Sometimes I wish we could spend all year with the same outlook we have when we are on a holiday.

Then, instead of sticking to the tried and tested, we try out new things, we go with the flow, we look forward to the surprises around the corner, we build up enthusiasm for everyday things, like what we are going to have for breakfast (which drives us crazy when we are at home), and we look for positives everywhere.

We don’t care if a flight is delayed or a meal is missed or we have to run hell-for-leather for a connecting flight. It’s all part of the excitement and delicious uncertainty of travel ... and everything over and above the standard itinerary is something to be grateful for.

It was in this spirit that we made a ‘bonus’ trip recently to the heart-shaped island of Tasmania in Australia. It had not been on our agenda, but we grabbed a sudden attractive offer of cheap flights and available accommodation and thus soon found ourselves driving around that lovely land.

We visited the capital, Hobart, and many of the small towns around, thrilled at the scenic bays and caves, quaint buildings, apple and walnut farms and grazing sheep and alpaca. We caught pademelons peering at us from the side of the road, transfixed by the headlights; we walked across the oldest bridge in the continent; we stared at the magnificent ‘organ pipes’ dolerite formations of Mount Wellington, stirred by the knowledge that Charles Darwin had climbed that mountain nearly 200 years ago. We were chilled to the bone by wind speeds that can go up to 158km per hour and bring the temperature ten degrees below what it is at the base of the mountain ... but not for a moment did we crib or carp about the cold or the unexpected showers that had us scurrying for cover in the midst of our sightseeing.

Serious pause

We were at Port Arthur’s penal settlement scant hours after the 20th year memorial service for the many lives lost as the result of a lone gunman’s attack at a café in 1996, a grim reminder that terror strikes everywhere, irrespective of time or place.

After a serious pause there, we went on to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over the picturesque buildings nearby, some bringing to mind images of the innkeeper’s daughter waiting-waiting-waiting by the window for her love in our one-time favourite poem, The Highwayman.

For us, marketplaces and colour always fascinate because we like to browse and choose knick-knacks peculiar to the place, and thus, the bustling Saturday market of Salamanca with its food kiosks and little stalls selling all manner of things took up the major portion of one day.

When one in our group suggested that we see the tessellated pavement, we wondered why we should go out of our way to look at a man-made roadside curiosity. “What’s so wonderful about a pavement?” we thought, but we trailed along obediently ... down, down, down to the sea. Then, thanks to the notices for the edification of tourists like us, we understood: What looked like a tiled pavement laid by man was actually a unique natural stone formation!

In the midst of this sometimes serious, sometimes enlightening and always ‘surprise’ sightseeing, we drove around Doo Town in Pirates Bay: A place where each house is named with a play on the word ‘Doo’. Thus: Didge-ri-Doo (a didgeridoo is an aboriginal wind instrument), Wattle I Doo, Dr Doo Little, Doo Drop In, Doodle Doo, This’ll Doo, Doo Nix, Just Doo It ...

Already quite taken by the local names in that part of the world, all those Doo’s had us in stitches: Certainly one of the most amusing things we got to ‘Doo’ Down Under!

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.