Travelling Hopefully - Penguin Porn Edition

We rose the next day and headed to Wineglass Bay another beautiful place with a horrific history although in this case the atrocities were committed against the cetacean population rather than the indigenous one.

Along the way we stopped at a blow hole where we spent an entertaining twenty minutes or so watching water flow through a rock. We all agreed this was the best thing since sliced bread and continued our journey to Wineglass Bay in a state of near ecstasy.

A pleasant bushwalk took us to a lookout from where we got a great impression of how high we were above the bay. Our guide informed us there was a path involving many many steps that would take us down to the beach. I turned up my nose at such exertion but the Pilates instructor was jumping up and down with excitement and such is the effect of an attractive woman on a certain type of impressionable man (me) that I found myself following her down the path.

The journey down wasn’t too bad and we had a pleasant five minutes on the beach before we had to face the ascent. Partway up my companion’s enthusiasm drained away to be replaced by impassioned diatribes against her quadriceps which had apparently failed her at crucial moment. Despite this muscular treason we somehow made it to the top and stumbled frantically after the minivan which was in the process of abandoning us.

Catching the minivan was vital as it was our sole means of returning to our accommodation and, more importantly, penguins.

We turned up at the penguin pestering location in the early evening and after a brief opportunity to purchase a small penguin plush toy (eagerly accepted by at least one individual) we were loaded into a small van and driven to a piece of shoreline within the sanctuary. A guide asked us with apparent seriousness not to step on any penguins and led us into a surreal landscape illuminated in red and yellow lighting which I presume was for the benefit of the penguins as it certainly wasn’t helping the humans much.

Firstly we were shown a couple of penguins in a box. Apparently to assist the penguins in home making a number of artificial “burrows” have been created so that all the penguins have to do when they come ashore is move in. At that point I did wonder if this was all we were going to see of penguins so I dutifully took a photo before we were herded to the first viewing point.

The first viewing point presented us with the sight of a trio of penguins stumbling up the beach some distance away. There were “oohs” and “aahs” but they made themselves scarce pretty quickly. The next viewing point was pure gold. About a score of penguins were ploughing up the beach directly towards us. They paused for a moment as the shutter noise from some idiot’s camera spooked them but they regrouped and charged straight past us on the way to their burrows both artificial and penguin made.

That would have made my night but the next stop was the burrow area where penguins hang out. Penguins were indeed hanging out. In fact they were doing more than just hang out. There was flirting, mating displays and finally full on penguin on penguin action in front of us. My companion, displaying a level of depravity that she had so far kept hidden, filmed the whole thing. It will be visible on certain highly specific websites in a few weeks.

Once the NSFW part of the evening was over a pair of penguins walked up so close to us that I could have reached down and touched it. I didn’t in deference to the penguin’s sharp beak and habit of projectile excreting when they feel threatened. A group of people did their best to be as unthreatening as possible and eventually the penguins wandered off. Apparently they didn’t like the smell of somebody’s shoes. Shortly afterwards we wandered off ourselves our penguin cups running over.

Travelling Hopefully - Gruesome History and Wine Tasting

 Back in Hobart and fortified by an excellent dinner my companion and I abandoned our little car to the tender mercies of its slave masters and gathered along with thirteen presumably like minded souls for our quick tour of Tasmania. An individual approached and announced himself as our guide.

Once informalities had been completed our guide herded us and a collection of random strangers (henceforth to be known as CoRS) onto a minivan and we set out on our journey.

Five minutes later we stopped again outside a museum where we popped in to see how appallingly our ancestors had treated the local indigenous population (although the sole German amongst us can probably get a pass). After a grim but informative hour our guide rounded up the CoRS while the Pilates instructor and I went to find a post office.

Our minivan was still waiting when we returned so we climbed aboard and were transported to the charming colonial town of Richmond. Richmond has a bridge, a lolly shop and a bakery that sold curried scallop pies. To me that latter sounded appalling but my companion ate it with every evidence of gusto. I saved my gusto for a more appropriate subject.

