A GROAN ABOUT THE CANADIAN POST OFFICE AND OTHER STUFF

Friday, 18 December 2009. Hobart.

In an hour I’ll be on my way to the airport, to catch my flight to Melbourne, and although I’ll be back in Tasmania for four days in January today feels like the end of something. It’s appropriately overcast and drizzly. Yesterday the rain pelted down all day long, putting a halt to my plan to amble about with my camera, photographing the houses here which I find so charming, unexpected views of the Derwent I’ve come to look for on my walks downtown, and St. David’s Park. I also though I’d walk on Knocklofty for an hour or so …

The day was not without accomplishment, however. First thing in the morning I took my books to the post office and two post bags full are now hunkered somewhere in the system—to be literally shipped and make their way across the sea to Canada. 2-3 months is the estimated time it will take them to make the trip.

Let me note here, crankily, that the Canadian Post Office has lived down to its increasingly poor service record. I was unable to insure my books—the only parcels to Canada that can be insured must travel by courier or express post. That’s not an Australian requirement, but a Canadian one. I suppose there was one small blessing in that—the argument I was having with myself about whether to take advantage of a special book and paper rate here (called Print Post and using the aforementioned bags but without insurance) or regular sea mail, boxing the books was settled since no insurance at all was available …

I’ve been more than impressed by the speed and courtesy of the Post Office here in Australia. My friends here receive books mailed from Western Australia in the next morning’s mail, and that arrives usually before 10:a.m.

This morning I made a short walk to the local post office in the Tattersall’s on Hill Street, to mail a few last letters. I took some photographs along the way, roses blooming in front of small (in appearance at least) bungalows painted in soft colours. Often these cottage-seeming houses turn out either to stretch back a long way or, because of the topography here to grow at the back into two- or three-storey buildings.

I’m not taking my computer on my wanderings and so this blog may languish over the next three to four weeks. I know I’ll have access to the internet here and there along the way, but not precisely when. My family are, I believe, somewhere on Fiji by now, putting in the 10 hours they have there before continuing on to Melbourne. They are to arrive at midnight tonight. It will be good to see them all after three months.

THE MIA MIA

Further to the mia mia that was recently discovered here: it was vandalized badly sometime over last weekend. The notice in the paper mentioned that Parks does not have the resources to adequately monitor or safeguard such a site, which lay just outside a conservation area. It added that the individual(s) who did the trashing must have set out to do so, since the mia mia’s location wasn’t such that you’d stumble over it accidentally while out for a hike. An editorial has been written about the tragic stupidity of such actions; the current government has made no comment on it. I suppose the jury is out on who might be responsible— and may well remain out. “Mere” vandals, racists, or timber industry supporters might all be included in the police line-up, if a line-up were held …

A CORRECTION AND AN ADDITION

The correction first: I mistranslated the FAW in my post yesterday--the organization is the Fellowship of Australian Writers, not the Federation. Fellowship is a much more accurate term for an organization that is as close-knit and supportive of its members as the Tasmania chapter clearly it. The anthology they have recently published is called A Net of Hands, and last night at The Lark I heard and enjoyed 8 poems from it.

The addition: In my note about the weather possibilities for tomorrow I left out the rather startling one of snow high on Mount Wellington. For those of you at home in Canada snow won't seem at all odd right now, but consider that here we are only days away from the solstice (winter? summer?) and today I'm wandering around in a short-sleeved t-shirt and feeling overdressed.

WEATHER

The weather here shifts and changes as quickly as the land does. Today has dawned overcast with thick clouds. There’s a brighter spot in them below where the sun sits but no beam of sunlight has broken through. And the forecast is such a mix: possibility of dry thunderstorms, a high of 31 degrees (rising from the morning’s 17), perhaps showers later in the day. It’s an odd situation, since in spite of the water everywhere Tasmania is rarely humid. Tomorrow the predicted high is 16, and there’s to be rain.

Thunderstorms of any kind are unusual here, dry ones even more so, and I imagine some cause for concern. Like the mainland, though perhaps not as extremely as in some areas there, Tasmania is prone to bushfires. The forest here is characterized by a fire ecology—eucalypts not only survive fires in a variety of ways, but some of them depend upon it to grow and/or remain healthy. Plants like buttongrass are so flammable they will burn even in water, and it’s not for nothing that the kerosene plant was so christened. So today also has the highest fire danger status—all burning outside is forbidden and tools that might throw off sparks should not be used. A large water bomber is being tested, and the fire service is on high alert.

