T A S S I E
TOUR DIARY 2004
Deb's Day-by-Day Account


Saturday 18th September
After three hours sleep the night before, I flew into Launceston at 7am and Raelene & I played our first gig tonight at The Royal Oak Hotel in Launceston! It was a fantastic first gig and we sold heaps of CDs afterwards. The bar staff were absolute stars, and I got chatting to an ex-Melbournian blues player by the name of Mike Erlington.

Crack up of the day: Getting a parking ticket. It was $10. We thought this was hysterical until we’d accumulated a few.

Sunday 19th September
A bleary eyed radio interview (MP3) was had bright and early at 12 noon, at ABC studios in Launceston with David Lee. The show was a pre-record for ABC Tasmania’s Saturday Morning Statewide program the following Saturday. After a bit of a chat we played Magnetic North (MP3) and It’s Gonna Be Alright (MP3).

Raelene beats Deb at Scrabble 314:267.

Monday 20th September
We headed off for a couple of days at Lake St Clair, south of Cradle Mountain. Breathtaking scenery. The journey down there wasn’t so stunning however, we saw a litany of logging trucks, and razed landscape because we took the inland route thinking it would be quicker. Big mistake. Next time we’ll take the coast!

Raelene beats Deb at Scrabble 364:230.
Deb cracks the shits and goes to bed.

Tuesday 21st September
Lake St Clair. We went on a ferry trip to Echo Point and Narcissus Bay and did a 3.5 hour hike back from there. I saved Raelene from the clutches of a deadly tiger snake (which didn’t seem to give a shit).

Facts that got me excited:

English dude beats both Deb and Raelene at Scrabble. They pretend not to notice his word 'their' was spelt 'thier'.

Wednesday 22nd September
Despite being warned by an English tourist that Queenstown looked like Mars, we thought it was a cute town, in spite of the copper mining landscape. (N.B. Raelene still agrees it looked like Mars, especially on the drive in). We stopped to check out the Empire Hotel, which was a beautiful – and massive – old pub. We then headed for Strahan, one of Tassie’s most popular tourist spots where we had lunch and stayed overnight in a cute little cabin.

Thursday 23rd September
After brekkie in Zeehan we continued our trek up the rugged west coast of Tassie. Many a logging truck was passed. We stopped in Rosebery and were greeted by Chris at the Rosebery Contact Centre who told us about her conversion experience – moving from Boronia in Melbourne to Rosebery in Tassie! She’s the editor of the local newsletter and asked us if we wanted to contribute the thought for the day segment. So we did: “When injustice becomes law; resistance becomes duty.”

We also met enigmatic character, Barry Higgins, and later discovered that he is the brother of the late Colin Higgins, screenplay writer for the movie 9 to 5 starring Dolly Parton! Baz personally introduced us to every single music contact in Rosebery. That’s how we discovered that our very own Mick Thomas (Ex-Weddings Parties Anything) was booked to play there in a few weeks.

We stopped at the Tullah Chalet where the managers plastered us with free food and drinks (I made Raelene order a second main for me because the food was so yummy) and asked if we’d play a gig there that night for a busload of tourists coming through. Shucks, OK...

There were a couple of kindred spirits in the audience (i.e. hippies) and it was a great night all-round. Even the drunk blokes surprised us at the end of the night by making good roadies and not breaking anything as they staggered our gear to our room.

Compliment of the night: “I’m into heavy metal, but I really enjoyed you guys tonight…"

Friday 24th September
Ahhh… lovely Sheffield. Sheffield is famous for its murals. They’re everywhere! It’s a beautiful town and made for a great break before more travel to Bridport, on the top Northern coast of Tassie, east of Launceston. It didn’t take us long to work out which show would be the tour gig from hell… as we heard utterances of “Oh no, they’ve got a flute…” as we unpacked.

Fortunately for us there was a guy in the crowd who had bought a harmonica that day and suggested if we knew any songs in the key of A, he could play along. I played my next set in A. The truckies with 2-metre long beards asked if I could play some country. Like, did I know King of The Road. I tried to explain that my Charlie Pride and John Denver days are behind me. In an adjacent corner, Raelene was being asked to play “something more modern” (errr… original music isn’t modern enough?!). After having jukebox problems (i.e. getting them to turn it off at the end of our set break!) our Harp Angel yelled loudly into the microphone, “These girls are from Melbourne and they’re fantastic, so bloody clap you bastards!!”