With the colonial charm of Richmond finally exhausted the minivan pointed itself in the direction of a winery and we all went with the flow. 

At the winery we were presented with a series of wines to taste apparently on the principle that if they got us drunk enough we’d buy more wine. Most of the wine seemed to involve Pinot noir. I didn’t like the Pinot noir but one of the Rieslings was nice and the cheese selection was excellent. I didn’t buy any wine but one of the CoRS did so I guess mission accomplished for the winery.

Our guide finally managed to drag us out of the vineyard and back onto the minivan and we headed for Bicheno, a town largely famous for being the place where we were stopping for the night.

Travelling Hopefully - Most of Cape Queen Elizabeth

 The next day still semi delirious from our white wallaby frenzy we headed off to do the Cape Queen Elizabeth walk we had planned to do yesterday. This time we made absolutely sure we had water and supplies before abandoning our little car in what we hoped was a parking spot and not just a random location by the side of the road.

Our little journey got off to an inauspicious start when a couple of hundred metres along the path we encountered a couple coming the other way who informed us that an elderly lady had taken a fall a bit further along and that there was a fair bit of blood on the track.

Sure enough we soon encountered a clutch of people gathered around a rather battered lady on the ground. First aiders were in attendance and medics had been called so we eased around both blood and victim and abandoned them to their fate.

It all depended on the tide. Part of the walk took us along a beach which was submerged a decent part of the day. We had skilfully arranged to arrive at the beach at a time when the tide would be cooperative. Unfortunately the tide arrived at the same time and was unwilling to cooperate.

A frantic glance at my trail app showed us that we could circle around the rest of the walk and approach the beach from the other side when surely the tide would have sorted itself out. 

Up we struggled, panting through the bushes. At least I panted through the hedges. The Pilates instructor skipped gaily from rock to rock as if only lightly tethered to the ground. Eventually we reached the beach on the other side of a headland still inconveniently submerged. We found the rock archway that was the draw point for our entire walk. We took photos and then sat and stared at the tide for half an hour in the hopes it would take the hint.

The tide didn’t take the hint and eventually we struggled back the same way we came although not before scrambling up a sand dune in the vague hope it might magically deposit us where we wanted to go.

So we didn’t complete the walk although with all the backtracking and sand dune shenanigans we probably covered more ground than if we had. The elderly lady and the pool of blood were gone on our return proving that either medical attention had arrived or that the scavengers in this part of the world are pretty enthusiastic about their jobs.

Travelling Hopefully - White Wallaby Edition

 In the beginning was the plan. It was a plan meticulously worked out by the Pilates instructor with occasional unhelpful suggestions from me. We would rise, journey to Adventure Bay, known lurking spot of a community of white wallabies. After breakfast we would enjoy the sight of pallid marsupials disporting themselves for our amusement. Then we would drive to North Bruny Island where a brisk 13km bushwalk would build up an appetite to be satisfied at the only dining establishment on the island open on a Sunday night.

Things went wrong almost immediately. Offered the choice of two routes to Adventure Bay my companion chose the one she felt would be the most scenic. In this she was right. How much of the truly impressive scenery she managed to enjoy as she carefully guided our little town car along an unsealed track that existed largely in the imagination of the cartographer is another matter.

We emerged from the primordial forest grateful to have escaped with our lives and finally found the sole café Adventure Bay could boast. After breakfast we set out to see the white wallabies which we expected to be performing a welcoming dance in the street. There were none.

The wallabies are most active at dawn and dusk. Apparently 10am isn’t considered dawn in these parts. Faced with an absence of wallabies we headed towards the start of the Fluted Cape walk where apparently white wallabies covered the ground. On arrival at the car park we were greeted by a pair of regular wallabies who were working the car park like truck stop hookers. They were very obviously posing for photos before an admiring group but we spurned their coarse advances and headed into the bush.

The beginning of the trail came and went and with no sign of our prey we kept going. Things weren’t helped by the fact that everyone we passed regaled us with white wallaby sightings until we ground our teeth in envy.

