Up and on the streets of Hobart far earlier than I care to admit. I think the SickKids folks would be impressed, though I don't want to make this a habit. A few other folk were out in front of the hostel waiting for tour pick-ups, though none were on my bus, and probably happy that they didn't have to share a trip with the Canadian, seeing as we are so damn chatty in the morning. Eventually my bus pulled up, the Under Down Under logo emblazoned on the side, and a bald dude jumped out and grabbed my pack sack, and the tour was underway.

I was taking a 6-day bus trip through Tassie, three days up the east coast and three days down the west. Normally I'd be leery of a bus tour, as you tend to be restricted by a schedule, early mornings, and the wildcard of your fellow travellers. However, I was a little tired of travelling alone for the time being, and just happy to let someone else do the organising and herding for a while. Besides, I was thankful just to get a glimpse of this remote part of the world, and determined to be satisfied with it. My compadres for this mission were to be John (UK), Kat (UK), Miho & Rikya (Jap), and Milja (Fin - don't call her Swedish!). Our faithful leader was Steve, a native and fiercely proud Tasmanian who actually had a large Tassie-shaped birthmark on one side of his face (hey man, YOU brought it up!).

Our first stop was a little town, name forgotten, with not much to it except rusticity (?) and one of the oldest bridges in Australia, convict-built. After pouring out of the bus and snapping photos, we were back on again to walk a bit of southern coastline. Took in the cliffs and dolorite spires (see pic of Cape Raoul), as well as various rock formations such as the Tasman Arch, Remarkable Cave (um, I wouldn't go THAT far, maybe Kinda Neat Cave), and the Devil's Kitchen. We were all blown away by the ruggedness of the terrain, staring out to sea knowing that the next stop was Antarctica. An echidna, a cross between and anteater, hedgehog, and porcupine, made the mistake of taking five near the bus as we returned, and became the subject of a photo frenzy that would have made Sean Penn jealous.

Soon we drove across Eaglehawk Neck, a narrow strip of land (80m) which connected a large peninsula to the mainland. What is that, an isthmus? Anyway, the colonizing British saw this as the perfect spot to house a prison colony, as Eaglehawk Neck was narrow enough to guard by having a line of men based across it, and the surrounding sea too formidable to survive a swim. Heard a few stories of escape attempts inspite of these security measures, may favourite being the guy who killed and skinned a 'roo, and attempted to hop by the guards. Unfortunately, he didn't count on the guards being bored and hungry. They started shooting at the particularly slow and uncoordinated animal, at which point it stood up, threw off its skin, and the man was returned to prison.

Further up the road we reached our destination, the former convict colony of Port Arthur. A large expanse of land covered in sandstone ruins, the colony was an experiment in prison labour as well as things such as solitary confinement (to a point that a chapel was constructed where each seat was walled from the next, a little compartment in each for the prisoner's head so that no communication would be allowed from one person to the next.) The prison was actually shut down not for inhumane practices but because businesses with hired labour could not compete with the prices of the convict-produced goods.

I found it interesting that some of the prisoners here had been Canadian, incarcerated for their roles in the early Canadian rebellions. I thought we were nice.

This site was also the location of Australia's worst mass murder. In April 1996, a tourist-hating gunman opened fire in a cafe here, killing 35 people and wounding many more. The majority of the dead were Australian, and included whole families and staff. The cafe is now part of a memorial garden, and visitors are asked not to bring up the subject. The guy is still alive, rotting in a jail just outside of Hobart.

As we headed home, we passed through Dootown, a little hamlet where instead of addresses, the citizens have plaques reading "Scooby-Doo", "What to Doo", "Doggie Doo", and "Doo Me". Those are actually some of the lamer ones, a few were quite witty.

That night, we were back in Hobart, North Hobart actually, in a hostel called Allport. Folk weren't really interacting that much yet, so we sat and watched Batman Begins. As my travels wear on, I'm continually in new places where everything is different, and have the feeling that I may never have the opportunity to be here or see what I've seen again, I find my senses are wedged open to these new sensations, and gravitate towards themes to have a sense of consistency. At this point, the loneliness and self-doubt of Port Macquarie and the stress I'd recently felt in Melbourne were still fresh in my mind. In Batman Begins, a couple of the taglines were "Be aware of your environment", and "Why do you fall? So you can learn to get back up." Despite being one of the best flicks in the Batman franchise, it gave me a new resolve not to fret the naive decisions and short-sighted mistakes I'd made thus far, to get back on the horse, enjoy the ride, and take myself further.