by Paul Carter
The sun came through for a look as the road shook the last of the slush off its gravel shoulders and began to dry out. Daylight slowly turned orange as the sun dipped behind the hills, setting off the landscape in rich deep purple and green. As the light faded, so captivating was the view luxuriously opening up in front of us that I didn’t see the possum. (You know this story isn’t going to end well.) We’d just rounded a corner at the top of a forested hill, a long dry straight forcing Diego to downshift and gun his bike well past the limit. I followed suit and tucked in over the tank. The possum had, evidently, waited for Diego to fly past then decided to run into the middle of the road and plant a face-first kamikaze headbutt straight into my bike; there were perhaps two seconds between me seeing and hitting it. The bike took a terrible jolt, I veered off to the right with a high-speed wobble and a little tank-slapping then straightened up and continued on. It was pointless stopping; Diego had streaked ahead and would have no idea that I nearly came off, and the possum, well, let’s just say at least its death was instant.
So I caught up with him, then we crossed the Lake Burby bridge and stopped next to an ominous-looking concrete building in the middle of nowhere called ‘The Linda Valley Cafe’. Diego was chatting to several other riders who all stopped talking and started laughing when I pulled up. ‘What did you hit, mate?’ one of them called out.
I looked down; the poor possum had basically exploded when hit by my Harley doing about 140 kilometres per hour. It was like someone had just thrown a bucket of red paint over me, and when I took off my lid it was to the smell of slow-cooked possum baked on engine and pipes; there were only a few chunks left clinging to the underside.
Joined by Diego’s new friends, we rode on in a small convoy down to Queenstown. The road was a dream, opening up into a deep valley, with a steep twisting descent of corners that switch back all the way down. The other lads waved as they continued on and we pulled up for a beer and a motel bed.
Our last full day in Tasmania was going to be our best—I didn’t know it yet but I was about to have a truly great ride. We started with another wonderful sunny morning, the hills steeped in mist as the day rose. We stood on the motel’s porch and pondered our route back to Devonport and the evening ferry to Melbourne. We mapped out a big ride that took us south from Queenstown to Strahan, then back up to Zeehan, Rosebery, up the A10 to Wynyard on the coast, then left all the way to the bizarrely named ‘Dismal Swamp Forest Walk’—there are loads of forest walks to do in Tasmania but we knew we had to do that one. From there it was a run straight to the ferry, about 600 k’s and eight hours in total.
The ride out of Queenstown to Strahan was just perfect; the sun was shining, the road empty as usual. Huge ferns grew from the high banks of the shoulder straight up with the forest and bowed over, totally enclosing the road; our headlights gleamed into the green tube, like riding through a rainforest tunnel. Breakfast in the small township of Strahan and on towards the north and the coast. The whole day played out in a series of dreamily idyllic places and moments. We started seeing other riders, and Diego was constantly enthralled in the history of wherever we were, asking questions of anyone and everyone who would stop to chat, but our journey was slowly coming to an end.
We rode on in complete bliss, just ambling through the countryside, then we hit the hills again. Diego was in front as the road began to skirt up the side of Hellyer Gorge and down into the almost tropical valley. He was in the zone, faster into the corners, proper supertight hairpin, frame-scraping corners, the ones where the sign tells you to take it at fifteen. It was steep and winding, the inside banks of the road began to camber up in our favour, higher and higher. So Diego began to use them, hitting the apex on the edge of the bitumen at 60 and laying his bike right over, popping up a gear for a few seconds then downshift and high on the camber into the next one.
We started overtaking each other, we could see it was clear ahead so we used the whole road. My head was clutter-free, I was having such a good time, every corner had my pipes hitting the road, pavement feelers long since worn down and I didn’t give a shit anymore; I was actually trying to lay the bike down and couldn’t. The bank of the road was too enticing, something to push against and tease through the corners: it was a lock-in at Disneyland. I rolled the throttle harder and earlier in the turns, only remembering I was riding a Harley when the ground fell away under me and it was only the centrifugal force keeping the tyres on the road, then the suspension bottomed out on the back wheel under the compressive force and I was sling-shotted out of the turn and into another one.
