Travelling Hopefully Nay, Desperately

 How the mighty have fallen.  And I've fallen too in case anybody cares.  Last year I was preparing a holiday to random bits of Europe with confidence and enthusiasm.  This year I am sitting panic stricken in front of a screen lest the latest COVID news in Sydney should cruel a nine day trip to Tasmania at the last moment.  The Tasmanian government has already ripped up one application to visit their obscure little landmass and I'm waiting until the last minute to submit a replacement in the hopes of getting the latest news.  Because, yes I had planned a trip to Tasmania.  If people can just pretend not to have symptoms for another forty eight hours I will actually be going.  

It had to come to this eventually.  After years of sniping, criticising, ludicrous accusations and very serious death threats I am finally going to beard my Tasmanian correspondent in her den.  Her children have been hustled to a safe location and all sharp implements within a fifty mile radius have been removed.

"Come to Tasmania," she said.  "It will be fun," she said.  "I can show you all of the places where a body can be hidden so it will never be discovered."

"Why would I need to know that?" I asked.

"I didn't say you would need it," she responded.

Despite the threat implied in the previous remark I was so desperate to get out of town that I agreed.  Then she told me she would take me off to the most remote and uncivilised parts of Tasmania (no, not Hobart.  Apparently there are places even more remote and uncivilised).  To ensure I didn't try to escape she has recruited a relative to keep me from hurling myself from a moving car on the way.  

"Will I see platypuses and Tasmanian Devils?" I asked hopefully.

"There's every possibility," she said encouragingly.

"What does that mean?"

"It means no!"

I will however see dogs and such fish as have managed to survive her tender mercies to date.  Also on the agenda are trees, mountains and a train.  Plus pubs, quite a lot of pubs apparently.  Our destination is the west coast of Tasmania; home of trees, mountains and, well, that's about it really.  The scenery should be impressive.  The wifi access will not be.  Once we have revelled in the grandeur of nature we'll drop down to Lake Pedder to revel in the monumental destruction of nature.  Truly Tasmania has something for every taste.  Unless that taste includes warm temperatures, reliable electricity, a functioning health system and adequate internet access.

My metal bird flees suddenly diseased Sydney on Saturday morning and after a flight of two hours and fifty years back in time I shall arrive in Hobart where my correspondent will be waiting with a car.  She has assured me that the boot is spacious and I should be quite comfortable.  My correspondent has previously claimed that a platypus lives in a creek near her house.  Given my previous experience of not seeing animals on holiday I don't expect to see it unless somebody runs over it just before I arrive.  If they do I will take pictures.

So if you don't hear from me for several days its probably because I am roaming the remote parts of Tasmania.  Or I couldn't be bothered.  There is also an outside chance that my correspondent has buried me in a shallow grave.