Like Stealing Fruit From a Pregnant Tween

Launceston has the makings of a traditional, small Australian city - a heritage brewery; a red brick post office; lush, green parks; an easily accessible Centrelink office - all things pointing to a typical Australian experience. But beyond such civic frivolities, Launceston does posses enticing natural features. I discovered such features after waking up in my capsule-hotel-style accommodation in Launceston.

Staying in the Pod Inn is preminiscent (a new word which I’m hoping will catch on) of a morgue from the future. Inside, each capsule has enough rainbow lighting to light a Mardi Gras float and, among other buttons on the plastic white dashboard, there is a button labeled “TV,” though no TV appeared to be present (this did not stop me from pressing the button at least fourteen times). Watching people exit the capsule in the morning is like which a sci-fi film where the characters have been placed in a state of suspended animation for decades in order to reach a distant planet. The subjects slowly exit in a delirious, disoriented stage, sliding shut the door of their prostrated-albino-refrigerator abode. Whilst from a distance the pods do appear to be sturdy and rigid, like a NASA spaceship, they are in fact quite flimsy and easily breakable, like a Fisher Price spaceship. The pods are easily penetrated by sound, a worry that I was granted when earplugs were provided to me along with my access card. Nevertheless, the only sound I recall hearing in the night was a man screaming something along the lines of “if you make another sound you're paying for my room for the night.” The irony of course being that I was only woken by the shriek of the screamer and not the screamees (also a sleeping pod is not a room).

With a night’s sleep under my belt I ventured toward Launceston’s famous Cataract Gorge, taking a detour through the suburban area. I passed by brick houses and weatherboard cottages with surrounding verandahs, pensioners tending to their agapanthus flowers, fathers picking the paper up off the porch and children having a quick joint before they headed off for their first day back at school. I continued up the hill, taking in views across the city and suburbs and stealing fruit from the apple, plum, nectarine and peach trees that dot the area. I walked slowly as not to disturb the underripe peaches which were scattered beneath my feet and not to draw attention to my horticultural hooliganism. Soon though I arrived at the entrance to the national park and the start of the world’s longest single chairlift span (an accolade about as useful as a returns policy at a tattoo parlour).

A peacock attempts to convince staff to let her ride on
the chairlift even though it is well after closing time.

I spent the morning winding through the national park, absorbing the crisp air and the blue skies. At one point I passed a large family group and noticed that the daughter was heavily pregnant. Whilst this would not usually be noteworthy, the fact that she appeared to be twelve or thirteen, at most, was particularly startling. Amazed and concerned that my trademark ignorance of greater society had overtaken me, I felt inclined to take another look, to confirm my judgemental suspicions. Was she holding a beach bowl under her jumper? She couldn't be. After all, why would you bring a beach ball to a place you can't swim on cool day such as today? Overcome with the realisation that all jokes and generalisations that had been made so flippantly in the past about Tasmanians were in fact true, I continued on my walk, vowing to spend the remainder of my life working to help troubled teens and tweens and single mothers and anyone who needed help. Call me old-fashioned but twelve was too young to have children. I needed to help the world and change the world. I was going to make myself and the world better. This was my life's new purpose. I then turned a corner, caught up again with the family, noticed the girl was no longer pregnant and that she was holding a blue puffer jacket she did not have before. So much for changing the world. Conclusion: Asher is stupid.

I spent the rest of the day in the national park and looking at the museums and galleries in town.