At some point we realised we had pretty much committed ourselves to the entire walk and found ourselves plodding reluctantly up an impressive hill. Things weren’t helped by the fact that my companion’s white wallaby obsession had clearly spiraled into madness. She was seeing white wallabies behind every bush.

“There’s one!” She shrieked.

“That’s a rock.”

A little further on,

“There’s one!”

That’s a branch.”

And so on. Eventually wallaby spotting or, more accurately, not wallaby spotting had to give way to gasping for breath as we struggled up to the cape. On arrival the walk was definitely worth the effort as we gazed over the sea and assured each other that the inadvertent walk had definitely been worth the effort.

Since we had never intended to go this far we had left our water and supplies back in the car. Fortunately some passing hikers took pity on our obvious ineptitude and gave us some water. Refreshed and having exhausted the photo opportunities provided by cliffs, sea, bush and random islands we headed down by a different path so we could not see wallabies in a different location.

By the time we reached the car park we had covered ten hilly and unintended kilometres and agreed that the walk we had planned to do could be put off until another day. Besides it was grey and starting to rain. But the white wallaby obsession still burned fiercely in our breasts. A cafe employee assured us that the wallabies would come down out of the hills around and parade for visitors in the local’s yards. They would do this around five pm. It was currently twenty to three.

So we sat in a car park for the next two hours as the skies got greyer and rain misted down. My companion’s delusion got worse as the shadows lengthened.

“There’s one,” she shrieked.

“That’s a gas meter.”

Suddenly we saw a group of people staring fixedly up at a hill behind a house. Eagerly we joined them, there may have been a certain amount of elbowing small children out of the way. There in the distance was a whitish shape that with a certain generosity of spirit could be considered wallaby shaped. We took photos and assured each other it was a wallaby before returning to the car park.

Of course we could have left then but with the shadows lengthening we decided there was little harm in hanging around until our welcome completely wore out. Back in the car we peered out into the gathering gloom until my companion clutched my arm.

“There’s,” she hissed, “it’s coming down the hill.” She took photos which we examined minutely. It was a sign nailed to a tree. It was now around five in the evening. We drove slowly and a little disconsolately along the street. As if to mock us regular hued wallabies popped up in every yard. 

Then as if by a flipped switch suddenly we were overwhelmed with white wallabies. They posed for photos, they hopped across the street at one point I think they tried to steal our car. After a long day our white wallaby cup ran over and puddled on the ground.

Travelling Hopefully - Arrival Edition

 My journey of a thousand miles began with the traditional step towards Sydney airport but rapidly improved as we were rapidly herded towards a modest sized aircraft that surprised everyone by being on time. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that in defiance of rational expectations 

Also defying rational expectations was the sudden presence of the Pilates instructor who had unaccountably rejected multiple opportunities to flee for the hills and joined me on the flight. 

We landed in Hobart slightly early, picked up our rental car and set off for Bruny Island. Thirty seconds later we stopped again and referred to the vehicles manual to identify such useful things as the indicator controls and why the hell the car kept beeping at us.

With cheerful enthusiasm and frequent cursing we eventually (and by “we” I mean she) worked out how the car was meant to work and we pointed our nose in the direction of Bruny Island. My role was to simultaneously keep an eye on the map and the speed limit signs and warn her if we ran anyone over.

We headed through bustling, downtown Hobart and two minutes later had left Tasmania’s glittering, cosmopolitan capital behind us heading for a car ferry that would carry us across the storm tossed waves to Bruny Island.

Actually the whole trip was remarkably painless despite my propensity to shout “wallaby!” every time a marsupial got within a hundred metres of us.

Middle afternoon saw us crunching up the drive of our rented cottage as wallabies fled in all directions. We got out of the car, rhapsodised about the view and the quality of the accommodation and promptly drove off to see a lighthouse.

My companion was much taken with said lighthouse, with the view and particularly the clouds and the sunset. I having followed her eager ascent perhaps a little too vigorously simply gasped for breath and tried not to vomit.

