Tassie is a small place and today one of my students reminded me of how small when I realised that I have known her brother for over 10 years. Even better it reminded me of the sort of crazy schemes we used to come up with, and on occasion, even carry through, right to the crazy end. ‘Safari Tasmania’ was borne out of one of those ideas where we supposed that you might be able to visit every national park in Tassie in one (3 day – we were sort of realistic about it) weekend, and like true scientists, decided that the only thing to do was test our hypothesis. I am quite ashamed to say that we originally invited M for his kombi van, but quickly he became an integral part of our safari team and without him it wouldn’t have been the same.
The upshot of it all? Well 9 years ago it was possible to visit every national park on mainland Tasmania in 3 days. Just (and it did involve some ridiculous driving through the middle of the night). Will it ever be repeated? Probably not. Maybe one day we will resurrect the website and issue the challenge for anyone who wants to try and prove us wrong.
Until then it is a nice reminder of why I should follow my dreams more and if only occasionally, do something that everyone else thinks is a little crazy.