Ode to Tasmania

It wasn't a trip that I thought I'd squeeze in this year, but a combination of cheap flights and the prospect of a lonely week home alone conspired to make it happen. Jittery with anticipation, I returned to Tasmania for the first time in just over 15 years.

But first, let me back up a bit. I caught the travel bug at an inappropriately young age. My sister and I were carted around on a lot of lengthy domestic roadtrips, usually to to visit one of my mother's seven siblings. A few of my uncles had the good grace to live outside the geographical confines of the Midwest, but unfortunately no one lived in Florida. 

In retrospect, I owe my mother a hearty thanks for bypassing Disney World and Florida altogether. I was in Orlando for a conference last year and it was hell on earth. I've been put out with Florida since the 2000 election anyway and the cross-section of humanity at the Orlando airport did little to raise my opinion of the place. In lieu of Disney, it was the likes of Mount Rushmore, the Alamo and countless day trips to Chicago. I am eternally thankful.

At age 16, I somehow managed to convince my mother that it would be an excellent idea to let me go to Australia for a summer and live with complete strangers. (I seem to remember pushing for Africa, but she put her foot down - as a nurse I think she was more willing to risk a tango with the wildlife in Oz than disease in Africa.)

Fifteen years later, it's still one of the best and most formative experiences of my life. Those complete strangers I lived with are five of my favorite people on the planet - all five of them hauled from around the world to attend our wedding in Chicago in 2011. Their car (Nia, Adrienne, just in case you are reading - I haven't crashed) is currently residing on our street Sydney. I'm so lucky to have been placed with such a generous and special family - so a huge part of my trip back last week was to catch up with some of the wonderful people I met 15 years ago. (Insert here massive thanks to Tanya and Shaylyn - tour guides and chauffeurs extraordinare!)

Okay, enough of the soppy stuff. Tasmania is seriously beautiful. Of course I remembered it as beautiful, but I had forgotten just how truly stunning it is. This is a special place. In fact, it's tempting to just quit writing and let my photos do the talking. For real.

My memories of Tasmania were a bit fragmented, there were things I remembered distinctly and other things I had no recollection of; but on the whole I am delighted to report that Tasmania seems (to me anyway) to have changed remarkably little. It is a working class island, dominated by forestry, fishing, mining and tourism. The buildings are tidy and utilitarian and to a city dweller even the larger towns feel distinctly rural. As someone who grew up in small-town, middle-America, this is a place where I feel very much at home.

Life moves a bit slower in Tassie and although distances are short, the roads are windy and narrow. It takes time to get around; but with virtually every hairpin turn offering another stunning vista across the sea, forest, rolling pasture or mountains - the long car rides don't bother me in the least (motion sickness aside).

Suffice it to say that this is a place worth making time for. I can't guarantee that you'll get four glorious days of unrelenting sunshine like I did, but it's still well-worth the trip. 

Baby (erm Scotland), Please Don't Go

Hiking in Glencoe, 2009

I'm just returned from a glorious 4-day stint in Tasmania, but more about that later. The upcoming Scottish independence referendum has been much on my mind lately. I lived in Scotland for four wet, windy, wonderful years and while in Tasmania this week, I was seeing Scotland at every turn.

Tasmania and Scotland share more in common than just good looks. Both are occasionally forgotten outposts of a larger nation. Tasmanians talk about the 'mainland' and 'mainlanders' much the way Scots frequently talk about their southern neighbors - with mingled disdain and reverence.

Both are places where it is truly possible to leave the hubbub of modern life behind. You can still hear snatches of Gaelic in the highlands and islands of Scotland and Tasmania has no international airport; it is the kind of place where you can still rock up to the airport just 15 minutes before departure.

These are all wonderful things; and Tasmanians and Scots alike are justifiably proud of the beautiful, unique and quirky place that they get to call home. But they are also an integral, and I dare say essential, part of a larger collective. Australia would not be Australia without Tasmania, much as I find a United Kingdom without Scotland unfathomable.

I find it upsetting enough that England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland maintain separate teams in the World Cup and Commonwealth Games (but not the Olympics - please someone explain?!?) And that is just sports that I don't even care about; I can't imagine how upset I'd be by an actual divorce.

I have sympathy for the independence movement - I don't like the Tories much either. But I can't help but feel that this is largely what this vote is about or has become about; it's an anti-Tory referendum. It feels a bit petulant, a lot of people south of the border don't like Cameron & Co. and still bear the same scars of Thatcherism.  The vision of an independent Scotland spun by the left-leaning, socially-minded Scottish intelligentsia (see wonderful article by Irvine Welsh) is alluring, if hopelessly romantic, overly optimistic and disconcertingly quiet on the issue of currency and economy.

St Andrews

And further, the values, hopes and ambitions espoused by the gentle left are hardly those of Alex Salmond and his cronies who will, in fact, inherit the throne (so to speak). The political difference between the entrenched Labour elite and Alex Salmond's SNP is nothing more than the location of an office in Westminster versus Edinburgh. In an independent Scotland the new politics will quickly become the old politics; Alex Salmond is already taking Rupert Murdoch's phone calls.

I'm not an economist (by any stretch) and I want to keep this light, but suffice it to say that the economic nirvana envisioned by the Yes Campaign will be difficult (impossible?) to achieve whilst tethered to the her majesty's pound and their Bank of England overlords.  Paul Krugman put it rather more eloquently (and in far more detail), but the gist of it was, currency control is everything, just think about the state of the Spanish economy . . .

We left Scotland just as Alex Salmond was becoming a household name - North and South of the border. I think he is smart, sly and has masterfully manipulated the unpopularity of a Tory government for his own political ends. I have no personal stake in this vote and we left Scotland nearly five years ago now; but aside from my home town, it is the place I've called home the longest.

My husband is a half-caste (firmly in the 'No' Camp and proud of his Scottish heritage) and we're both graduates of the University of St Andrews. At 601 years it is third oldest university in the English-speaking world and pre-dates the Union of the Crowns by nearly 200 years - clearly Scotland was doing pretty well before they wedded England and I see no reason to think that an independent Scotland would not eventually succeed. But, I do think the post-independence road will be much harder than many are prepared to admit.

Regardless of which way Scotland goes next week, I wish Scotland nothing but success and prosperity, but I do hope they decide to stay.