With shadows lengthening and park personnel glancing meaningfully at their watches we clambered back into our faithful if somewhat undersized steed and returned to our cabin. Along the way wallabies scrambled out of the way with sufficient frequency to explain the roadkill littering Tasmania’s streets and, not infrequently, driveways.

That night I dined on most of a sheep while my companion seemed a little miffed that wallaby had been removed from the menu. My suggestion that she simply scrape some off the road was not met with favour.

Traveling Hopefully - Giddy Excitement Edition

 I bustled about my flat grabbing random items of clothing and shoving them into my bag. My plush toys looked on with a combination of contempt and anticipation. Finally as I attempted to stuff a dressing gown into the pocket of my day pack my puffin broke the silence.

"Do you actually know what you're doing?"

"Of course I do," I snapped, "has anybody seen my nail clippers?"

"No but I've got a screwdriver you can borrow," offered the plague rat with a gap toothed grin. Finally the combined efforts of myself and a nearly a score of plush toys got everything packed and ready to depart. They seemed almost indecently eager to help me depart. 

I'm traveling domestically for once, roaming random bits of my far flung homeland. Firstly I head south planning to horrify my Tasmanian correspondent by turning up unannounced on her doorstep. Assuming I survive this delightful little prank there will be the opportunity to pester albino wallabies and throw things at penguins before bidding the Apple Isle farewell and heading for the other end of the country. 

Broome, my other destination is an inconveniently long distance from Tasmania and the dual destinations has required a slightly schizophrenic luggage arrangement as half my clothes need to stave off the southern cold and the other half have to deal with the northern heat. The result is that there is barely an item of clothing left in my apartment and my plush toys have already starting renting out the wardrobe space as an airbnb. I refuse to be downhearted though, if nothing else I will get a phenomenal view of more Australian airports than I have ever set eyes on. Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Broome will present themselves to me for inspection. In fact I will be spending so much time in Perth airport I may just wind up living there.

Just for once I have an obscure desire for companionship. To alleviate this I have waylaid a random pilates instructor and by means of outrageous promises I am neither able or willing to keep have persuaded her to accompany me. I can only hope that by the end of the trip Stockholm Syndrome has done its work. This will all be new for her. She has never been to Tasmania or Broome or indeed Australia more generally. Most importantly she has never spent several weeks in the company of a slightly delusional, plush toy addled degenerate with a shaky grip on reality and a tendency to snore. If you see any frantic cries for help inserted into any of the following blog entries you know she managed to grab the keyboard from me for a few seconds.

Of course a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. This is one of those phrases which sounds profound until you realise that somebody gained a reputation for wisdom by stating the bleeding obvious. In my case the single step is in the direction of Sydney Airport's domestic terminal. A state of affairs which would probably have made Lao Tzu turn around and go back to bed. Sadly I won't have the same opportunity as by the time I set out I'm pretty sure my plush toys will have changed the locks. 

Silly After Action Report - Our Place in the Sun

 "Our place in the sun," muttered Capitano Luigi Insalata staring at the cave pocked hill with disgust. "Ethiopia is our place in the sun? Did we lose a bet or something? What the hell's wrong with the Amalfi Coast, that has sun. Oh crap,"he added as Colonello Condottieri appeared behind him. "I would like to remind you of your duty as an Italian officer," said Condottieri heavily. "Our Eritrean troops are looking to their colonial overlords to set an example." Insalata was fairly sure his Eritrean troops would cheerfully attack the Ethiopians even if their officers were on another continent, something he was seriously considering. "Don't forget we have air support," added Condottieri attempting to cheer the captain up. "Mustard gas?" said Insalata hopefully. Condottieri looked around hastily but there didn't seem to be any foreign journalists nearby. "Keep your voice down," he hissed, "And, no. Just bombs and machine guns. Well, a bomb." Isalata looked around, everywhere eager Eritrean troops were gathering for the assault their Italian officers trudging reluctantly behind them. His own command was halfway towards the hills. "Off you go," said Condottieri, "not that way," he added. Possibly the only machine gun in the Ethiopian army chose that moment to open fire. Insalata turned to the Colonel but Condottieri was nowhere to be seen. With little real choice Insalata shambled after his men.

