The Exhaustion

After some amazing adventures in Tasmania, arriving in Melbourne was dismal to say the least.  The countless trams and city streets reminded me of San Francisco, and I could not help but feel like I had travelled to the other side of the world only to arrive in a city that reminded me of home.
 
Tasmania was three weeks of living in the moment.  My biggest life decisions were: do I want to go hiking or spend the day at the beach?  Should we cook dinner now or later?  Nights of camping felt limitless, and the future shined like the sun, a beautiful luminosity with a powerful magnitude that you would never have to confront outright ...or hopefully never. 
  
When I arrived in Melbourne, five months of travel caught up to me like a sickness.  The first two weeks in a new city were lucid and panicky, like holding my breath under water.  This is the secret that travellers never mention: the exhaustion.  Find a job.  Find a place to stay.  Figure out your way around the city.  Stay positive.  Smile.  Employers love happy people.  Act confident.  Stay focused.  Don't get stressed out.  Don't get stressed out.  Don't get stressed out.  


The exhaustion is physical too.  When you are staying in hostels, couch surfing at friends' houses, and camping for nights on end, you never really feel clean.  I mean, you do feel relatively clean, but you never feel three star hotel room, fresh white towel, mini shampoo and conditioner clean.  You certainly do not feel routine lifestyle, leave in defrizzer, favorite fluffy pink bathrobe clean.  The cleanliness that you feel is akin to a badly mopped bar room floor, the dirt is merely pushed around to appear clean and no one seems to notice it, but you do.    


Then there is that voice inside your head with that evil, threatening, ominous question.  The what if question.  What if I can't find work, and I can't support myself, and I have to fly home, and move in with my parents, and I can't find work back home either and then one day I wake up and I am forty-five-years-old and I still live with my parents and I have no money and no drivers license and no friends and nobody loves me and everybody hates me and I die an excruciatingly slow death which begins when I am healthy and takes decades to commence and nobody comes to my funeral and five minutes after I die I am neither loved nor hated; I am only forgotten.  Okay.  Breathe. Breathe.  We are above water again.  Everything is okay.  Don't get stressed out.  Nothing has happened yet.  Just breathe.  


Months ago, in Sydney, I met an Irish guy with a tattoo that said: "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."  When I asked him who originally wrote it he gave me a condescending you-should-already-know-this look, before answering: "Abraham Lincoln."  Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that I did not know Abe all that well, but that quote just did not sound like something he would have said. Also, there was the absurd fact that I learned about a quote by a great American president because it was tattooed on some Irish guy's bicep.  Anyway, the words stuck with me and I liked them so much that I asked Google and yes, Abraham Lincoln did in fact say this:


 "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."   

I like it.  I know that it is a bit cliche.  I like it anyway.  It makes sense to me and it relaxes me.

Tasmania Road Trip

I am a person with a lot of pet peeves.  I admit it.  Most people who know me well would probably admit it for me.  Out of all of my pet peeves, I find that few things are more boring than listening to descriptions of other people's amazing vacations.  Everyone has that friend who seems to only throw dinner parties in order to open up the 258 picture digital slide show, or worse, pull two massive photo albums off the shelf and recount in excruciating detail their family trip to Hawaii in 2005.  I resolve to never be one of those people.  That is why I am going to warn you right now, before you get too far into this entry and regret ever starting it:  If you are a person who hates hearing about other people's amazing vacations that you yourself might never go on, DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY.  Though it consists of several surprises and unplanned adventures, there are no conflicts and there are no problems.  There is only one incredible road trip through what is arguably the most beautiful place in the world.  


It all started around four o' clock on the 31st of January.  It was my fourth day in Hobart since I had finished the Overland Trail and I was getting antsy.  I knew that I could not leave Tasmania without exploring the East Coast.  If I wanted to see it all, I had to figure out something fast.  This was going through my mind as I took a seat next to Chris at the computers .  Chris is originally from Iowa.  He had spent some months in Tasmania passively looking for work, meanwhile, he was living in The Pickled Frog for way too long.  I don't know if it was his warm, unpretentious demeanor or his American accent, but Chris was an instant old friend -- the kind of person that you feel like you know before you know.  Here is how the conversation went:


Me: What cha doin' (seeing full well what he was up to)
Chris: I'm buying a ticket to Melbourne
Me: Don't do that!  We should go on an adventure instead.
Chris: Looks at the computer screen, then back at me, then back at the screen again.  He finally closes out the window.  What kind of adventure were you thinking?  


