12th December 2010, Mt Wellington

This is actually on the upper Hobart Rivulet. I accessed it from within Wellington Park, but apparently it can be accessed by a nearby road.

I was on a club walk and managed to get in two shots; that is change lenses, set up tripod, postion, fart around, take the shots, pack up, run up a steep hill to catch up with the other walkers who decided against walking down.

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2nd October 2010 Maria Island

According to my word web online dictionary, relentless means something like “never ceasing”. This is the adjective that Kathy used while we were walking up what I would call a slight rise . If you think I might be being stoic, it wasn’t steep enough for a ball to roll down. If there were lots of rain it would form puddles rather than run down the…ummm, slight incline.

OK, to be fair, she had just walked up Bishop and Clerk, which is a hill, and she was tired, and there was no café on top of Relentless hill to look forward to

Wheat was grown on Maria Island for a short while. There was a windmill used to grind wheat and corn. The door is to the miller’s cottage which was next to where the windmill used to be. This latch looked like it was made by a blacksmith.

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23rd October 2010 Adamsons Peak

The photo is actually from near the summit of Mt Hartz from a walk there on the 29th August, but it will serve for this post. I have some photos from the walk we did yesterday (23rd October), but no landscape type shots. Why? Because it was a white out. Visibility was flat white

I’d attempted to get to Adamsons Peak a few times, but always left too late and found too much to photograph along the way. This time my adventure / photography partner Wiebke came along, and we only had a couple of photography stops.

I wore shorts – the forecast was 17 and fine.

It rained.

It snowed.

It hailed.

There were periods of beautiful sunshine, when a hole would suddenly appear in the seemingly impenetrable cloud cover.

We spent most of the walk with our feet in water. The tracks were like little creeks; while we were walking up, the water was running down.

It is beautiful. We plan to go back there and set up camp at the ruins of a hut; there is a formiddable rock wall that provides protection against the prevailing wind (gail ). It looks a good area for further exploration.

Beneath the penultimate summit, we found a huge rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. We had lunch beneath this and watched the curtains of falling sleet being formed into a myriad of flowing patterns by competing winds. Before we finished lunch, all this cleared and we had an uninterrupted view of the Huon Valley and the distant sea.

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27th September 2010 Port Arthur historic site

I read such a request somewhere, and when I got here, everyone had the urge to sit in the window frames

It always amazes me that apparently intelligent and over educated people manage these things, yet they seem to have minds like dinosaurs – they are unable to adapt, unable to come up with something that works. Something simple like a protective clear coating on the sandstone perhaps.

I remember seeing people doing just this over 20 years ago in this same place, with the same feeble request in the written guide and on site.

These kids have been told to sit still, while their mother was composing a shot. I side with the cranky boy I suppose for guys, accommodating women starts at a young age

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12th September 2010 Adamsons falls

I’ve been here many times now. I really enjoy the final approach to these falls; climbing along slanted rock through horizontal branches with the falls in the background, the roar of the falling water, and the mist. It is like something from Last of the Mohicans.

I was with Wiebke on this one. We continued on to Creekton falls which is just an extra kilometre, but I think that kilometre took us an hour or an hour and a half. It is my favourite piece of track, although there isn’t really a track for half of it any more. It hasn’t been maintained for a long time, and is a challenge to follow.

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27th September 2010 Port Arthur

This photo has strange associations for me. It is in the Baptist Church at Port Arthur

This church doesn’t seem part of the historic sight, so there is no mention of it anywhere in the volumes of information on everything else in the site.

While in this church, Kathy found an open book. In it were letters from people all over Australia. They were letters of commiseration to the church congregation sent shortly after the massacre at Port Arthur.

I’ve just read through the events of that day – they are chilling. I was horrified at the time, but never knew the details. I’m also amazed at the bravery of some people; people who weren’t prepared for any such horror, and acted with such heroism and humanity. People died protecting their loved ones, or trying to help others avoid getting killed.

Reading these letters brought back the chill and incredulity of that time.

It also made me realise, that this was the only mention of what had happened here; letters from well meaning and caring people. In all the information everywhere in this information overloaded place that is geared to tell and sell and demonstrate the harsh living conditions for prisoners of the past – there is no mention of this more recent atrocity or the heroism and humanity.

This seems strange.

I’m not the only one to think so; conspiracy theories are rampant. The main theme seems to be related to strict gun laws that were passed in Australia shortly after the massacre. The government’s handling of Martin Bryant’s court case, and the investigations of that day, have simply left an incredible amount of room, and lots of doubt, for these theories to evolve.

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5th September 2010 Creekton Falls Track

When there are days of rain, and everything is really really wet, it’s time to go visit the falls in the area.

I’m lucky – there are lots of falls within 30mins drive, and so many hours walk. But the walking is good.

And Wet.

Really really wet.

So wet that even if it isn’t raining you get wet from the wet bush that you’re trying to walk through. It’s hard to know if raincoats keep water off or hold it in.

There were fish climbing up the trees because they were so bored with all the water.

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