In Fiji in the past couple of days a bad cyclone has struck, killing some people and forcing many to evacuate their homes. I wonder if the weather we have here is partly an effect of that. I also wonder if the other Harrises will encounter weather delays on their flights to join me—they have a 10-hour stop-over in Fiji on their way …

TIME FLYING

In Hobart it’s now 2:p.m., Tuesday, December 15, and the sun is shining brightly. I took my lunch outside to eat and let the heat pour down on me. Sunlight does feel more intense here than at home. I don’t think it’s brighter, but the air is so much clearer than in Toronto that it seems so.

I have roughly 3 more days here. On Friday I fly to Melbourne, and that evening the rest of the family arrive. We’ll settle into a flat there for a few days (while they attempt to get over the flight) before heading along the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide where we’ll spend Christmas. Then we drive back to Melbourne on an inland highway and fly to Sydney for New Year’s. Peter and Jessica return to Toronto on Jan. 4, while Katharine and I go to Cairns (the Great Barrier Reef), Atherton (where we’re volunteering in the bat hospital and possibly doing a walk to see nocturnal animals), and then to Hobart for four busy days that will include a Tasman Sea cruise, a walk on the mountain, and various meals and visits. On Jan. 13 we’ll fly to Melbourne and have a tour of the ballet school there. On the 14th we return to Toronto—though on separate flights.

A month from today I’ll be trying to collect myself in Toronto. I suppose there will be an accumulation of papers for me to sort through—though probably nothing to the accumulation from here that will make its stately way by sea and arrive perhaps by mid-March. By then I hope to have cleared space for them, and for the books that will be their travelling companions.

But in the meantime—I’ve been organizing poems and prose bits for a reading that I’ll give later today. I was invited to be part of The Literary Lark, the final Writers’ Centre Lark reading for the year. I’m reading with David Owen, who has just published a nonfiction book on the shark, and with contributors to an anthology of poems published by the local branch of FAW—the Federation of Australian Writers. The flyer announces flamenco guitarist Ralph Forehead as part of the evening, and since the Lark is a distillery, there’ll be Scotch for those who fancy it, as well as beer and wine. I’m pleased to have a chance to read, and look forward to seeing several of the writers I’ve met here. Not so much looking forward to saying good-bye to people, but it is a nice way to end my stay.

I have many moments and events and thoughts I haven’t yet “blogged” … I hope to get to some of them tomorrow and Thursday.

SOME OZZIE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

“No worries!” Said with a particular lilting intonation it means ‘you’re welcome’. So does “That’s awright then.”

paddock = field, even without a horse in sight; the third meaning in the Shorter Oxford, designated Austr and NZ, so long as it has fencing around it

ute = small truck (sort of analogous to the pickup truck, but with lower or no sides); also utility vehicle; I’ve heard it to applied to cars that can drive hard territory.

dam = an artificial pond to provide water for stock; analogous to dugout on the prairies

bogun = hard to get a handle on this one: a term of condescension, maybe covering the territory from from loudmouth through redneck to white trash …

hoon = usage here generally refers to those who drive too fast and aggressively, especially but not only young men, but in origin the term meant “a procurer of prostitutes”

the mallee = the scrub, the dry bush--characteristic of the state of Victoria. Used in a poem title by Robert Gray. Whereas “mallee root” sometime in the last century was rhyming slang for prostitute, and the Mallee bull is a term of compliment, as in fit as a … presumably because bulls that manage in mallee country are tough and strong (and bullheaded?)

yabbies = small freshwater crayfish, used for bait, but also eaten. Caught by children. Daniel at Lake St Clair mentioned catching yabbies several times.

flathead = a local fish, caught in the estuary; very good eating, though they are worried about the supply this year. Many mentions of catching large quantities of flathead to eat and to freeze in Gwen Harwood’s letters.

mia mia = an Aboriginal bough or bark hut. In the news here at the moment is the discovery of an until-now-unknown mia mia on land that is slated to be logged very soon

fined up = what the weather does in Tassie when the rain stops falling ; no sunshine required

shack = cottage or summer house, not necessarily in need of paint

squiz = an inquisitive or curious look

fossicking = poking about among things on the lookout for something valuable, ferreting about; what Irene and I did at the secondhand bookshops. In origin it meant to search out small quantities of gold usually from abandoned diggings.

bathers, cossi = bathing suit

MACQUARIE ISLAND

Macquarie Island lies about 1500 km. southeast of Tasmania. It was “discovered” in 1810 by an Australian on the hunt for new sealing grounds, but it first appeared about 600,000 years ago. At 34 km. length, 5 km. width, and 433 m. height at the highest point, it’s not huge—but it is still rising. In the recent past it's experienced a significant earthquake or two. Though Mcquarie is closer to New Zealand than any other land mass, it has been politically part of Tasmania since 1900. In 1978 it became a state reserve and now is a World Heritage Area and an International Biosphere Reserve. The Australian Antarctic Division maintains a research station there, and parks people carry out ongoing projects. Check out a view of the island and the research if you want at http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=7151

No, I haven’t been there. But Macquarie is a presence here in Hobart.

