On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good morning everyone,
This is a submission from Dec 20, so a while back, before all the ghastly, horrible fires. The life that’s been extinguished in Australia provokes in me such a profound well of sadness and horror. And dread – dread for things worse to come, and soon.
All we can do is make today and tomorrow better, we cannot do a thing about yesterday, and so there is hope, action, progress, setback, and adaptation in our eternally-renewing daily tomorrows. We cannot lose ourselves to grief for what we’ve lost, me must harness that since we can not afford to lose more ecosystems and species, anywhere, of any type. Life is limited, glorious, and its diversity worth preserving.
We have no choice but to keep on, but maybe we can all find some ways to be better on energy – paying the premium for renewable energy, going solar where appropriate, using hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and BEV vehicles. Moving our investments out of the oil and coal industries and into solar, wind, tidal, and other renewables.
And changing our purchasing behavior: buying water from other continents is bad, as is buying firewood, and so many other basic resources that are pissed or burned away in a jiffy and so are not worth spending so much energy moving so far, even if someone can make a profit doing it by externalizing and diluting the apparent costs and effects over time and area. These are two minor examples of the market providing cheap products that make no sense if you step back and take another look. Since we are in a consumer-driven economy, the consumer has power. Use it!
Have a great day and weekend, we’ll recommence Monday, same bat-time, same bat-channel.
Living in Melbourne, a trip to Tasmania is not too taxing but we’ve always flown in the past and hired a car while there.
This time, we decided to take our own car on the ferry, the Spirit of Tasmania, so that we could stock up with the island’s famous food and drink for the Christmas holidays.
After a night in the delightfully named Penguin, a drive along the North-West coast of Tasmania, this is a view of the small town of Boat Harbour.
The second night, we stayed in Stanley, overlooked by the remains of a volcanic plug called ‘The Nut’. Stanley has its own small rookery of little penguins and they’ve built a boardwalk and some lighting so that you can see the penguins come ashore. One of life’s great experiences.
Strahan is a small town on the West Coast of Tasmania and sits in the Roaring Forties. It’s reputed to have the freshest air in the world as the last land it will have touched is in Argentina.
Strahan sits on Macquarie Harbour, six times the size of Sydney Harbor. We spent the day on the Gordon River Cruise which takes you around the harbour out to the ocean entrance (known as Hell’s Gates) and down the harbour to the Gordon River, entrance to the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. The whole South-West corner of Tasmania is wilderness with no roads in or out.
The Gordon River is one of the great rivers of Australia. It became famous in the 1980’s when plans for a massive hydro-electric dam on the river led to massive protests against the destruction of one of the world’s last great wildernesses.
The reflections are brown in colour due to the tannin in the water which tints it brown.
Included in the cruise was a stop at Sarah Island, one of the most brutal convict settlements of the period. Guides on the island tell the story in a really engaging and entertaining way.
We spent a couple of nights in Hobart to give us a chance to visit Bruny Island. The island sits at the Southern end of Tasmania and it’s the most Southerly point I’ve ever been. A great place to stock up with cheese, beer and wine at Australia’s most Southerly winery.
There’s a Quarantine Station on the island where Germans were interned during WW1 and returning soldiers were quarantined on return from Europe during the Spanish Flu pandemic. Pictured is one of the resident echidnas.
The island is basically two main pieces of land joined together by a neck of land, very originally called ‘The Neck’. The Neck has it’s own rookery of little penguins.
This is the view the Southernmost point of the island at the lighthouse. The land is rugged and next stop to the South is Antarctica.
TheMightyTrowel
I <3 Tassie. I dug there for 4 years and fell totally in love. Probably my favorite place in the world.
Mike J
I’ve long dreamed of going to Tasmania, but starting from Sydney on boxing day. Hopefully not in a year like 1998.
J R in WV
Wow, very interesting, so far south — so far from the rest of the world.
Am I still first? Blech! And good morning to all. What a news-filled week. Wife is glued to the CNN and MSNBC feeds… of course we both remember Watergate as she was working in the news biz already back then. Saturday Nite Massacre, etc.
Or course, back then we hadn’t caught on to the fact that Republicans are Russian traitors working against the American Way, yet, so that makes things more interesting.
And thanks for the photos from Tasmania!
Baud
Cool.
Mary G
Added to the bucket list! Thanks, Dave.
Jack Canuck
I love Tassie. We go back (from Melbourne) every couple of years, or more often if possible. I’ve taken both of my parents and their spouses down there at different times too. I’d love to live there, but the job/life/family is here. At least we’re close.
Not to steal DaveinOz’s thunder, but here is a link to my Flickr album of photos I’ve taken in Tasmania if people want to see a bit more of that lovely island.
mrmoshpotato
Come to Tasmania
zzcool
As a Tasmanian, I wholeheartedly endorse more people visiting our tiny state.
For future comment readers, the climate is very similar to California, and the nicest beaches are on the east coast of the state and all start with B.
Check out Binalong Bay, Bicheno and Bridport.
JPL
What a fascinating experience. Thank you for the photos.
@Jack Canuck: Thank you also.!
bjacques
Me and the missus went there in 2014, stayed in Hobart and spent a whole day at MONA, the next day a drive a couple of hours south. We want to go back.
debbie
Lovely. I remember way back when they were paying people to emigrate to Australia. Wish I’d followed through on thinking about it.
arrieve
Beautiful photos. Australia is one of the most magical places I’ve ever visited and it hurts my heart to see it suffer. I’ve never been to Tasmania though and it’s definitely on the list.
Albatrossity
I’ve only visited Melbourne once, long ago, and I really wanted to take the ferry to Tasmania. Time did not allow it, alas. These pictures make me want to go back someday and fulfill that dream even more! Thanks!
Wag
Excellent photos, added to the bucket list
Quinerly
?❤️???
burnspbesq
Spent a few days at Cradle Mountain Lodge 27 years ago this month. What an awesome place.
it was my first time driving on the left. I was a menace to anyone else on the road. Fortunately, we only saw about 20 cars after we left Devonport.
Barbara
A little OT, but a really fascinating article about aboriginal methods of preventing fires — they are so effective in Northern Australia that, while the South has horrible conflagrations, the number and size of wildfires in the north has actually decreased in the last decade. Source
Also interesting because it talks about European versus aboriginal fire prevention on other “New World” continents colonized by Europeans. Basically, Europeans dread fire and outlawed “controlled burning” methods wherever they gained control over the land.
Chris T.
Actually … the funny thing is, the renewable stuff is now the same price as the non-renewable energy. Moreover, the prices are heading in different directions: renewables are getting cheaper while non-renewables are getting more expensive.
TomatoQueen
Thank you for these. What a lovely place.
Hortense
@TheMightyTrowel: with a Marshalltown?
Hortense
Fantastic photos, now I want to go there. – Am going to be housesitting for some friends who are off to the GLTA tournament in Melbourne, hoping that they manage with all the smoke, I’ll suggest they consider Tasmania as a side trip after the matches. (Tennis, not phosphorus.)
StringOnAStick
@zzcool: It’s so cool that BJ has readers all over the world! I’d love to come to Tassie, maybe in a few years.
DaveInOz
TBH I wasn’t sure they would get posted after everything that has happened here. I’ve seen enough photos of devastation and dead wildlife in the last few weeks to last me a lifetime. I’ve lived here over 20 years now (originally from the UK) and love it here. It’s such a beautiful place but we’re now at the bleeding edge of climate change – we just need to pry the last pieces of coal from our politicians’ hands.