’s and evolved into someone else? Probably not. Funny how from the outside, it seems like many relationships appear to just be temporary mutual exploitation. I’m sure these two people are a lot of things to each other but primarily, the woman gets a tourguide, and the man gets a sex partner. I’m not condemning it, exactly. I’m just observing it.”
“I wonder if they are bothered by being that dirty, or if they’re just used to it by now.”
“I wonder if they paid to board.”
This all took about 15 seconds to think as I stared at them from the foot of the stairs to the next floor. Probably the only thought I could speak aloud and not be stared at for is the first one.
Other thoughts:
I should have brought a kilt. That would be amusing to ride around on a bike with, as well as amusing to lounge around on this ferry boat with.
My laptop is one of about fifty opened on this deck alone. Most of the other laptops are dinky little netbooks, and are being used to play movies. I’ve seen two iPads so far. The prized spots around the ship are the tables next to electrical sockets. There are no “official” charging stations so you need to wander around until you spot a free socket. Almost all of these are manned by serious-looking geeks, hacking and occasionally looking up like meerkats on alert.
I have three days in Tasmania, and I really wish I had my camping gear and my recumbent so I had enough room to carry it. Or perhaps better, a local friend I could share residency with. I got very lucky meeting Celia … she saved me a huge amount of money, and eliminated a massive amount of confusion. Just picking me up at the airport she saved me a sixty-dollar cab ride.
And then, on an upper deck, staring out to sea, getting way cerebral:
Here’s a question you can learn something by asking yourself. What does it profit you to be who you are?
Literature is full of stories about passionate heroes who are driven to accomplish glorious feats, or die in a blaze of defiance. People love to hear about these characters, sure, but I wonder how many of these tales exist because writers like to write about them. Put another way, I wonder how much of history is preserved simply because it impresses writers, and how much is lost and plowed under and untold because no writer saw a personal profit to it.
If the answer is “a lot”, then what should one do with that information? Add more skepticism to history? Live to impress writers?
I say: Look for an alternate way to define your life, as an adult. Step out of the frameworks offered by stories, and out of the hamster wheel of ever-increasing qualifications and wants and cut a middle path. Because life will definitely end up either too short, or too long, to neatly encapsulate your goals.
Wise-sounding people all around you will proclaim that “the journey is the reward,” and quietly believe that the lesson of their advice is to trick yourself into enjoying the same work you would otherwise pursue in misery. They see it as self-deception.
I think a better way of phrasing that advice is, “find a journey that is rewarding.” Or as Chairman Mao put it: “Work hard; make progress every day.”
Boy, it sure is true what my sister said. Wherever I go, I bring myself along with me.
Here’s a trip. You are looking at this picture on your computer. The picture was sent to you from a repository somewhere in a midwestern data center. The picture was taken by my digital camera on a ferry boat between Tasmania and Australia. In the picture is a television receiving a satellite feed. The feed is of a local news channel, which is currently showing a weather report. The graphic in the weather report was given to the news channel by a weather station, which generated it on a computer. The computer used data gathered from thousands of instruments and probes all over the continent of Australia, as well as at least one satellite in space. I typed this caption about half an hour after I took the picture, on the upper deck of the ferry boat. Hours after that I, I combined the caption and the photo in Aperture and then sent it to Flickr via the internet connection at my hotel room in Tasmania. And here it is. Just think of all the hundreds of details and steps I left out!
A first view of Tasmania from the deck. Or, as the little kid standing next to me said, “Look mummy! Is Taz Main Nun Nan! Taz Main Nun Nan Nan Nan Num Naaan!”
Part of my grand fish-and-chips-themed tour was a ride down the coast, along the side of Hobsons Bay. See that dotted line labeled “Spirit of Tasmania”? Soon I shall be boarding that craft, and heading for Tasmania, or “Tassie” as it’s affectionately known around here. But first…
The Royal Botanical Gardens! ("The treasure is buried under a big three!")
The weather was clear and sunny, and most of the route was a procession of interlinked bike paths that hugged the coastline. Mile after mile scrolled along with fresh air and music and sips from my canteen.
It was quite pleasant, though not particularly exotic. It felt like I was pedaling down the coast back home in Santa Cruz, passing along that two-mile stretch of sand and boardwalk inside an endless loop that would keep going as long as I stayed on the bike. I didn’t even take out the camera to record the scenery.
Stopping for fish and chips in Sandringham. The place was called Sandy’s Fish And Chips, and they were pretty good. The five dollar fries turned out to be an enormous box – several pounds of salty, crisp fries. I ate way too many of them. They also had a unique fish listed on their board – flounder – but there was absolutely no way I was going to contribute to the hunting of flounder, even if I was doing the Aussie dining experience. I have very special feelings about flounders.
My room for the night, at the Buckingham International, actually a glorified Best Western. Relatively posh. It better be, for over a hundred bucks… While here, I did some more calculations and realized that instead of riding all the way around Hobsons Bay, I wanted to have an additional day in Tasmania. So I decided to ride north instead of south next morning to catch the early ferry.
