Bad start in Tassie

Cycling in Tasmania

I arrived in Hobart after a long and almost sleepless night flight. My future cycling partner Mark met me at the airport and helped me to put the bike together. Next day we left for Bruny Island - bad idea!
As we found out on arrival there is no water on Bruny Island, so many locals are on tank water. And that means they are extremely anal about their water. We arrived with one liter of water left and were refused any water by the first shop owner. Which did not make any sense to me because there was a public FLUSH toilet. I got really annoyed, just sneaked in the toilet and got some water anyway. Unfortunately, Mark was not very happy with that - apparently he rather dehydrated.

Next day the problem re-occured: We went to a shop, even bought some stuff but where again denied any water. I had one liter left for 40 km in the heat and was not happy. Mark turned out to be a real pain in the ass - he flatly refused to ask people for water, because he wanted to avoid confrontation. After a short argument he then just left me ("You are on your own now!" - he seemed to like theatrical appearances). I felt much better on my own...

While I was still sitting in the cloud of dust Mark had left me in while cycling away a car full of locals stopped to ask me if I was ok - and 10 minutes later I had all the water I needed. I love Australians! I left this un-hospitable island immediately. While waiting for the ferry I unfortunately run into the first shop owner again who accused me of stealing his water and calling me all sorts of names. And then Mark was on the same ferry but we happily ignored each other. I was glad to be off Bruny Island and without Mark in the end....