I threatened and here it is. Ethiopians versus Italians. Well really Ethiopians versus Eritreans with the Italians providing heavy support. Here my Italian led Eritreans will attempt to seize a number of nameless points on an unimportant hill against a group of Ethiopians who have occupied them against the wishes of their emperor. Obviously the stakes are high. My Eritreans are set up on the desert floor looking at a particularly difficult hill thronging with with Ethiopian troops. To win I need to amass 4VP from capturing victory locations. There are five such hexes each worth 1VP each except for 25BB5 which is worth 2 points. I have to achieve this without conceding 15 or more CVP to the Ethiopians. To achieve this heady result I have thirteen squads of first line Eritrean troops equipped with two lmgs and a medium machine gun. These colonial warriors are urged into battle by four Italian officers including a 9-1. On a turn to be determined by die roll another pair of officers lead six more Eritrean squads and a single lmg on a flanking movement. The main force is supported by a single 75mm gun and two fighter bombers one of which has an actual bomb. Unlike their shoddy Italian counterparts Eritreans are not lax, reduce to a second line squad rather than a conscript and become fanatic on battle hardening. If I had been the Italians I would have been trying to replace my entire army with Eritreans.

My opponent Dave commands the Ethiopians, eleven first line squads and five conscripts. The first line squads are 237s the conscripts are worse. These doughty but undergunned warriors are led by three officers including an 8-1. They also have a medium machine gun and a crew to man it. Dave also has six concealment counters and eight cave counters plus two tunnels which can only be used to connect one cave to another. Dave can HIP two squad equivalents. This, combined with the caves means a good proportion of his force is invisible. Broken Terrain is in effect which means all hammada hexes become crags and each open ground hex accessible to such newly created crags becomes broken ground giving a +1 TEM and being concealment terrain. Technically all scrub also becomes brush but actually another special rule indicates that scrub becomes cactus patches instead. Got that? Good. The long line of Allied control markers in the picture below actually designate a continuous cliff face with no wadis. 

At start set up

I set up intending to go for the two VP location on the right with part of my force and try and take the right hand end of the main ridge line with the rest. My force felt terribly naked sitting out there on the desert floor and I had to continually remind myself that the Ethiopians had low firepower and short range and it wasn't as suicidal as it looked. A kill stack with the mmg and 9-1 was set up to hopefully take out the most forward of his defenders on the right. In the absence of anything else to do the 75mm would do likewise.

The combined efforts of my gun and "kill" stack sufficed to pin a single squad and with that dubious encouragement my squads surged forward over the broken ground. The surge left them floundering about in the open but fortunately I wasn't really in the Ethiopians range as yet. Dave declined to shoot for the most part, keeping his powder dry.

Somewhere ahead of me are caves full of Ethiopians

My second turn saw me overwhelm a forward squad and discover a couple of caves. I also discovered that while caves may be fearsome when you're approaching them once you've arrived you can walk over them and safely ignore the contents unless they want to stick their heads up. I also discovered Dave's medium machine gun. It did no harm this turn but that hopeful beginning would not be followed up on. Meanwhile my gun crew proved incapable of moving the gun anywhere. My air support and reinforcements turned up. I brought my reinforcements on the very southern extremity of board 25 intending to envelop the hill mass from both sides. Dave's mmg team broke one of my squads that had got a little too enthusiastic about its job. But in return a fighter bomber strafed his mmg team snuggled safely in a cave and to the astonishment of both of us gained a result. The mmg team survived but their guiding officer broke and ELR'ed.

Mixed results but at least I'm in the general vicinity of the hill

Now that I was in the general vicinity of his defences there came the long painful process of crawling up the most irritating hill in ASL. Dave for his part declined to reveal his caves until I was standing right in front of them. Over on the right I attempted to push toward the two VP location and lost another squad to his mmg team but I was starting to build up a force. On the main ridge I painfully eased forward until I got shot at. Fortunately low Ethiopian firepower meant I survived a fair number of these shots. Still everything was going very slowly. Down on the bottom of the map my flanking movement was more of a flanking increment. Dave's attempts to reinforce his central position from the flanks failed as my air support came into its own. 

