Not a single boomer as far as the eye could see.

Vacation energy

The guilt I felt leaving my wife and toddler at home for a five-day hike in Tasmania’s central highlands gave way easily enough to vacation energy. And after I’d checked my backpack, my brain powered down to holiday mode – vaguely taking in my surroundings through the detached haze airport lounges facilitate so well.

On the final leg of my flight, Melbourne to Launceston, a slight delay riled up an elder boomer who was impatiently waiting in line to get on the same plane as everyone else behind her. She was a close queuer too – practically a second backpack to the person in front of her. I saw a young family with a fresh baby and a young toddler waiting for the queue to shorten. As we neared the front of the queue, they wandered down the priority boarding lane and wandered out to the tarmac. As soon as the aging boomer realised they would effectively be cutting in front of her, she began shaking her head and audibly tutting. I couldn’t shrug my annoyance at her response – what is wrong with people? I could not imagine seeing what she saw and having that response. The young family boarded on the front stairs and the boomer ran-walked to the back stairs to close queue the person in front. Everyone made it onto the plane and no prizes were handed out for fastest boarder.

Within 10 minutes of taking off, my fractured belief that people are inherently good was restored by a young man sitting in the row in front of me. He was a pretty run-of-the-mill hipster – mullet, nose ring, cool tattoos, meticulously curated but somehow effortlessly cool clothes borrowing heavily from the 90s. He was probably 20 years old. Next to him, a young mother was flying solo with a baby. Watching how this hipster kid offered to help the mum, tried his best to entertain the squirming baby, shooed away mum’s apologies when the baby threw food and blew raspberries with solid follow throughs on him, made my heart sing. It made me remember three things:

The youth are alright, in fact, they’re great (shame their planet’s ruined)
Boomers’ time is like a blink before midnight on the doomsday clock
Humanity is like a Rorschach test, you will find what you seek so look for the good people and the good in people.

It was a timely reminder to let go of negativity and celebrate positivity. Like Gary Potter said to Happy Gilmore, ‘Harness in the good energy, block out the bad. Harness energy, block boomer.’ Other than that the flight passed without note.

Autumn looking a lot like winter over Lake Sinclair.

Everything in its place

The last time I was at the Lake St Clair visitor’s centre, around 1995, the restaurant was flooded with people in bright orange State Emergency Services boilersuits. I’d just completed the Overland Track with my Dad, older brother and sister. The SES were there searching for a missing person – the woman who owned the light green tent that had been up long enough at Pine Valley hut that concerned hikers called it in.

A guy who looked a little older than Tom but much younger than Dad walked up to the restaurant bar and asked for a Coke. The woman behind the bar walked to the fridge, he said if it wasn’t too much trouble, could he get a room-temperature one because he was cold enough already. His ghostly white hand shook uncontrollably as he reached for the can. He slumped into a chair at a table on his own and stared across the room and drank the Coke like the bubbles weren’t burning at the back of his throat.

We’d spent the previous night in Pine Valley hut and noticed no one return to the tent. We were sheltering from the kind of storm only Tasmania can muster. It rained so hard the hut leaked and the valley leading back to Narcissus Hut, and the ferry that would deliver us to the visitor’s centre and our first shower in over a week, flash flooded. We woke up early because more rain was forecast that day. On the hike out, the swing bridges that usually soared over the river had less than a metre of clearance over rising flood waters. Some sections of the track were covered by a metre of water, which fo a nine-year-old was almost chest deep. It was a lot for Dad to manage with three kids aged 9, 11 and 13. But we made it back to the Hut, the ferry, warm showers and a hot dinner. The missing hiker did not.

This is us: Seb, Marcus, Me and Tom out the front of Narcissuc Hut on Day 1.

Odd one out

That lingering wisp of death quickly and easily gave way to the effervescent excitement unique to four toddler dads who are a few beers deep staring down four free days in the Tasmanian wilderness.

Marcus organised everything. He’d hiked the Du Cane Range before and had enough hardware for the rest of us – lightweight tents, lightweight cookware, fancy new sleeping mats that also weighed not much. He has a good nose for a deal and even found the cheapest flights for everyone. His ability to hatch and execute a plan is second to none. It’s also worth noting he shouldered the workload eagerly (and vocally) because he simply doesn’t trust anyone else to do it as well as he can.

That’s why it was so funny to me that on the first night of this long-anticipated trip, after months of meticulous planning and tri-daily weather report updates, we walked to our Lake St Clair lodgings to find three single beds for four dads. The land grab began immediately and each of us had a good claim.

Marcus’ was obvious. Tom had the youngest baby and was a lawyer so his arguments were succinct and compelling. Seb was gracious and generous from the outset – always the peacekeeper. Unfortunately, that signalled weakness to everyone else. He is also a known snorer so his back was doubled over under the weight of the target painted across it. And I’d travelled the furthest so, you know. Not me. We settled on an all-in Scissors Paper Rock battle royale.

As Tom, Seb and I bunked in for the night after a big dinner, I tried to work out what I found more funny – that Marcus lost and had to go and sleep with Troy, a stranger with no sleeping bag who shivered the night away in a hoody and tracksuit pants over his jeans and ended up snoring like an asthmatic cane toad, or that none of us gave up our bed for Marcus.

We set our alarms for 5:30 so Tom and I could go for a quick dip and so we had ample time to, in Marcus’ words, redistribute his load and pack before breakfast. Stay tuned for Days 1–4 coming soon.