18th October 2009, between Adamsons and Creekton falls.

This is the only time and place that I’ve seen pink mushrooms. There was one more within 100 metres of this one.

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18th October 2009, near Adamsons falls.

This was on the way in to Adamsons falls. I have been exploring this area and wasn’t expecting much of a track, if any. It was a veritable highway compared to the tracks I’ve been following recently. And, it was the first track I’ve seen other walkers on. They were from another bushwalking club, and were all envious of my gum boots; the track was deeper than walking boot height in mud and water.

However, they gave up for navigation reasons and obstacles. Which is just as well, because things did deteriorate - depending on your point of view - from that point on.

Popularity: 19% [?]

10th May 2009,  Near Geeveston

These things are tiny, just a few millimetres across. I’ve only seen them on the lower half  of horizontal (fallen) trees. They reach out to get some light, although there’s usually not much light available where they grow. They are translucent.

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10th May 2009, near Geeveston.

These are only two to three millimetres across.

Where I work there are different sections. To a degree there are also different cultures, habits and customs that have formed over time in these sections.

The section I used to work in, there are some obvious customs. One custom is to attach a paper tail, made out of paper hand towel, to the back of your pants without you knowing. It is pretty comical to see someone wander past with a tail dangling behind them.

And it evolves. A new person started there - he is from the north of Tasmania. He quacks, like a duck. As he walks past you hear ‘quack quack’. Now, at different times, everybody erupts into a quacking frenzy that runs for a few seconds then just stops. This has caused some questions from those not in the know but within earshot.

The area I work in now, they grunt For example, an office person on an errand came in and tried to ask a question - she received a cacophony of grunts and roars. She laughed, waited till the idiotic response died down, then tried again. As soon as she mouthed the first word the cacophony erupted.

Back in her office, she thought she might get an intelligible response to the question via email. The primitive mass discovered the hitherto unused web cam that was given to us for the misguided hope that it might be used for online meetings. It was removed from the cobbled together dalek idol (see below for likeness) that the mob used for worship and some questionable rituals and reincorporated into the magic gizmo that allowed us to browse the internet and do email. A response was choreographed and recorded (with sound) of what she had experienced on her first attempt at questioning and sent as an email attachment.

These people have built up a primitive but effective vocabulary with their grunts. I’m beginning to understand some of the meanings, and sometimes catch myself grunting in acknowledgement. I’m also beginning to wonder, if they could have communicated with primitive man, or present day primates?

There is more, like the negative choice game, used to explore your social and moral boundaries.

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27th May 2009, Mt Field National Park

The rain has stopped; it looks like four days of good weather, at least.

I rode my motorbike to work this morning, and home again this afternoon in the sun.

Even the locals are saying this has been more rain than usual. It has been hard to get motivated to do stuff outside. So, I’ve been mostly researching cameras and lenses - I still can’t decide - and doing other indoor things. Every time I go outside, I’m wearing gum boots.

Everything here is now in flower - flowers are appearing around the block. A really nice thing about Tasmania is that people have planted daffodils everywhere. You can see them in the middle of paddocks and on road sides.

And the parrots have arrived, eating the kernels of fruit that fell to the ground earlier this year.

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10th May 2009, near Geeveston

These mushrooms have evolved into skinny things. It’s because of all the rain.

Being skinny they don’t get as wet as the fat ones.

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29th May 2009, between Derwent Bridge and Queenstown.

I found some photos from a few months ago. I was about to delete them off my system. I shall try to show them over the next few weeks.

They are mostly from the magic place near Geeveston and the Strahan trip. I stopped posting them because I had already posted a few fungi shots.

Right now it is cold. There is snow on peaks every where I look. I was beginning to think the worst of Winter was over.

And the rain! It has rained most days for the last three weeks. I’ve been taking advantage of this to check out waterfalls. They are roaring with water - hard to photograph because of all the aerated water floating about, the camera gets wet as soon as I pull it out.

Tonight’s picture is from the walk into Nelson Falls; we were there in June. It is with Wiebke’s camera - essentially the same as mine but no flip out screen. The mushroom is low down on a tree trunk, so I was showing Wiebke how to set the camera up and take the shot blind (not looking through the camera’s viewfinder to compose the shot, holding the camera facing up). I’m pretty happy with this one - it was my second attempt.

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22nd August 2009 Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart

Plants have been flowering for months now. It always seems that the plants themselves are trying to make Spring happen - they start to flower in miserable weather.

I think the above photo shows this; Winter and Spring coexisting.