I suggested a road trip, conveniently omitting the fact that I don't drive, don't have a driver's licence, and have only a vague knowledge of the logistics that a Tasmania road trip would entail.  I decided that those things were only minute details that would work themselves out in the planning process.  We pulled out a big map of Tassie and weighed out which direction to start.  


Rewind to a couple of days before this.  I met a woman named Kim.  Kim was also planning a road trip only her plan actually included a vehicle, passengers, and a hypothetical itinerary.  Kim is from Wisconsin.  She is a friendly person who will talk to anyone.  Kim has a habit of telling run-on stories, you know the kind of stories that give birth to side note stories, so that anecdotes branch out like tree limbs and the final conclusion ends up miles from the original topic.  And there is always a conclusion.  It usually goes something like: "...and that's when I learned never to ask Aunt Sally for a watermelon."  Or the classic: "...and though I blah blah blah, I will never regret my choice in college/first drinking experience/trip to Amsterdam."  Anyway, Kim had plans to travel with a German girl named Michaela and one of the most easy-going people ever: a French guy named Mathieu.  Chris and I decided to take the fourth and fifth seats in the car, and so started Chapter One of an amazing adventure.  


Chapter One:
I do not have the time, nor the patience to describe this portion of the trip in detail but since I am a big fan of character driven plots I will describe to you Michaela.  Michaela is a nineteen year old from Germany.  She is a gymnast, a house painter, and she has recently been awarded Miss Craftswoman in Germany (yes there is such a thing).  Most entertainingly, however, Michaela is one of those people who will never directly tell you what she wants.  Example A: "Should we start boiling the water for dinner?" Translation: "I'm hungry."  
Example B: "Chris, could you maybe not drive so much like rally car style?"  Translation: "Chris, slow the fuck down!" 


These were the events of the beginning of our road trip. 
Day 1: Drove south to Cockle Creek.  On the way we stopped in some "thermal springs" that were disappointingly cold.
Day 2 (my birthday): We hiked through forests, ferns, and open fields to the southern most point in Tasmania.  Next we hopped in the car and drove to Lake St. Clair.
Day 3: We hiked to Platypus Bay.  Then we set off for Cradle Mountain .  We made multiple stops along the way to hike and see waterfalls and panoramic views.
Day 4: We hiked the Dove Lake Circuit.  Then drove up to Devenport.


Chapter Two:
We dropped off Michaela in The Big D (our pet name for Devenport.  Some others are:  The Dev, D Town, and my personal favorite: Devies).  Devenport is the northern port of Tasmania.  I Wikipediaed it to see if there was anything interesting that I could add in, but I didn't find anything.  Anyway, we spent exactly one night in Devies.  We met up with Grant, our new travel partner, in the morning.  


Grant is originally from Southern England.  He has that accent that makes anything he says sound super intelligent.  He chooses to waste this, however, by whinging in those negative hyperbolas that British people refer to as sarcasm or dry humor.  Grant will make fun of anything from your choice of wording to your walking pace, but it is all in good fun.  Just when you start to get annoyed, he will do something gentlemanly like carry your bags or open the door for you, and whatever you were bothered by will instantly be forgotten.   

From D Town we headed east to Bay of Fires.  There, we managed to get a free campsite with a stunning view of the ocean.  The rocks on the east coast of Tasmania are partially covered with red lichen giving the beaches a unique, exotic feeling.  On our first morning in Bay of Fires we woke up to see the sunrise.  You probably know this already, but in case you don't: the sun in Tasmania is bright, hot, white.  You would think that watching the sunrise would be a tranquil experience, however it actually becomes a battle between your mind that whats to look and your retinas that want to look away.  Luckily, if you switch your focus to the ocean, you can spot dolphins swimming in the sun-licked waves.      


