Published The Advocate, October 16, 2004


THREE Mainland friends recently paid separate visits, each expecting me to play host and tour guide.

Hosting, I can cope with, but as a tour guide I leave a lot to be desired.

I warned them all beforehand about the incessant rain. They brought overcoats, umbrellas and spray jackets, and of course it did not rain while they were here.

I suspect that each, in her own concerned way, had come to check if I was really here or had actually done a midnight flit and was now driving a tourist bus in tropical Brunei.

To them, Tasmania was such an unexpected destination, such an exotic location, that one asked if I had arrived with a placard around my neck, announcing my name, trade and language.

Yes, and like Cortez, the Spanish conquistador who had overwhelmed South America with 700 men, I had burned the boat that brought me here so there was no retreat.

I had people on the other “bigger island” promise to send me emergency food parcels. I assured them I had quickly found plentiful supplies of Blue Banner pickled onions and Spring Gully Worcester sauce, so all was well.

And unlike Adelaide, the tap water was drinkable.

Landing by sea and air, the first thing that struck my visitors was the lush, green beauty. In South Australia – the driest state in the driest continent – a farm dam filled to the brim constitutes a tourist atttraction.

The second thing they noticed were the Cascade beer advertisements on TV: one showing a brick wall on the coast to keep out the advancing hordes of Mainlanders; another showing plans for a giant outboard motor attached to the same coast to maintain a separation of distance.

Be afraid. Melbourne is closer by air than Hobart is by road.

I took them to see the opium poppy sculpture at Devonport; the mighty Ulverstone clock; the Big Penguin – all the items I had noticed on my arrival – and also walked over The Nut at Stanley; through the Fernglade at Burnie; and inspected the Table Cape tulips looking as if they were drawn with lines of coloured chalk.

At the local Show we inspected a display of about a dozen varieties of potatoes. I had been boasting that Bismark potatoes, a North-West specialty, were the best spuds in the world at this time of the year.

So where were the Bismarks? “Oh, not you as well!” said an exasperated young woman wearing an “Ami” nametag and eating a Tim Tam.

Ami said the display had been put together in Hobart several days earlier and no Bismarks had been available. She had not yet found time to buy some locally. Not happy, Ami.

On the way home, the ABC Radio traffic report offered the reassuring news that “Traffic is flowing freely in Burnie.”

My companion went into hysterical belly laughs. ``C’mon,’’ she chortled, ``when does Burnie ever have traffic gridlock?’’

Never, I said, but doubtless it will come and best to be prepared.