Getting nowhere very slowly

As you might be able to see from the above I'm trying to slide my centre force across to the left. That's where the other victory locations are. To do that I have to run the gauntlet of his troops in the caves which were spread out all along the ridgeline. The word "run" gives the completely wrong impression by the way.

Casualties started to come faster now as more Ethiopian troops peered out of their caves and shot up my troops as they went by. Over on the right I was starting to position myself for the push to the victory location despite the occasional casualty from his mmg. My flankers started to earn their pay as they tangled with a couple of Ethiopian squads lurking on the rear of the ridgeline. I'm also pushing my gun around, as much to give the crew something to do as for any other reason.

Slow and messy but I'm inching in the right direction

  

Turn 4 was a mixed bag. The stalwart Ethiopian defenders in their caves made a mess of my centre force but on the right I had finally driven off the few defenders of the victory location. Now all I had to do was take it myself. I approached a little warily not believing that Dave hadn't allocated more to the defence of the 2VP location. In the rear his neglected cave dwellers popped out for long enough to DM my broken squads which was deeply annoying but revealing himself in the open didn't do much for his troops life expectancy.

It has to be admitted that my attempt to slide to the left has met a temporary speed hump.

  

If I had been commanding Italians things might have been a bit rough at this point but my Eritreans were made of sterner stuff, rallying quickly and reorganising. An Italian officer went berserk, fortunately his troops were too sensible to follow his lead. Alone the man charged a cave and then realised he couldn't get inside it. He stood there for the next couple of turns looking silly. Over on the right I captured the VP location, two of the four I needed. Now I could focus on the left. Eager to prove it was contributing my gun banged away at a couple of distant squads without result. My aircraft ruled the sky (easy when there's no opposition) making every Ethiopian move in the open fraught with risk. Down at the bottom of the board my flankers were finally flanking.

Starting to close in on the left

Slowly and painfully I closed in on the left and now Dave understood that the caves were a trap. Now that I had moved past him his troops there were completely helpless unless they wanted to stand up in the open and invite fire. Air support killed another of his squads on the left and suddenly Dave was very undermanned in the victory locations, if I could just get there. The combination of cactus patches, crags, wadis and broken ground making movement so difficult that any defensive fire Dave put up was largely incidental to my struggles. Still we were making it, my flankers coming from one side and my at start force from the other. Over on the right my machine gun teams took up positions waiting for the inevitable. Dave would have to get out of those caves at some point.

So close I can smell it. Or possibly that's the Ethiopian food

The moment came, Dave's cave dwellers sallied forth and were hit by a combination of air attacks and machine gun fire that promptly knocked them out of the game. Meanwhile slowly and painfully I had dragged myself up to the victory locations. A single conscript squad barred my way but not for long. I fought my way in and seized the remaining two locations needed for victory. Dave had another turn but nothing that could hope to restore the situation. Victory fell to me in the final turn. 

This was a long, grinding game. The Eritreans need all of the time they're allotted as it takes a long time to get anywhere. I quite enjoyed it but I was the one moving forward (also I won). Dave who spent most of his time sitting in caves not shooting at things didn't find it quite as entertaining (also he lost). Dave gained revenge for the Ethiopians when he won The Wells of Borgut in the first turn but for right now I was triumphant.

Victory believe it or not

 

Capitano Insalata sank onto a handy chunk of stone. His Eritrean's hadn't needed much guidance, his command had consisted of pointing occasionally in the direction he wanted them to go. He gazed up at the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky. Colonello Condottieri approached, Insalata considered leaping to his feet and saluting but decided he couldn't be bothered. That was something else the Eritreans could do for him.

"Well done," said Condottieri. "You kept out of the Eritreans way for long enough for them to get the job done. Masterful leadership." Insalata pointed at a sun warmed chunk of rock, inviting the colonello to take a seat. 

"What is this?" asked Condottieri gingerly taking a seat. 

"Our place in the sun," replied Insalata.