As the plaque tells us, ‘its story began in an ancient, cold sea’. Today, the tessellated pavement lives on a mysterious shoreline at the bottom of the world. Some weed, double-crosses and an island I stood on the edge of Pirates Bay – a dark sea that lapped the shore like black sludge, dragging seaweed …
Tessellated Pavement – Art at the Bottom of the World Read More »
Two hours before our ghost tour at Tasmania’s World Heritage convict site of Port Arthur, my friend and I were given free reign to explore. It’s a typically busy place, although this afternoon it was empty, as I imagined it was in the years after it was abandoned in 1877. Wandering across the spacious grounds, …
It was a fitting afternoon to begin our tour at Tasmania’s World Heritage convict site of Port Arthur – reputedly one of Australia’s most haunted places. We met at dusk, it was chilly, the sky was leaden grey and spires of the convict-built church were cast into shadow as several people were made lantern bearers. …
It was a drizzly morning when myself and four mates drove past Lake Burbury, up a mountain and deeper into the unforgiving country of western Tasmania. Arriving at a 120-year-old bridge in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, we parked and followed a moss-strewn railway line by a chocolate-covered river. After about seven kilometres we …
“Having had full evidence of the deeds of darkness perpetrated in the mines, I contemplated the naked figures, faintly perceptible in the gloom, with feelings of horror” ~ Reverend Henry Phibbs Fry, 1847. Once upon a time, coal was shipped to Tasmania from the Australian mainland at great expense. So when in 1833 surveyors discovered …
I often forget how recently Australia was civilised until I come across its oldest buildings. Take our oldest bridge for example, built in 1825 in one of my all-time-favourite places in the world, Tasmania. Named the Richmond Bridge, it’s comparatively youthful in the world of stone and mortar. Not that it matters because it looks …
Two things compelled me to return to Tasmania sooner than I’d expected: one, my good friend and photographer Dee Kramer, who told me about the Australian Wooden Boat Festival, and two, of course the festival itself. “It’s only held once every two years Andy and the king of Holland will be attending”… The Australian Wooden …
A Memorable Day at Hobart’s Australian Wooden Boat Festival Read More »
What if you lived in a small town and decided, following a creative spasm, to place a curious sign out the front of your house. Then, all but the entire town joined in and eventually the state government’s nomenclature board acknowledged your trendsetting endeavour by changing the town’s name. Well, that’s exactly what happened in …
“The grey and the grisly, the rough and the smooth, the crop-eared and lop-eared, the gaunt and the grim”. These were the words used by draughtsman and painter Harden Melville (in 1837) to describe Tasmania’s Dog Line, a savage canine demarcation that prevented escape from Australia’s premier convict settlement, Port Arthur. They could almost describe …
A steely grey sky settled over our path, strewn with shrubs and broken concrete as we left Gormanston for Linda, another ghost town in western Tasmania. Our path cut through a pale hillside of long grass towards a silent road. Following the road a short distance, we arrived in what was once the main street …
Winds known as the roaring forties scream across the longest uninterrupted stretch of ocean in the world – leaving from Argentina – blasting into Tasmania’s Ocean Beach. One of the world’s wildest beaches, Ocean Beach is also Tasmania’s longest, reaching the notorious Hell’s Gates at the bottom of its 36 kilometre stretch. It’s also a …
Ocean Beach, Tasmania’s Wild and Mysterious Graveyard Read More »
February is a superb time to be in the Huon Valley in south-eastern Tasmania. Apart from hosting halcyon days above rolling green countryside and the sparkling waterways of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, the region boasts some of the finest Tasmanian cheese, wine and berries. So, it was decided that in order to better acquaint myself with …