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27th May 2009, Mt Field National Park

That’s what I think when I take photos of mushrooms like this, that they are little worlds. Worlds that most people walk past without seeing. And I imagine there are smaller worlds again, that I don’t see.

Be warned - there are more mushroom photos for future posts

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We are in Strahan. We took four days to get here; two days in Maydena and two at Lake St Clair. Each day we’ve been on a walk. I have a huge background in bush walking; wilderness places around Australia, Java, Sumatra, Bali, Flores, Timor. I think I’ve seen some of the most amazing rain forest here, in these last few days. The only thing to surpass it, was being accompanied overhead by a family of Orang Hutans on a walk in Java. But who knows, it is also easy to forget some amazing things in your life.

Wiebke is fit. She just keeps going, and smiles. And even manages to yawn when we are hoofing it to make the most of the remaining light. She is the first person I have walked with, in a long time, who hasn’t complained. She hasn’t complained because she enjoys it.

We’ve had a fair bit of adventure; little bush bashes through forest, navigation across sand dunes, navigation along tracks in the car. I’m using topographical maps, 1:100,000 for the car - each centimetre on the map is equivalent to one km on the ground. Between the map and the gps and a fair bit of logical guesswork we’ve managed to get where we wanted to. Both the maps and the gps have had huge mistakes concerning tracks. Tracks simply aren’t there or in a different location by two to three hundred metres, things like that.

I think the walk I enjoyed most, was the Mt Rufus circuit. 18.9km graded medium hard. It went through all sorts of country; button grass swamps, mossy rainforests, the bare and rocky moonscape above the snowline ascending Mt Rufus, lakes, and a real feeling of isolation. And the track itself was a bit of a challenge to follow, navigation wise, which made it interesting.

Yesterday we did a made up walk - me looking at the map and putting one together. We started following the Abt railway line out of Strahan along the King river. We crossed the King River then followed a 4wd track up a spur. What we didn’t know then, is that what we were doing used to be a walk before the railway line was reconstructed, around 2001. We found this amazing boardwalk through the trees, huon pines among them. It was 100 times more interesting than the shitty Tahune airwalk out of Geeveston. The boardwalk took us to a lookout tower. The tower is all glass and has amazing views.

There is no mention of the boardwalk and the tower any where here. It is like the abandoned mining towns dotted around the desert regions of Australia that close down when the price of nickel or whatever gets too low. The boardwalk and lookout hasn’t been used, or known about, since the opening of the Strahan Wilderness Railway. For sure I imagine some people who haven’t forgotten it still go there, but it looks abandoned and is deteriorating, and the track becoming overgrown.

This is because, we’re guessing, the walking track used to follow where the resurrected railway line now is. They didn’t want walkers walking along the line while the train was using it. There is even a sign saying as much. It is quite narrow, and the various bridge crossings - well you wouldn’t want to be trying to cross one when the train came. A pathetic little train it is, and two people could probably stop it by standing in the middle of the line and holding their hands out like Superman. But who wants the confrontation? The sleepers are slimy green and slippery like ice. We found it easier to walk along the rails when crossing the bridges. Wiebke fell on one bridge, nearly between the sleepers to the water way below. She went on all fours after that.

The other interesting walk we did here was Henty Dunes. We did some rough navigation using the sun for 4 kilometres, on a diagonal across the dunes, to arrive back at the car on dark. And we found a group, although spread out, of huge whale skeletons while we were on the Ocean Beach.

On a side note: last post I was concerned how Wiebke would cope with the limited food choices on this trip. Am I stupid! I arrived to pick her up and she had four boxes and an esky all full of continental food stuffs. I think it was easily over 100kgs.

Reasoning didn’t prevail.

My poor little car was wallowing up and down the hills like a valiant little boat in a huge sea.

We are moving to Zeehan today.

See through camera. 30th May 2009, Hogarth Falls, Strahan.
Wiebke is composing a shot of a dead brown leaf on the branch of a tree fern. This shot was at 1/40th second shutter speed which was only possible because Wiebke was standing so still to take her own shot. It is ISO 800 and full zoom, hence the graininess.

Take off. 30th May 2009, Regatta Point, Strahan.
We were standing about taking the silhouette shots when I became aware of what the engine noise was. There is a fair bit of car and motor boat noise that carries across the water. I barely had time to turn around and snap this, just the one shot.

Flares. 30th May 2009, Regatta Point, Strahan.
If you understand the name of this photo, then we are of a similar vintage. The picture kind of reminded me of the cartoons made of The Beetles, where the characters had long legs and were wearing flared trousers.

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