Chapter 3:
We spent two nights and one full day on Bay of Fires before heading south to Wineglass Bay.  Wineglass is the type of place that you see on postcards and never believe it could look that amazing in real life.  The photographer had to have used a filter, Photoshop, something.  But no, not this time.  It really is that beautiful.  


We packed a couple of big backpacking packs and set off for a steep hike in.  The trail goes up and up and up numerous steps, but when you arrive at the viewpoint you forget what you were ever whining about.  It really is that beautiful.  Next you hike down and down and down until you finally reach the beach.  The campground is on the far end of the beach, about a half hour walk across soft white sand.       


I am one of those people that never gives out an A+.  Everything gets the 9+/10, or 4.5 stars, just in case something better comes along to take top place.  However, no matter what scale I am using, even if nothing comes to top it for the rest of my life, I am confident in giving Wineglass Bay the full 5 stars, 10+/10.  When we were in Bay of Fires, Chris said that he could finally die happy regardless of what trajectory his life takes.  In Wineglass, he declared that he had made that comment two days too early, because Wineglass topped what you could ever imagine the top was.  


We stayed there for two nights and one full day.  It rained all day for the full day.  Locals say that it only rains twice in Tasmania: just for four months each time.  Eating boiled potatoes in a cramped tent while under the pouring rain would have been miserable in most other settings, but in Wineglass it provided a Gothic skyscape for a phenomenal panorama.  Every now and then we would open the tent door to get a good look at our surroundings, but we would have to quickly zip it up again, before the rain poured in.  


The next morning we woke to see the sun shinning above friendly stratus clouds.  We were all ready to hike out, but I just couldn't go yet.  I tore off my backpack and ran into the ocean.  The crescent bay was turquoise at its crust and transitioned to a bright cobalt as it deepened.  Yet, looking down from where I was swimming, the water was crystal clear.  It sparkled, or maybe that was only my imagination.  We swam out to some rocks at the far end of the bay and looked back at the most amazing campsite I have ever seen.  For two nights and three days we had beachfront property in the most beautiful setting of my life.

The Overland Trail Revisited

I re-read my last blog entry and I just don't think that I did the Overland Trail justice.  I gave you a lot of information that you need in order to understand the concept of the trail, but I didn't take you there.  So let me try again:

There are a few things that you need to know about bush walking in Tasmania before you can understand the Overland Trail.  The first is the mud.  The mud is everywhere.  Rich, earthly brown soil with clumps of dirt, tiny twigs and leaves running through it.  It is the cold, dark humid mud of the sub-tropical rain forest.  Sometimes it exists in small patches but other times the mud takes up a block of trail so wide that It is unavoidable.  You can see traces of where others have stepped but they are not trustworthy.  The mud is always deeper than you think it is.  If you are lucky it will barely cover your shoes, but on occasion your foot will sink so far deep that the mud soaks in above your kneecap, runs down your gaiters and settles into your shoes.  

Secondly: the flies.  There are a lot of them, BIG flies that are striped like bees.  At midday it is hard to stay in one place because they buzz in circles around your head.  There are also mosquitoes.  Australians refer to them as mossies.  They usually come out late but there is a point around mid-afternoon when the mossies and the flies are out together and you might as well just quit swatting before you even begin.  You don't stand a chance against the buzzing swarm. 


Thirdly, there are the snakes.  There are only two types of snakes in Tasmania and they are both deadly.  During my time on the Overland I probably saw about five snakes.  Four of them were little but the one that I saw slithering across the trail on my last day was about a meter long and five inches wide.  I thanked my lucky stars that it ignored me and slithered perpendicularly across the trail.


I took a lot of side trips along the trail.  Now I will take you on my favorite one.  It was day three.  I had just hiked the 17km from Lake Windermere to the Pelion Plains Hut.  Me and two others decided to drop off our heavy backpacks and set off to Mt. Oakley.  Mt. Oakley is not the tallest mountain in Tasmania, but it has some of the best views.  