It wasn’t until the last 20 minutes or so that a decent crowd made their way in and the rednecks got bored with throwing things at us (Just kidding, thankfully).

The following day, Bridport left us with the following memory. As Raelene staggered from the hotel room to the car, up-hill and via the drive through at 10am the next morning (with two guitars, two bags a flute and a music stand) a lovely local gentleman yelled out of his car window as he cut her off “Don’t get in the way of the bottle shop” and he wasn’t joking!

We loved Bridport.

Saturday 25th September
We arrived in St Helens attempting to reassure ourselves that this gig would be better than last night. We are told, “If the locals don’t like you they will just roll out the jukebox.” I attempt to console Raelene who had collapsed in a pool of tears at this point, saying “we played in Bridport last night.”  “Oh”.

To add to the excitement, today was Grand Final Day. How naïve to think that being out of Victoria meant that we would be exempted from the testosterone-charged palaver that is the AFL GRAND FINAL. Whilst we were madly learning covers in our motel room – like King of The Road and Country Roads – the AFL crowd had evidently had their fill and moved on to drier gutters.

By the time we came on stage, we had a great (more sober and less testoster-stoned) crowd who loved us. One of the big local fishermen in the crowd called out at one point, “Play something by the Indigo Girls” which flawed us! At that point we knew we were in for a good night. In fact, this gig took the prize for the best after party. And I won at pool. Honourary mention to Sam, the chef who made best pizza we had ever had.

Sunday 26th September
I was sick as a dog and threw up for eight hours non stop. Raelene did reike on me for a while before declaring me a lost cause and going back to bed. We decided to stay in St Helens for an extra day, as I couldn’t move beyond my bed (except to stick my head in the toilet bowl again, at which time I was thinking thank GOD we’re not camping.)

It wasn’t until we returned to Melbourne that we heard a current affair program saying that the water supply in St Helens had been contaminated. And here I was thinking I was purging the alcohol by drinking more water. Argghh!

Monday 27th September
Every good tour must have a car-broke-down-in-the-middle-of-nowhere story. Well here we go. I take Raelene’s car only to have the battery die some 20km out of St Helens. The scene is set by pitch blackness and low cloud to give the perfect Rocky Horror feel. There is one house visible in the night, with a light on... the TV is on but no-one is answering! I wonder if someone has died in there some days ago but has yet to be found. Just at that point, a large fire engine-looking truck comes down the gravel road for some unknown reason. On a closer look, it’s an SES truck! After running with flailing arms, I discover the truck contains mechanics. Once the car was sorted I ask them, "So what are you doing here anyway?" and they say, “We’re on our way to training.” I say, “Well I reckon you’ve just satisfied that, you can go home now…”

I make it back in one piece to an oblivious John Safran vs God-watching Raelene.

Tuesday 28th September
We travelled to Hobart via the east coast, stopping at Bicheno, Richmond (the best bakery in Tassie) and the odd winery along the way. We are now in Hobart. Land of the Greenies. YAY!

Wednesday 29th September
Our final gig. I came to the Republic Bar two years ago when visiting Tassie and won in a game of Scrabble there (It would seem I have regressed… "Or maybe you were playing a smarter opponent!" - Raelene). This was more our crowd. However, the car struck again and we had to carry all our gear from the hostel to the gig, cursing the whole way. We felt like regulars when we saw our old friend Baz, not to mention Raelene’s old primary school teacher and her family. There was a crowd of about 40 people and we sold lots of CDs again. Cool!

Thursday 30th September – Saturday 2nd October
A break at last. The Republic Bar was our last gig, so we got to hang out and be tourists. We visited Salamanca markets, a fabulous bakery café in Battery Point and gave a house concert to friends we were staying with in a magnificent country manor in Sandy Bay. We had just enough time to collect all our press clippings from The Examiner, The Mercury and The Buzz and thank the journos before heading back to Launceston, where we saw Bob Brown at the airport. We were disappointed he didn’t ask for our autographs.

I abandoned Raelene at Launceston Airport, leaving her and the car to another hour’s drive and a sleepless overnight ferry trip, while I swanned on and off on my plane. By the time Raelene drove onto the Spirit of Tasmania, I was tucked up in my warm bed at home!

F I N