Introducing Dorothy and the Long-awaited Island State

Our experience shopping for a used car had tremendous hollywood montage potential: the hostel bulletin board led us to the quintessential traveling couple selling the quintessential traveling car, online searches and phone calls found us test driving junkers in terribly skethcy used car lots, salesmen spewing fact and fiction... And to complete the spread of cliched sellers, we met a painfully sweet retired couple that invited us in for tea to tell us everything they could about their country. We were sufficiently charmed, deciding to trust their 88' Ford Telstra to take us around Australia. We christened her Dorothy - an old fashioned blue sedan in OZ - and apart from a few electrical peculiarities, she's been quite reliable.

Just hours after making the exchange, we were fumbling our way down left-hand drive highways to "The Spirit of Tasmania," a gargantuan ship that would take Dorothy, Alex and I across the Bass strait to our first climbing destination: Tasmania. Glowing with anticipation as we anchored in Devonport and followed the stream of campervans and stationwagons spilling from the hull onto the dock. We had no other intention than to follow the "month long itinerary" spelled out to the letter in our Tasmania climbing guide. With details like when and where to buy groceries, where to find free camping and cheap showers, we figured nothing could stop us.