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Our old producer Tim Sergeant, who lost his last job in the Siberian slave camps because he was too tough on the inmates, kept pushing the bar higher, making us go further and harder on tougher tracks than we’ve ever done in the past. He didn't raise a smile unless we had a couple of trucks broken in half and a roof top or two sticking out of Troopy deep mud holes. To get a laugh out of Tim you’ve got to be perched on one wheel, about to roll a few hundred metres straight down a rock strewn cliff, preferably when it’s about to snow and there’s a couple of metres of Taipan hanging off your leg with it’s fangs poised.
So this trip up the West Coast of Tassie in October after a prolonged winter of heavy storms was typical of the torture he loved putting us through. But funny thing 4wd'ing, the tougher it is, the better the memories. I remember thinking 'Oh goodie, I wonder where my waders are?' They don’t make gear warm enough for the sort of conditions we’d facing. Come to think of it they don’t make shovels long enough either.
The West Coast of Tasmania is home to some of the wildest country on earth. Despite the best efforts of the fanatical green faction, you can still access a whole lot of it although track closures and gates have become a part of off-roading in Tassie as much as the mainland these days. I supposed what gets me about the whole gating thing is that big headed belief that somehow any effort of man could change or even destroy the planet. That’s got to be the most ridiculous suggestion ever.
We might destroy mankind, but the planet isn’t ruled by man, it’s ruled by Mother Nature. The dinosaurs lasted 160 million years, the man ape’s only made it to four so far. Nature took out the dinosaurs and cleaned up after them, man’s turn will come when She decides, not because some twit locked a gate.
And on the West Coast, Mother Nature in all her glory is right in your face! The geology is insane, with the only traces of the last ice age - scars from glaciers flattening the planet - in the southern hemisphere and the terrain changes as quickly as the weather and almost to the same extremes. To travel this coastline and the mountains behind is to bare witness to the ancient nature of our world and the fact that climate, sea levels and the environment are just as alive as the tiny little people who think somehow a gate can protect the earth. I guess the fanatic greeny attitude is born from sitting in offices too long, gazing out the window at the concrete jungle and wishing people didn’t exist. Except for them, of course! And maybe their best friend Cyril Bottomtugger, and his wife Daphne…
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22 июл 2024