The hike started on a muddy track through open yellow grasslands.  It reminded me of hiking through snow back in Boulder; your foot could sink deep into the ground at any moment.  It is important to have a sense of humor about the mud on the Overland, because you know that you are not taking a shower anytime soon.  By the time we made it through the gauntlet  my legs were caked.  The trail began to wind through eucalyptus forest.  Gentle slopes quickly transitioned into steep switchbacks.  After about an hour, the forest changed again.  Eucalyptus trees were replaced with dense curly-headed palms.  The trail turned to rock and we found ourselves on all fours, ducking through palm trees, scrambling hand over hand up dusty rocks.  


Finally breaking treeline was like uncovering a thick veil.  The remainder of the trail through loose rocks and scratchy brush was rewarded with amazing views.  By the time we got to the peak, a set of giant rock boulders that sit on the middle of the mountain, we were in awe of the 360 degree spectacle.  With mountains undulating in all directions, and no roads, nor homes, nor cars in sight.  We were reminded, once again, what it is like to be in the middle of the Wilderness.     

Tasmania

It was only an hour and a half flight from Sydney to Launceston but i had the feeling that I was leaving a chapter of my adventure in Australia behind.  Outside the plane window I could see yellow fields and lush green mountains surrounded by a deep cobalt sea.  From the air, the island looked wild and underdeveloped, reminiscent of video montages that make up the beginning of Planet Earth and David Attenborough BBC documentaries.  I felt privileged to fly somewhere so remote, and even more privileged in knowing that my adventure would take me to the centre of this landscape.  

The plane landed smoothly and metal stairs were released onto the concrete below.  Everyone around me seemed instantly relaxed.  The same passengers who were visibly impatient and annoyed at the delays in Sydney were suddenly calm, proof that the open air provides an antidote for the congested city.

Exiting the one room airport, I saw a sign "Launceston City and Suburb Shuttle," under the headline were the words "next shuttle," and a chalkboard where every hour a worker would hand write the approximate time that it would arrive.  As I waited for the shuttle, I imagined what it would be like to have the sign writing job.  

"What do you do for a living?" 

"I am the chalk artist who writes when the next shuttle will arrive at the airport."
"Isn't that boring? Don't you want to do something else with your life?"  
To this I would answer calmly, with pride because in this fantasy scenario I am a forty something year old trade worker with a family and a strong sense of community: "Well without someone to write the times on the chalkboard, how would people know when to expect the next shuttle?  There would be commotion and tourists would cry out of shuttle frustration.  It is a tough job but somebody has to do it."
The shuttle arrived and in perfect small town fashion, the driver had a long conversation with me about San Francisco that lasted well after we had arrived at my destination.  


Tasmania is the small triangular island south of the Australian mainland.  After an extremely bloody history, locals have fought to protect the wealth of resources on the island. Probably due to the lack of infrastructure, Tasmania is remarkably untouristy.  It is considered one of those off the beaten path places, which attracts outdoor enthusiasts and wine lovers, but literally nobody else.  Though I love wine as much as the next person...probably more than the next person, I came to Tassie for the nature alone.

The Overland Track covers 65 kilometres from Cradle Mountain to Lake Sinclair.  There are huts along the track that provided shelter and emergency shelters.  To protect the wilderness, the park only lets thirty people set off on the track everyday, so to do the trail you have to register.  You also have to pay a park fee.  You have to have your own tent that you can spend the night in if you do not make it to the next hut.  You have to have food and warm weather gear.  Every time you get to a hut you write your name down on a sheet so that the park rangers know that you are safe.  The Overland track takes anywhere from five to nine days to complete.  I did it in seven.  

The trail provides side trips that you can take along the way.  All in all, I hiked up four mountains, one of which being Mt. Ossa: the tallest mountain in Tasmania.  I lucked out with the weather.  It was unusually hot during my trek and I was able to swim in lakes and waterfalls along the way.  I met some amazing people and hiked with them along the way, all of whom were as awed by the environment as I was.  In Tasmania, the only animals you have to watch out for are snakes, which you do see every now and then (luckily they are always slithering in the opposite direction).  Besides snakes, the animals are magnificent and harmless...they are magnificently harmless.  There are pademelons (really cute little wallabies that hop around gracefully), wombats (fat lazy creatures that waddle around behind campsites), big possums with black tails, echidnas (spiky mammals with long noses) and a panoply of birds and insects that make noises all day and all night.  

