The leaves are turning yellow and burnt orange in the North-central part of the state and the last 2 days of cycling through rolling hills of apple orchards and sheep and cow farms may as well have been western Massachusetts except for the pervasive eucalyptus skyline.
We've noticed a few things during our first week and a half or so. The first is that cycle touring is not really a thing in Tassie... yet. We have seen one other cyclist with panniers and she said she had seen another so that's 4 cycle tourists in the state right now. Or something like that. Cycling is popular in the larger cities like Hobart where there are bike shops and spandex clad roadies out and about all day long but in the rural mountain towns of the central plains and western mountains - we are a bizarre and confusing anomaly.
Other Tassie tourists are almost exclusively older and/or retired Aussies from either Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth and they all have caravans. They are also the most friendly people we have ever met. Almost obtrusively so. Like even as you are clearly standing up to leave and your body language says "It's time for us to move on" the Aussie will keep chatting away, apologize for not having space in their home for you tonight and give you their business card for the next time you're casually passing through Sheffield. Don't worry about starting up a conversation - the 65-year old in the camper van 50 yards away will walk into your campsite wondering how you're going, where you're from and how on earth did your country vote Don into office? We are almost always assumed to be Canadians at first glance and then we have to gently explain where we're actually from to the reception of more unsolicited disproval at our country's current state of affairs. "Don't worry," one woman from Melbourne told me, "I sometimes wish I were from New Zealand too." We are offered food, water, a hot fire, alcohol. We have been offered a place to stay in Noosa and in Townsville when we arrive there later. A nice man in a pick up truck pulled over as we were slowly spinning up a hill, he asked where we were going and then offered us a ride. "Why would you bike there? That's 90k away."
The general consensus is that we've made a mistake by accidentally hiring push bikes without realizing it. Or that we are crazy. Just a bunch of young whippersnappers we are. I've taken to calling the face "the face of otter confusion" because the faces of these elderly holidayers as they drive by us are the same face that I once saw on a sea otter when Bill woke it up from its nap and it genuinely couldn't tell whether it was dreaming or not. Not fear or anger - just complete and utter befuddlement. So we get that face a lot.
We also get a lot of friendly honks and plenty of berth from cars passing us on narrow, winding shoulder-less roads.
We get waves and smiles too. We've gotten a few fist pumps and plenty of thumbs up out the windows as cars pass us on a steep incline. And only once was someone a real asshole when he sped by with his window rolled down and screamed at me right as he passed. I let out a squeal of fear that I've never heard myself make before.
We have had some trouble finding appropriate campsites. A rumor was that there were 90 free campsites in Tasmania - however these are free only if you are "self-contained" meaning you are an RV with your own waste disposal/toilet inside. We unfortunately were unable to fit one into our panniers.
Two nights ago we wound up in Deloraine, a charming old Victorian town on a gently flowing, duck-invested river. Dismayed by our camping options, we ended up pitching our tent behind a footy (Australian Rules Football) field and woke up the next morning pleasantly surprised to have not been murdered by an eccentric man who makes dolls. Let me elaborate. Matthew, like all Aussies, did not require an invitation to conversation. He walked 200 yards off the walking track to chat with us. He had long gray hair and a long gray beard which he tied into a knot at the bottom. He wore oversized courderoys which were covered in paint and brown faux leather loafers which he had cut holes in the toes so that his heather green socks could be seen. He asked odd questions of us like: "So Bill, do you like to think?" And held Bill's hand for way too long after shaking it, commenting on how oddly delicate and lovely they were and not like most mans' hands. He walked with us back to town and wanted to show us the home he lived in - an old 1890's school house that was now being renovated into a family home and he was allowed to live in what used to be the school kitchen. His room, when he showed us, was absolutely covered in dolls. A wall was lined with books about dolls and he had hand carved at least 10 dolls out of wood and had painted them with that terrifyingly blank stare of a horror movie porcelain doll. Then, to make things even more meta, he had painted portraits of all the dolls he had carved and those were adorning the walls. Paint and fabric and paint brushes and wood shavings lay all over. "I didn't always make dolls," he told us, "I played the bagpipes for 11 years prior." Oh.
So later that night as I lay awake in the empty field I realized that Matthew was pretty creepy and he knew where we were sleeping. I spent the night watching my pocket knife and flinching at every crunch of a leaf made by a grazing mouse.
So, like I said, I'm very happy not to be murdered today.
Tasmania is very old. And minimally changed compared with the rest of "Mainland" Australia when it comes to infrastructure and technology. The people here are called everything from old-fashioned to red necks. The economy is sustaining itself on farming, mining for metals and logging - all of which require the cutting down of pristine gum tree rainforest and native animal habitat. The contrast between the generations-old, remote mining communities and the newer, hipper more environmentally conscious is much like that of the American debate between building pipelines and drilling for oil. It's a battle between preservation and livelihood. Hard to say who's winning.
In general, we have found cycle touring to be incredibly easy and that it requires almost no planning. Wearing the same clothes every day, abstaining from showers, finding lodging and food has all been, overall, really simple. The one exception had been Good Friday, which unlike in the USA, is a bigger holiday than Christmas day and shops, supermarkets and cafes are closed and everyone is home from work - so good luck finding groceries on this day. The Easter holiday for school children is two weeks compared to just one over Christmas holiday. Considering the US is such a Christian county, Australians have been surprised to find out from us that Good Friday typically slips by without much of a mention and certainly without any national holiday recognition.
At the halfway point of our loop of Tassie, we have seen the mountainous, lush, remote rainforest side of the country in the West coast and are now creeping toward the beachy flat dunes of the East Coast. We have seen more roadkill than I've ever seen in my life and for those of you playing wildlife bingo at home we've seen wombats, wallabies, kookaburras, echidnas and more. The birds here have the most unique and jarring calls I've ever heard and I cannot wait to see what lies ahead on the second half of our ride!
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