Musings from a Heart-Shaped Island
For the past few weeks, in fact for most of July, it has been raining. Deloraine has had 170mm this month and the ground is spongy. The Meander River recorded its highest total July rainfall on record of 224mm, and has broken its banks several times. 2021 Floods | Deloraine | Tri-X & F2
We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating – lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems. We have forgotten what rocks, […]
The world’s tallest heath plant, Pandani (Richea pandanifolia) is endemic to Tasmania and can grow up to 12 metres in height. I always love coming across these guys, for when you see them you know you’re in a pretty special place. Cradle Mountain | Kodak ColorPlus | Nikon F2 | Dev/scan | Ikigai Camera.
Willow Court has been known by many names; Invalid Barracks, Colonial Hospital, Madhouse New Norfolk, Her Majesty’s Lunatic Asylum, Mental Diseases Hospital, Lachlan Park and Royal Derwent Hospital. Thankfully attitudes towards mental health have changed a bit over the years! The complex opened in 1827, 3 years before Port Arthur, making it the oldest asylum […]
Originally thought to have been built by Alexander Waddle, a freed convict and hotelkeeper in 1832, the two storey Georgian house was subsequently established as St John’s Hospital in 1845. It was the location Dr W. R. Pugh first performed surgery under anaesthetic two years later in 1847. This was the first use of ether […]
I can’t remember a lot about this day a month ago, except that it was very windy and the clouds were rolling across the mountain bringing occasional showers and rainbows. I followed one of the few sets of cairns to this spot and wondered where they all go. One of them leads to Ironstone and […]
River emerges from Lake Meander in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area 1300 metres above sea level, before tumbling over the lip of Bastion Bluff as Meander Falls and zig-zagging beneath old growth native pine. Its powerful water has polished bedrock, and ripped entire banks away during floods. Further north the river forms the backbone […]
Journal Entry… 11.40am Cold. Sitting beside an unnamed creek on the Grail Falls Track, Walls of Jerusalem NP. Moss on everything. Sun shines weakly through the myrtle and sassafras tops. Can hear a single bird above the flow of water. A single sporadic whistle. I’ve fallen in mud and walked through a creek, hiked past […]
Located north of the Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Lake Parangana on the Mersey River is a man-made lake that is quite lovely on still mornings, especially if there’s mist hanging around. On this particular Friday morning I went for a drive and ended up in the Mersey Forest, exposing the last four photos on […]
It was a Friday. It was the first snow of the season, so I went where I usually go when it snows. The first part of the track to Lady Lake Hut was fairly ordinary, Dale Brook was flowing fast beneath the bridge and scatterings of unremarkable brown fungi were visible along the rooty rocky […]
…with snow. Pencil Pine | Higgs Track, Great Western Tiers | Hasselblad 500cm | Tri-X
Known as The Catching Pen in the mid 80s, a grungy live music venue at the back of the pub, now a health and wellness centre. West Barrack | Deloraine | Kodak Tmax 400
Also known as Tanglefoot owing to its twisted ground-hugging branches, Deciduous beech (Nothofagus gunnii) is Tasmania’s only deciduous native. People flock to the Tasmanian Highlands during April and May for the ‘turning of the fagus’, as the tiny crimped beech leaves turn from green to yellow to flame red, and finally fall to the ground. […]
The Wild Wood is a 14 acre reserve that borders the Meander River in Deloraine and is packed with deciduous species from the northern hemisphere, mostly sycamore and willow. Despite walking the track with our kelpie most days, I rarely get bored. There is usually something different to experience depending on the weather and the […]
Attentive to the light today. Deloraine | Tri-x +1
Journal Entry …Syds Track. Searching for my final image before heading back down. Here amongst the dwarf myrtles the moss is verdant and bright green. The sky is overcast, light showers come and go. I would focus on the plethora of greens were I shooting a colour film such as Portra 160 (that would do […]
The days are shorter and the air is getting colder – we had our first big frost yesterday. I hear the footsteps of winter about to round the corner. Meander River | Deloraine | Tri-X +1
We took a walk down the Cascade River after it burst through the Mount Paris Dam. We followed a family with small children through the rough cut bush track until we could walk no more. I took this photo of the sunlight dancing on the tannen waters. Mount Paris Dam | Northeast Tasmania | Tmax […]
First light over Cape Portland | 6.40am | Kodak ColorPlus I awoke to Xavier Rudd’s Follow the Sun on my iPhone alarm. It was 5.45am and the earliest I’d woken in a while. My body was telling me to stay put, but I wasn’t going to give up the rare opportunity to see the sun […]
Day 4 of our NE Easter trip took us to the disused Mount Paris Dam, which is currently being reclaimed by the lush northeast rainforest. The dam is 250m of fern-fringed concrete reminiscent of an ancient Incan temple and now with a beautiful tannen-stained river running through the middle. Blink and you’ll miss it though. […]