I remember reading a piece by Elizabeth Gilbert in a travel writing class in college.  She said something to the point of: the thing (or the great thing, the good thing, the something) about walking everywhere is that you suddenly feel like there are the exact right amount of hours in a day.  I love this.  It is so true.  The hours that you walk are like a mini journey.  You are immersed in the trail, the trees, the moss, the roots, the rivers, the flowers, the rocks, the mountains, the spiky bush that scratches you legs.  You loose your thoughts.  Your thoughts become your footsteps, the sound of which are lost in the wind.   Then suddenly you are somewhere: a hut, a cliffside view, a lake to swim in, a clearing to camp in or maybe just to eat lunch in.  Where ever you are, there is that feeling that you have arrived.     

On day seven, the ever changing scenery changed once again.  The deep forest began to open up and I was surrounded by bright green ferns.  Then, peeking out between the trees, I got my first glance at sparkling Lake St Clair.  I remember learning about the Oregon Trail as a child.  There were landmarks that provided trail walkers with information about how far they had come.  Of course it is no comparison...but that lake <3.  By the end of my trek I had hiked approximately 124 kilometres in seven days -- something that I would not have thought that I was in any way capable of accomplishing.  Luckily I was able to catch a bus to Hobart a few hours after completing the track.  

I am now staying in a funky little hostel called The Pickled Frog.  I am tired and my feet hurt but Hobart is a good town to recover in.  I finally have phone service again, so if I am close to you you can expect a call sometime soon.  If I am not close to you and you are reading this, thank you so much for reading my blog :).  

We live in each others' pockets

"We live in each others' pockets," that is how Keyon describes the social relationships around Public Outreach.  He elaborates by saying, There are at least two of us hanging out at any given time, so everyone always knows what is going on with everybody else."  This quotation might lead you to equate our social circle to a high school cliche where gossip travels like wild fire and rumors reflect envy and animosity, however that could not be further from the case.  Our little PO family is extremely non-judgmental.  We have the openness of travelers and the familiarity of longtime friends.  Everyone comes from a different life on a different continent but instead of separating us, it actually enhances the mutual curiosity and respect: bringing us closer together. 


I am simultaneously amazed by how quickly I was able to develop a niche in Sydney and how soon I am planning to leave it -- really, how quickly we will all disperse.  After spending the holidays together and enjoying consecutive beach days and socials, it is implied that the gatherings are ephemeral.  Most of us foreigners; all of us young.  Our group is like the perfect ocean wave, there is no sense in trying to freeze time because the very nature of the wave is to be ridden out.  You can only hope the next one will be as good.


When I first decided to move to Australia I got a lot of crap from people.  I was afflicted by the implicit messages that haunt every American graduate: How dare you believe that you can graduate from college only to skip out on the internship-work-for-free-culture.  Don't you know that you have to prove yourself to the work world before it accepts you in.  Life is not easy.  We are in the depths of an economic crises and you think that you can just leave the country to get by on what?  Chutzpa and dumb luck?


I have been accused multiple times of trying to extend my youth.  This might not seem like a big deal but in the United States it is actually one of the worst things that a person can attempt.  Extension of youth is the eighth deadly sin right after gluttony and sloth.  Americans are so afraid of raising a generation of directionless slackers that the fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Any decisions made by young adults with the aim at travel and self-discovery are automatically disparaged as short-sighted and immature.  Paradoxically, due to our aging demographic, there is a common saying that forty is the new thirty and thirty is the new twenty.  If this is the case then twenty-two gets to be the new twelve.  I never had a bat mitzva, but maybe Australia will make me into a woman. 


In ten days I am flying to Tasmania for an incredible adventure, and after Tassie?  Who knows?  I am happy to say that after surviving seventeen years of semesters and back-to-school days, my life is no longer a set of assignments and arbitrary deadlines but rather an expanse, laid out before me, vague as East Bay fog and clear as a horizon line.