You learn something new every day

And today, I learned that Estonia is half the size of Tasmania.

Literally.

Estonia has an area of 45,227 square km, while Tasmania has an area of 90,758 square km. Divide Tasmania's land area in half and you get 45,392, which is close enough to 45,227 for me to feel confident in saying that Estonia is half the size of Tasmania (although technically it should be "less than half").

Having lived in Tasmania for two years, and found the "smallness" of it all rather refreshing compared to the wide open spaces of North Queensland, the knowledge that Estonia is half the size is filling me with strange ambitions.

I know I said before that I'm thinking of cycling about in Estonia a fair bit, but that was before I put the size of the place in context. Now I want to cycle around the whole lot.

I don't know whether I actually will or not, but why wouldn't you? After all, the thing's half the size of Tasmania, and there are towns all over it.

Sure, some people might think this is a weird way of looking at the world, but let me put it into context for you.

I live in a city. One of the largest cities in the state, and the largest city in the northern half of the continent of Australia. The nearest other city is six hours away when travelling by car. The nearest town is 95km south. That is, depending on the conditions of the road, approximately an hour-and-half's drive from where I live.

There's a reason why Queenslanders always give distances in times. That's how we figure out whether or not it's worth the effort: Yes, this great festival is happening in the next town. The next town is two hours away, and the road between here and there isn't great for driving at night. If I go, I'll probably have to plan to stay overnight. I can't really afford that, so I'll just go to a movie instead.

I understand people who live in the Northern Territory and Western Australia do exactly the same thing.

"How far is X from Y?"
"About a forty-minute drive."

When you live in remote locations, almost all the distances you have to think about are large distances. While I'd like to ride my bike to the next town, that's probably going to take me the better part of four-to-five hours. I'm going to have to do a lot of work to build up my fitness and endurance before I take on a challenge like that.

In comparision, when I lived in Tasmania I was in a town that was only 15km away from the nearest city. Less than a twenty minute drive. All of the born-and-bred Tasmanian locals would talk about how remote we were in the North West of the state, and I just kept thinking, "What are you talking about? In the time it would take me to get to a 'nearby' town back home, I can get to the other side of the state from here." Heck, Hobart, the state's capital, was less than half a day's drive from my home. Where I came from, if you started driving in the mornin you wouldn't get to the capital until the afternoon of the next day.

I was so intoxicated by the nearness of everything that I just drove everywhere. I hardly spent a weekend in my own town. I mean, why would you when you've got the wonders of Tasmania all around you - and so darn close to boot?

There's a dancing festival on the other side of the state? Of course I'll be there, is basically a stone's throw away.

I never rode to the next town, but that was largely because I was afraid of riding on the highway. Cars had some trouble avoiding other cars on that part of the highway. Plus, I wasn't really at a point in my life when a ride to the next town sounded like something I had to do, and my fitness/endurance levels weren't really up to the challenge. But I took some comfort from knowing I could have, if I wanted to.

I felt like I practically owned Tasmania - there was barely a thing that wasn't within my reach. Okay, driving from Wynyard to Dover would probably take some time, but who would want to do that anyway? Certainly not without stopping off at dozens of interesting places along the way.

That's another thing about North Queensland. We don't have quite so many interesting places to visit at regular intervals along the way. Oh, we have them, all right, there's just a fair amount of space between them.

So, this discovery that Estonia is half the size of Tasmania, and has even more towns taking up that tiny, tiny space, fills me with a strange and glowing confidence. If I owned Tasmania, I'll - like - totally own Estonia. Bring it on, man, I can take it.