Tasmania: your natural state

I fell in love with Tasmania even before I set foot on its soil. From my window seat in the airplane, I got my first glimpse of the island’s striking hills and beautiful bays. I had signed up for the trip through the Melbourne University Outdoors Program and I flew into Hobart to meet my group: 27 exchange students, 4 guides and 3 minibuses.

In case you’re not familiar with Tassie, it is an island off the south coast of Australia – a one-hour flight (or twelve-hour ferry ride) from Melbourne. Tasmania’s breathtaking beauty and peaceful surroundings belie a dark past. As a colony, it was once Van Diemen’s Land where thousands of convicts from England and the rest of Australia were shipped. The history of the aboriginal population of Tasmania is pretty bleak too. There were about 5000 Aborigines on the island in 1800 but only 300 left by 1830. European weapons or diseases killed most, often in gruesome ways.

On the first day, we visited the historic convict settlement at Port Arthur. A person could spend days exploring this massive site. The prisons really affected me, especially the Separate Prison at the back of Port Arthur. This is where new convicts would be temporarily placed when they arrived on the boats. It was a place of psychological torture, designed to break the spirits of criminals. Upon arrival, the convicts were stripped of all their possessions and their identities, including their names. A number was assigned to each instead. No speaking was allowed in the Separate Prison and both convicts and guards had to wear hooded masks whenever the convicts were out of their cells – never a friendly face to be seen. The exercise yards were like hallways with white walls open to the sky; each day a convict was allowed a few minutes exercise walking up and down the corridor alone. In the chapel, there were tiered rows of stalls – like upright coffins – a convict was shuffled into a stall and the door was closed between him and the next stall. I enclosed myself into one stall and found that I couldn’t see anything to either side or behind me. All I could see was the pulpit and could only imagine the kind of fire and brimstone sermons that the clergy of the day would have delivered from that spot. Unbelievably, most convicts had to stay in the Separate Prison for four to twelve months before being released into the “regular” part of the convict settlement. As a law student, I was already doubtful of the utility of prisons for rehabilitation and my Port Arthur experience reinforced the idea that prisons can sometimes do more damage than good.

Despite these dark spirits that haunt Tasmania’s history, I felt very much at home there. The weather was fall-like with crisp sunny days, sweet and sun-soaked like a freshly-picked Granny Smith apple. The landscape was dramatic with green hills dotted with countless grazing sheep next to calm blue bays – as we drove past a bay near White Beach, I saw several black swans gliding along. Tasmania is much more lush than the dry mainland of Australia. We passed groves of walnut trees and stands of eucalypts, those Australian icons. At the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park, we got to watch the ferocious little devils completely devour their wallaby meat: fur, bones, veins and all. They are surprisingly cute little animals; a delicate English bloke from our trip remarked in his posh accent, “Oh, look how they gamble about!” But in the devils’ sweet little faces are jaws so powerful they could crush human bone.

Tasmania is an outdoorsy place and we hiked every day: into Wineglass Bay, around the Launceston Gorge and up to the base of Cradle Mountain. I huffed and puffed a little at first – too many days in the law library – but felt fit, strong and healthy by the end of the week. In the national parks, wildlife abounds. I met a very nice little wallaby in the parking lot at Freycinet National Park. He came right up to me, probably wanting something to eat, but human food is deadly for the native animals whose digestive systems are designed for eating native plant life. Later, in Cradle Mountain National Park, a wombat waddled out of the forest, looked at our group, and decided to go back where it came from.

Our big tour group was sub-divided into more manageable sections because of the three vans. I really enjoyed the crew in our van: Channie (my Korean girlfriend), Corey (a handsome lacrosse player from Oregon), Conor (a polite redhead from Minneapolis), Sam (a feisty little blond from Michigan), Tim (groovy Texan from Austin who provided great road music), Joshua (one of the Three Stooges from Long Island) and a few others. The trip leaders were all outdoor educators by profession: four handsome and capable men, the archetypes of the Australian bush. One in particular, whom I shall simply refer to as The Woodsman, had blue eyes to lose yourself in and broad shoulders strong enough to carry any burden.

Out of mobile phone range for most of the trip, we pulled into Campbelltown for a sunny afternoon pit-stop to find out that Obama had just won the election. Everyone rejoiced: Americans, Aussies, Brits, Danes, and a Canadian. It just seemed so fitting to hear the news in such a beautiful place; back in the van, I sang Neil Young to myself, “Keep on rocking in the free world!”

We stayed at Launceston Backpackers on our final night and I have to declare it as the nicest hostel I’ve ever stayed in (although I guess that may not mean much considering that my first-ever hostel stay was in September). The place was spacious, extremely clean and very cozy: we lounged in the dining area, made amazing meals in the spotless, restaurant-grade kitchen and got cozy by the fire in the TV room to watch Harry Potter before bedtime.

I was the last one to leave Launny and spent my last few hours wandering the around the waterfront and arts precinct. I found the City Park and giggled over the Macaque monkeys who live and play there. The city reminded a bit me of Charlottetown: small with beautiful historic buildings, bustling on a Saturday but empty on a Wednesday night in early spring. Before leaving, I wrote a few postcards to the people whose addresses I know by heart (maybe you’ll get one in your mailbox soon?).

For me, Tasmania was a place of solace, reflection and health. Perhaps I should have spent the study week between classes and exams holed up in the library? Never! Tassie made my heart sing like in the Sound of Music: “I go to the hills when my heart is lonely…” If you ever get a chance, don’t hesitate to discover Tasmania and your own natural state.