We reached the end, both of us pulled up, paused, silently nodded back in the direction we had just come, and turned around and rode it again the other way, then doubled back and did it again. It was epic fun, on a perfect sunny day in Tasmania.
Our run to the coast was easy and relaxed. We saw the ocean at Wynyard and turned left, riding together all the way to the western seaboard at Arthur River, with just enough time for a cuppa and another stopover for the very pleasant Dismal Swamp. Then it was a blast straight to Devonport with more and more riders popping out of the woodwork to join up in a convoy that ended in the queue to board the ferry.
As the sun started to set we all mooched about talking bikes and where we had been; every single rider, from retirees in their 60s to young lads on slick sports bikes, had the same smile on their face. It was a scene that could play out almost anywhere at any point in the history of motorcycle riding; like surfers standing beachside scanning the waves, so too bike riders bounce the experience off each other in a timeless way, their hands weaving to demonstrate as they describe a corner just taken, in the same way the surfer narrates a nice bottom turn.
JACOBSON
AIRLINES
THE FERRY NAZI and my pocketknife were nowhere to be found, so Diego and I finished our meal in one of the restaurants on the Spirit of Tasmania 1 and settled in for the night. The ferry was very comfortable and catered for the entertainment of its passengers, including a free cinema, where Diego opted to go while I lumbered off to bed.
It was nice to wake up with the sun shining through my window on a big boat, Melbourne slowly getting closer as I grabbed a shower and packed my gear. Diego was already loading up his bike in the vast steel car park below decks when I got there. We rode into the morning traffic, heading directly north for my mate Clayton’s place.
An hour later we rolled into his property. Large and sprawling, Clay’s home is wonderfully peaceful, and as usual he was straight into stories and music. We had a great meal and sat on his huge porch admiring the unspoilt rolling green view. Diego spotted a boomerang hanging on the wall and the next thing I know Clay had him hurling it all over a paddock while his horses pranced about looking nervous. Next was the compulsory bullwhip-cracking session; Diego managed to crack the back of his head and I removed a slice off the top of my right ear.
Then we hit the off-road toys. Clay has a flat-out scary thing called a Polaris RZR, an off-road buggy that merged with a transformer then drank too much Red Bull and went mad. Clay told us to go and get our helmets on and come back in clothes we didn’t mind getting ‘a bit mucky’.
Clay’s toy is the size of a small car, seats four adults in comfort but goes like a dirt bike. It’s got everything you need to go from zero to 100 in ten seconds over rough uneven bush, plus instant selection between 4WD and 2WD—you just push a button on the dash, then get some air. When I say air I mean Clay was broadsiding dirt 20 feet into the air behind us, cresting a rise in the middle of a paddock and hitting his jump, no warning. There was just enough time during the flight for Diego and I to turn and look at each other, screaming, then look back at where we were going and panic. Fun does not begin to describe it.
An hour later we were both fucked with matching internal bleeding and bruised kidneys, and 200 pounds of mud liberally sprayed from head to toe. There was mud inside my helmet, there was mud inside my eyelids.
The next day, feeling a l
ittle sore, I waved Diego off. The crazy bastard decided he was not done yet and rode back to Perth from Melbourne. We had been fortunate enough to do some epic rides on incredible roads and have the kind of adventures that I’ll rant about all my life. I know one day when I’m old and kicking about periodically peeing myself I’ll be telling my grandkids about the time I went to Tasmania with a mad Argy called Diego.
That night Clay and I explored the finer points of brandy and opened a nice cognac. He has a limitless ability to stimulate the mind: he writes so well he actually makes a living from his talent; he’s a musician, too, and a bloody film director, amalgamating all this with a natural skill that makes it look easy. Sometimes I can’t keep up with Clay’s brain box when he shoots off in several different directions simultaneously. I struggle with the simple stuff; my own alchemy of writing is, as you know by now, just storytelling. But Clay bends and moulds the narrative into sculpture beyond the word, he sees things in four dimensions and, much to his disdain these days, 3D as well. ‘Fuck 3D,’ he scowled from inside his Tardis-like collection of movies.
‘Let’s watch this,’ he said, holding up Alan Parker’s Angel Heart.
‘Nahh,’ I said and he returned to the shelves.
