Heading south for the winter.

Some of you, if Australian or living in Australia,
would know or would guess,

that my nickname Tas is due to my Tasmanian origins.

I was born in a small town in northern Tasmania
and grew up with no inkling of the ridicule and scorn that the Apple Isle attracted
from the rest of the country.

Perhaps the first time I recognised that my little state
was a little maligned was when we got left "off the map"
at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games.

(Yes, we are still bitter about that one)

When I spent a year overseas as an exchange student in 1987,

I was more likely to be thought to be from Tanzania.

(which is in Africa, in case you didn't know)

I relocated to Melbourne for university
where, being left handed, Catholic and Tasmanian,

earned me a door note that the Guiness Book of Records was filming.

At my insistance that I was Tasmanian
came the equally insistant (but of course completely wrong) assertion by the mainland students
that I was Taswegian.

Also came every joke ever written about multiple headed, in-bred convicts.
Don't even try.
I have heard them all.

Hence I became Taswege.
Then Tas.
Cos we Aussies shorten anything if we can.

(One bright spark even ventured as far as tagging me "Map Of".
Say no more)

I haven't actually lived in Tasmania since 1986 now

and nowadays I tend to say that I grew up there

rather than I am Tasmanian.

It would be a bit like me saying that I am still on maternity leave
when I started over 8 years ago
and have a youngest child of 4 years of age.
(Which I do say.
Which my hubby rolls his eyes at)

Or that I am Catholic when I last took Holy Communion nearly 30 years ago.

We go back once a year to visit my relatives

but I haven't been there as a tourist since I was a child.

Seriously, people, at the risk of sounding like a tourist brochure,
you need to go there and be a tourist.

It is stunning, gorgeous and stunning again.

And it is so compact.

(Northern most tip to southern is 364 kilometres;

west to east 306 kilometres)

I think that it is one of the places in the world that offers up
some of the best examples of Mother Nature's work.

OK so it might be a tad cold at times.

Our family prefers to go in colder months as you only have to pack winter clothes.
If you go in summer, you still have to pack winter clothes as well as summer ones.

We are going to play tourists for a few years now as we go back to visit family.

This trip we took our kids to places that I haven't been to since I was their age.

Hands up if you knew that Queenstown still has a gravel football oval?

One day I will search my family tree.

I have always wondered if we came to Tasmania on the upper level of the boat with some social standing
or the lower level as criminals.
I will. keep you posted on my social standing.