What to do today? Tough question from deep inside a warm sleeping bag. Hmmm.....first things first.....tea and biscuits in bed.....check! Weather....pull back the curtain....sunlight reflecting off the tranquil river next door, with a few clouds plodding wearily through the sky.....nice. How about some breakfast on the beach on the other side of the dunes with not another soul in sight? Perfect!

Scattered throughout eastern Tasmania are tiny little places like St Mary's nestled deep in the mountains in amongst the natural blue gum forests far from the eyes of the world. Here it seems old school values still apply. We needed fuel and proceeded to fill up. We handed over the cash to the greasy overall-clad garage owner who quite happily accepted whatever we handed over. There was no question of not trusting us, but rather him taking what we said at face value. Here was a place where you could change your name, open up a quaint mountain village coffee shop and escape the law.....and the locals would quite happily help you! So remember, if you are in a bind, then head for St Mary's, Tasmania. You can't go wrong! But I will deny that I ever told you this!

Tasmania is a place where the locals quite happily say that each day can bring all four seasons. Until you have experienced it yourself, it sounds like one of those quaint little village-type clichés and you dismiss it as such. Weather in THESE moderate latitudes doesn't change THAT much! Does it? In Tasmania is does. We eventually nicknamed the island - TasRAINIA! Travelling up the coast from breakfast to lunch, we had stunning summer sun, blissful spring and hurtling rain and now it was the howling gale! With lunch looming, we needed a beach and a wind sheltered to enjoy the sun without five layers!

CRACK! S^&T and D@£N and F*&K! What had started out as a fantastic day, now looked like it would turn out to be a real painful problem. While having lunch, one of my molars broke off while having a sandwich! A sandwich.....sob. With said part of tooth in hand, we headed off to the biggest town nearby for emergency dental treatment. Again!

St Helen's is the largest town in the in the area with 1400 souls, but no dentist! The nearest is 150km away and on a Friday afternoon there was little chance of getting there before the practices all closed (in Tasmania EVERYTHING closes at 17:00!) and nothing was open until Monday morning! Fantastic! And the earliest "emergency" appointment was Tuesday. Would I like that one? I will be back in Melbourne by then, love! Australians are famous for being laid back and relaxed. But their Tasmanian cousins make the mainlanders seem rigid and uptight and in need of a good couple of beers or so, in comparison! Clearly the nature of my emergency clearly did not register on their emergency scale! Hopefully the weekend ahead and flight back would be painless......

There was nothing left to do, but head inland towards our next night's stop via the diary farm and cheese shop called Holy Cow, and pretty darn decent chocolate milkshakes and cheese; and up and over prehistoric montane forest lined mountain passes. Can this part of Australia still surprise us, I wonder?