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.

Popularity: 21% [?]

29th May 2009,  between Derwent Bridge and Queenstown.

Tasmania has little pockets of rain forest scattered about. It makes me wonder what the forests used to be like - I don’t think I’ve seen a rain forest here that hasn’t been logged at some time.

There are still a few areas of old growth forest, but they are actually under threat right now, or being logged right now.

After the protests to stop the Franklin dam in the early 1980’s, legislation was passed to lease public lands to interested logging companies for a token amount. By doing so, public lands became private property. This means that logging companies can put up locked gates on formerly public roads through formerly public forests, and commence logging. If anyone does go there to protest, they can be arrested for trespassing at the least.

This is insane to me. People who want to see these magnificent forests aren’t allowed to; businesses who want to cut these (our forests) down, are allowed to. And it gets worse. It is taxpayer’s money that put the roads into these areas that are used mostly by logging companies. And it is an industry that is subsidised by tax payer’s money in lots of other different ways (and here).

The links I’ve supplied are quick and dirty - there is an abundance of information on the net re these issues. It’s old news in Tasmania. It’s also old news in Gippsland, where I used to live.

Popularity: 21% [?]

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.

Popularity: 22% [?]

7th June 2009

This is a picture of Wiebke setting up for a shot on the Tarn Shelf walk, Mt Field National Park.

Typical of alpine walks are the moving mists and changeable weather. You can be at the base of a peak in clear blue sky to arrive at the top barely able to see five or ten metres.

On the mist covered ridge that Wiebke is facing there is a tarn (lake); it is out of frame to the right. In the space of ten or fifteen minutes we could see it clearly then not at all. It would be a beautiful clear shot, then by the time we got our cameras on tripods it was gone.

Popularity: 30% [?]

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

Popularity: 34% [?]

29th May 2009

I forget the name of this place. It is somewhere between Lake St Clair and Strahan on the Lyell Highway. It was next to a river - it could have been the Franklin.

28th May 2009

The above was taken on a walk to Mt Rufus. We walked through patches of incredible and beautiful moss strewn forest. I wasn’t really able to capture how beautiful it is.

Popularity: 30% [?]

29th May 2009, Lyell Hwy between Queenstown and Derwent Bridge.

Well, I think it is Nelson Falls. I’ve been looking at maps and dates and trying to figure it out.

We spent the day exploring on the drive between Lake St Clair and Strahan.  This place (Nelson Falls?) had a little sign across the walk way saying it was closed due to dangerous conditions. I realise it’s just the relevant authority protecting itself against litigation if something goes wrong.  I was amazed to see people come and then turn back at the sign. I have no idea what the danger was.

Popularity: 30% [?]

5th June 2009, Trial Harbour.

How did we come to be here?

It started early in the morning. We were staying at accommodation in Zeehan. Wiebke was making her breakfast in the kitchen. She exclaimed (with a german accent which makes it a bit funnier) “Oh my god! There’s an animal in it!” She was referring to a shell she’d brought back from Trial Harbour the day before. It was on the kitchen sink, and the snail inside it had ventured out probably to look for it’s (they’re hermaphrodites I think) own breakfast.

So, we took it with us, in a jar, with some water, sitting on the floor of the car, while we bounced our way to the day’s walk. The plan was to return it to Trial Harbour after a walk to and around Cumberland Lake.

We got back to the car about 30mins before sunset. It looked as though the sunset was going to be pretty spectacular - it wasn’t, but I’ve included a photo for reference (see below). We decided to try and get to the water from where we were, just following a few 4wd tracks to the edge of the cliffs and then look for a way down.

The above photo is of a huge, deep puddle on one of the tracks.

We got to a cliff edge on dark. I put on a headlight, grabbed the jar with snail in it, and poked my way down a precipitous track. It finished at a vantage point for a little water fall to one side I think (I could hear it), and at the top of a sheer rock face still 50 metres or so from a small beach.  We ended up driving into Trial Harbour, and Wiebke released the snail roughly where she got it from.

Popularity: 34% [?]

31st May 2009 Ocean Beach near Strahan.

I decided to take this shot too late. The car had already passed, so I had to use full zoom to catch it. It was a lazy shot and I wasn’t enthusiastic. But, it does show an aspect of beaches and people on the west coast of Tasmania.

We saw more people in vehicles on the beach than we saw on foot. Actually, I don’t remember seeing anyone on foot. We even saw big road bikes.

All this is ok. I imagine lots of pipis and other shell fish get squashed, but none of it compares to the damage of the four wheeler motorbikes. These things are the new environmental disaster for accessible coastline like this. You can see their tracks through the dunes everywhere. And everyone wants to make a new track.

In reality, they should be less damaging, because they are less weight distributed over larger area tyres. I imagine they could run over a pipi without squashing it. If they could just stay on the beach and existing tracks.

Popularity: 38% [?]