Erik Skye Travel Diary

18 Jan 2012

For the map, click here: Google Maps – Wizard of Oz

Car’s trip odometer: 7,600 clicks (km)

I was in a four-bunk shared cabin and woke up just once to the feeling of the ship slowly listing back and forth, back and forth. The man above me was snoring, and I contemplated putting my knee in his back through the soft mattress that separated us. I’d thought there were only three of us in the room, but when I stood up for the new morning, my face came within inches of a late arrival who’d taken the opposite top bunk. He had the red, weather-worn face of an old sailor, and our eyes exchanged glances at 90-degrees (his head lying prone, my head upright). Then I pretended I didn’t see him anymore.

“The sun shone brightly as our friends turned their faces toward the Land of the South… the Lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country again, while Toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, barking merrily all the time…”^22

The air here smells of the sea mixed with the pollens of a hundred flowering species, pine needles, and thick forest undergrowth (wet green ferns, mosses, wild grasses). Pretty birds are abundant and appear different than those on the mainland. There are forests full of eucalypts and what appear to be pines. Butterflies and dragonflies bounce in the sunlight, trying to maintain their position in the breeze. The world is alive with the sounds of chirping, buzzing, and the rustling of tree leaves and branches. For today anyway, Tasmania, the Land of the South, feels like a kind of paradise.

So far, I’ve witnessed incredible expanses of intensely-rugged, heavily-forested terrain, and I wonder of the possibility of there still being Tasmanian Tigers out in it. I saw the movie “The Hunter” on the plane from LA, which showed actual black and white footage of a tiger pacing in an enclosure. It looked like a skinny dog (maybe like a small grey hound) with dark, inquisitive, almond-shaped eyes. Apparently that was the last tiger, and it died in captivity in the 1930’s. However, occasionally there are claims of tiger sightings. I asked Mick and Jeff about tigers, and they had differing opinions regarding the possibility of their existence.

There happened to be a real photographer (Paul) in the establishment, and he immediately began twisting the focus/zoom rings on the lens of my camera. It wasn’t enough for him to hear me say ‘it’s a Nikon 16-35mm 1.4G’; he had to be tactile too. Paul’s about 60 and has been a professional tog his whole career. When I told him I pursue photography as an art with aspirations of going commercial, he insisted that would be a mistake. ‘You’ll go from taking the photo’s you want to trying to get into someone else’s head to give them what they want’ he said, adding ‘keep it as a hobby.’ He’s got a point.

I rounded-up everyone in the Empire Bar for a group photo. It turned out well too, except for the guy with the stud in his tongue who thought it was funny to flip a middle finger. That’s okay – I broke it off in Photoshop.

For song of the day, click here (let website load briefly, then click orange “play” next to title): PNAU – Unite Us

For access to archived Erik Skye Travel Blog articles, click here: Archive

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Footnotes:

22. L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1903) pp. 176, 177.