‘How about this? The first Alien movie.’
‘Nahh.’
Clay gave me a look. ‘Okay, you choose then.’
But there was too much to choose from. ‘Let’s watch telly,’ I optimistically suggested.
Clay laughed. ‘That comes down to three things: the time of day, the channel and the state of the nation.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The news is on, but that’s it. After that it’s a depressing slide into mass commercial unimaginative mainstream structured reality slop.’
I grinned, knowing full well that he’d just shot a TV show and several ads of the mainstream slop kind in the last few months.
The phone rang; it was an Indian telemarketing call centre and in a sudden flurry of activity Clay hit the speakerphone button, raced into his office where he has an impressive mountain of editing and sound-mixing equipment, and instantly through the surround sound there was the background noise of people, movement and intermittent radio chatter.
‘Identify yourself, please,’ Clay said in a voice that was perfectly authoritative and slightly intimidating.
There was a brief pause. The call-centre chick sitting in Mumbai was probably a bit baffled but she tested the water anyway. ‘Hello, my name is Jody and I am calling you today from Sydney. How are you this evening?’
Clay hit another button and there was a burst of shouting and a siren. ‘Well, Jody,’ he said, ‘my name is Detective Sergeant Addams. Listen carefully: there’s a crime scene at this address, so I will need to know your full name and residential details in Sydney, and the reason for your call.’
And she was gone faster than our super in a government bond.
‘Well played, mate,’ I said, suitably impressed.
He grinned. ‘I’ve got a few different scenarios, in different languages.’
The phone rang again. ‘Good evening, The Savoy Grill, Adam speaking,’ Clay’s voice went up five octaves.
We settled in for the night, watching the sun set on his balcony. My bike was getting freighted back to Perth and tomorrow I would be on a flight home, then a week later another one to San Francisco, then Houston for the annual Offshore Technology Conference, the biggest conglomeration of all things oil and gas on the planet, and four days of total mayhem.
Perth blasted me with heat and paint-stripping sun as I walked out of the airport and headed straight to my office. The rest of the day was meetings followed by a bizarre phone call from my agent. National Geographic was about to shoot a television series on the history of Australia called Australia—Life On The Edge and they wanted me to go and do a screen test as one of the presenters. I had been approached for a screen test once before with Top Gear Australia, and in retrospect I’m lucky I was ‘too British’ or ‘not Aussie enough’ as the show was axed after going through two different versions with two different networks. But I agreed to this as it sounded exciting; it was different, the budget was huge, they had seven one-hour episodes to shoot involving helicopters, a two-man submarine, diving, rappelling, all kinds of vessels, shipwrecks, desert and bush adventures—shit, I didn’t need any more convincing.
Two days later I was sitting in a survival suit strapped via a four-point harness with a rebreather on inside a helicopter fuselage mock-up dangling over a large pool about to do HUET (helicopter underwater escape training). Five very nice people were there, the director, cameraman, soundman, the runner and the makeup lady. They wanted to see if I could remember my lines while doing something challenging.
Could I deliver a nice piece to camera about how important safety and training is in the modern world of oil and gas exploration? Could I keep talking and maintain eye contact with the camera while the helicopter landed, water poured in and the whole thing started to sink and invert until it was completely upside down and submerged? Could I keep talking while the water rushed over my head, then unlock the door and open it, undo my harness, make my escape, inflate my life vest and break the surface correctly orientated towards the camera, spit some water out of my mouth and continue my monologue to the camera like nothing has happened? Could I hold the audience’s attention, project my voice over the chopper rotor sound effects, gesticulate enough but not too much and not look like I just got flushed down the toilet?
No, I could not. I forgot my lines, inhaled water, choked, popped up on the wrong side of the chopper with half a pint of snot hanging out of my nose and delivered my lines to the microphone boom not the camera. But they were patient, explaining that the large thing which looked like ‘Chewbacca’s penis on a stick’ was in fact the sound recording device, and eventually I got it right. They shook my hand and said, ‘We’ll be in touch,’ and with that I went home to pack for the United States of America.
