Just like any small town in Tasmania - don't come to have your model of the world rocked

There’s absolutely nothing special about Deloraine.   Good restaurants?  I remember ordering an AUD 17 pizza on the one real street in town.  If it were any good, I’d remember what it tasted like and not what I paid for it.   Culture?  No symphony orchestra or Imax screen in this town of two thousands.   If the picture below is worth well less than a thousand words, it comes down to electrical wires, a church, and a few houses.

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Doug and his permanent Australian companions at Adventure Bay in Bruny Island

An island off the coast of a bigger island off the coast of an even bigger island.   That’s Bruny Island for you, actually composed of two islands, a north one and a south one. Bruny’s claim to fame for those visiting Tasmania is to see the penguins.   Tourists from countries which now allow the legal marriage of human and penguin come here to line up a bride or groom for export back to their homeland.

I drove to Bruny with my friend, Super Kay. Kay had once dated a penguin in his native Germany and could not stand the thought of visiting Tasmania without visiting Bruny. We had about a week to travel around together before his onward flight to New Zealand. When he suggested Bruny Island, I put up no argument.

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Tasmania's tiny capital is smaller than the suburb of an American suburb

Australians mock Tasmania and along with it, Hobart, its tiny capital. 40% of Tasmanians make Hobart their home, which isn’t saying much since Tasmania, as of this writing, has only a half a million people.

No one is going to lie, particularly myself, that Hobart is a booming capital full of the hippest nightlife in Australia. It’s a small, clean town, a throwback to what I think small town America must’ve been in the 1940′s and 1950′s. It’s the sort of place you feel you could leave the keys in your car as you go about your errands. Warning: DON’T do that! It feels like you could, but if you actually went ahead and tested the hypothesis, you might feel exactly like you just got your car stolen.

What sets Hobart away from small-town America or small-town Australia is its sophistication. Many of Hobart’s current residents are relocatees from the Australian mainland’s capital cities looking for a slower pace of life with cleaner air. They open up high-end restaurants and chic cafes you wouldn’t see in places like Geraldton (WA) or Whyalla (SA). Nor would you find Indian restaurants and groceries stocking Asian foods in hick country towns, would you? Or symphony orchestras — Hobart has one. And the graffiti! The insightful mocking of the then U.S. president was truly world class, worthy of a town three times Hobart’s size.

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“Don’t go six feet under before you’ve had the chance to go Down Under.” Doug Knell, Doug’s Republic

So why should you come to Australia, otherwise referred to as the country Down Under or the Lucky Country?

Here are a few reasons:

1. Australia is safe. Your chances of being beaten, raped, ripped off, car jacked, and killed are low. You’ll most likely make it back to your own country with most of, if not all of, your body parts. This would not be the case in, say, south-central Los Angeles or Johannesburg.

2. Australia is an easy place to get a working-holiday visa for those under thirty years of age. That means, while Down Under, you can legally work, probably for paltry wages, and earn just enough to spend it all traveling around Australia. That also means a lot of young drunken European backpackers are circulating throughout the country waiting to be sloppily seduced by other young drunken European backpackers.

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There's always room to shove in one more

“Australia’s vast lands provide so many opportunities for accommodation and you don’t require a lot of money to take advantage of them.   You could sleep on the friend of a friend’s disintegrating sofa or bunk down in the trunk of a 1983 Holden Commodore.  Don’t miss out on Australia’s wonderful camping options, too.   Camping out in the smelly toilet of a petrol station usually costs nothing more than the price of a liter of gasoline.”  Doug Knell, Doug’s Republic

The possibilities really are endless and only determined by the amount Australian dollars you’re packing.

Backpacker/Pickup Joints

Are you a backpacker interested in saving every last penny?  Does sleeping in a 25-bed dorm bed sound like a dream — figuratively, of course.  We know you won’t be doing any sleeping.   Visit the Backpacker Directory for a list of hostels and backpacker/pickup joints.

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