Impressions of Tasmania #1

One thing that really stands out in my memory of our recent trip to Tasmania (apart from the gorgeous scenery and the nightmare drive between Scottsdale and Launceston at dusk) is that everyone drives so slowly.

In my daily existence, most people tend to drive at least 10km/h over the posted speed limit. I often find myself doing 10km/h over the speed limit in the right hand lane (that's the fast lane for those who drive on the wrong side of the road) and still have someone tail gaiting me because I’m just not driving fast enough for them. In Tasmania, the rule seemed to be that driving 10km/h below the speed limit was an acceptable and much more civilised way of getting around. This was most obvious in the central business district of Hobart (Tasmania's capital) but was also a popular philosophy on major highways between towns.

Driving speeds are a useful indicator of how laid back and relaxed citizens really are. Canberrans like to think we are laid back and relaxed. We promote our home as the "Bush Capital", boast of the many parks and recreational areas and steadfastly believe we are living the dream of a stress-free lifestyle. This has been one of the major selling points of a campaign to attract more people to live in Canberra (warning: site is Flash heavy).

How many Canberrans are relaxed? At social events conversations quickly turn to work (if they didn’t already start out that way). I find that public servants are the worst serial offenders (or maybe I just hang around with too many public servants) as it takes only the smallest prompting before we all "talk shop". (Happily, I do this less and less. Without even the slightest prompting I now enter New Father Mode, regaling people with stories of vomit and poo and watch the eyes of the childless glaze over at record speeds. I’m a real riot at dinner parties.)

As Canberra is a town with a highly transient population, it can be hard to meet people. If it's difficult to get out and about socially, work can become the focus. I find that people lose perspective and seem to develop this bizarre tendency to believe that what they do is vitally important and requires every spare shred of their energy, including evenings and weekends. Too much focus on work leaves too little focus on other things like exercise, balanced diets with home cooking, sleep(!) and downtime where unwinding is necessary (and that doesn't include downing a bottle of red at a dinner party while complaining about how little work your Manager does while you take home a ream of print outs to read at the dinner table every night). People rush around to meetings, to supermarkets late after work trying to find something that will take 10 minutes to cook and 5 minutes to eat, to the gym because they feel guilty that they haven't gone in a week because they were working too hard, and back to work again. If you're not relaxed and you're rushing, you're more likely to be right up my arse on the highway because you can't wait two seconds for me to finish overtaking the semi-trailer struggling up the hill and move over into the left lane so you can hurry up and stress yourself to an early grave.

This is supposed to be an impression of Tasmania isn't it...

Tassie seemed so very relaxed. People were friendly. No one was rushed. There always seemed to be enough time in the day to do stuff (I'll concede that being on holiday helps immeasurably here). Everything seemed cleaner, brighter, less uptight and less self-important and self-involved.

Impression of Tasmania #1? If it didn't mean that Helen would be even further away from her family, and if I didn't have concerns about finding a fulfilling job, I think we could quite easily make the decision to stay there on a more permanent basis. As the guy at the Tourist Information shopfront at Sheffield said, most people visit Tasmania more than once, but be warned - on your fifth visit you'll be bringing your furniture with you. I'm beginning to understand why.