ENGLISH CARS,
SCOTTISH WHISKEY,
AMERICAN
SERVICE
I FLEW EMIRATES, and that’s it. No horror stories, no dramas, no loss of bowel control or missed connections, no screaming kids or fearful moments, no crazy people, nothing. It was a business-class bullshit-free experience and I loved every minute of it.
I arrived in San Francisco mid-afternoon. I was there to visit two old friends; they sent me instructions to catch a bus, and there it was right opposite the entrance to the airport. That was so easy it was just weird. I got on the bus and the driver launched out of his seat in shock because I was carrying my bag.
‘Sir, please, let me stow that for you,’ he said and bolted off to put my grip bag in the luggage hold, then leapt back on the bus and showed me my seat, asked me if I was familiar with San Francisco, gave me a tourist brochure, smiled and told me we would be off in five minutes and it would take 45 minutes for us to reach my stop at Larkspur Landing, all ending with another big smile, not fake, just a big ‘Welcome to the US’.
Holy shit. I’m used to the lack-lustre half-arse attitude you get about 50 per cent of the time in Australia, especially in Perth. Where I come from ‘Just fuck off ’ is visible in the thought-bubble hovering over the heads of everyone who deals with the public, from the dude in my local video store and the woman who brought me the wrong coffee, to the guy who came to do the termite treatment on our house last month; he was about to start drilling holes all over my place, until I reminded him that our house sits on cement pillars. There’s the woman who tried to sell my wife a mobile phone, the guy who was supposed to be selling me a leather sofa last week, and so on.
But there is also a definitive gap, as abrupt and apparent as the class system in Britain in the 1800s. Luxury items, for example. You can go and buy a Jaguar and there will be service with a fully vetted and approved smile, you will get tea and cake, they will come and pick up the car from your home and service it, clean it and bring it back, leaving another Jaguar for you to drive if
you need to go out and receive shitty service.
My car told me it was having a problem with an engine fluid level the other day, so I just drove to the dealer, arriving unannounced to tea and cake and a nice chat, and would I like to read today’s paper or do I need a lift back to my office? The good people at Roadbend returned the car to me two hours later, having fixed the problem, and they cleaned it, I mean properly cleaned it inside and out. And here’s the good part: no bill. I was flummoxed by this because in the usual scheme of things, you check in for the service and check out with a bill the size of Somalia’s national debt, but, no, Mr Tony Percival said, ‘Not at all, Mr Carter, it’s our pleasure.’ Why can’t it all be like this? He knows I’m now in love with his business and will purchase another car soon, not just for the tea and cake but for the service. Try that shit with your phone provider or the people you just purchased all your white goods from and they’ll piss themselves laughing at you.
I knew our levels of everyday customer service were lacking, but it’s been some years since I was last in the US and I had forgotten how service-driven they are over there. Wages obviously are a big part of that, but this dude was a bus driver. Do you tip a bus driver? Minimum wage is very low so people rely on a ‘gratuity’ when you pay the bill and as a result you do get the most phenomenal service. In Australia the attitude is completely different; your employee will arrive on time feeling like you should be grateful because they actually turned up in the first place. I know this because I have eighteen employees and it took two years to find the right ones, none of whom are Australian, which is sad and even embarrassing to say, but true and probably not all that surprising.
I arrived at Larkspur Landing, hopped off the bus, gave the driver a tip as he handed me my bag and sat on a park bench overlooking a clean, almost empty car park next to the terminal for the ferry that perpetually transports people to and from the city across the impressive bay. I heard the car before I saw it. Sally and Simon Dominguez’s battleship-sized 1979 Special Edition ‘Bill Blass’ Lincoln Continental. Even though they weren’t deliberately driving like maniacs, the massive 21-foot-long two-door coupe’s tyres squealed like dying rabbits as they hurtled rounded the corner and pulled up in the car park grinning like a couple of outpatients. The Lincoln was all blue leather, the hula-hoop-sized steering wheel sat in front of the hilarious instrument cluster; all chrome and long with a Cartier clock at the end, it looked like my grandmother’s silver service. Simon sat in the back sprawled out like a pungent bum in a leather dumpster. The car was bigger than the flat I grew up in. The best part about seeing old friends after a few years is picking up right where you left off. We went straight to their local for, according to Simon, the best margaritas in town.