In the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, where I have been (and this posting might duplicate some of my earlier one), the Subantarctic Plant House is modeled on Mcquarie Island. In it, the near shore zone, coastal slopes, rock stacks, mires, herbfields and short grasslands, and feldmark terraces are all replicated by plantings. Weather conditions on the island—its average daily temperature is 4.8 degrees C and it rains pretty much daily—are simulated so as you walk through, cold winds spring up and suddenly lower the temperature, then wet fog or rain spray rolls across the space dampening your face. Sounds of the sea and seabird calls complete the sensory experience. Given the weather conditions I was surprised at the variety and lushness of the plants. A panoramic mural by local artist John Lendis shows the island’s terrain so you can imagine you’re staring across it to the immense ocean.

Macquarie is a breeding island for many seabirds, including four different albatrosses and four penguin species. During the 19th century, as seemed to happen on every island where Europeans stopped, various animals were introduced. (Often the idea behind animal introductions was to establish food stores for sealing, whaling, shipping parties who would stop on long voyages to replenish supplies.) Large feral populations of cats, rabbits, rats, mice, and weka (a flightless rail from New Zealand) developed and these have caused serious damage to both island ecology and seabird habitat. Beginning in the 1970s a feral animal eradication program was undertaken by the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service that successfully got rid of cats and the weka. However, rabbits and rodents are still an enormous problem, and currently a large eradication program aimed at these animals is in the planning stage here.

At the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery there is an excellent exhibition on the Island, a part of the Antarctic Gallery. In it the geology of the island development is very clearly explained, and the plant and animal life is delineated. The history of its exploration is also outlined. More about that in another posting, perhaps, when I find my notes …

HANS HEYSEN

Before I enjoyed my Bruny Island cheese supper I’d gone to see the Hans Heysen show just opened a week ago at the TMAG. Heysen was born in Germany in 1877, but came to Australia as a child. He went to Europe for 4 years as a young man, studying at various studios in Paris and finally being accepted at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He also travelled and painted in Venice and Scotland before coming back to Australia. He lived in South Australia, eventually on a country property, and was perhaps the first painter to take the eucalyptus as his subject. Clearly he loved the trees and the landscape around him.

The area was agricultural and many of his paintings have cattle and/or farm labourers in them. I saw echoes of Millais in some. He was also enthralled by light, and it’s fascinating to see its variety in his canvases, sometimes soft and full of mist, sometimes inflected by bushfires in the distance, sometimes pouring out of the picture into the gallery. The focus on agricultural subjects made me wonder if we have an equivalent painter at home. Kurelek comes to mind for content in a way (more social?), but not style. Do I remember that Carl Dair painted Ontario farm scenes? Need to check this out when I’m back in Toronto.

Later in life Heysen went inland to the Flinders Range and was at first unable to paint what he saw there. The expanse of land without markers, the dryness, the intense range of colours, the flat light, were all challenges. It’s interestingly similar to early painterly reactions to the Canadian prairies, another dry area where reading the distance in conventional ways was difficult or impossible. Heysen changed his palate, developing new colours, and ended by painting stunning images that capture the sharpness and starkness of the region beautifully. Or so I think, never having seen it. The paintings are definitely beautiful.

I liked the show very much, and may go back to see it again. My favourite painting isn’t among either the farming or the Flinders ones, though. It’s a painting of his wife, sitting at a sewing machine, her back to the artist (and the viewer). It’s a summer’s day, or perhaps spring, there are white curtains on the window, and radiant pale brilliant sunlight pours in. The light is so strong that when I came around the corner and saw the painting I stepped back from it to keep from squinting.

MORE CHEESE

A few entries ago I mentioned the cheese plate we shared, from the Bruny Island Cheese Co. Well, yesterday the McGuires received their December Cheese Club shipment from the Company, so last night we feasted on cheese again. The package of 5 artisanal cheeses also included a container of apple paste and a bottle of wine.

The cheeses have their own names: tom truckle (a truckle is a small whole cheese).a hard cheese in the tradition of the Tomme cheeses from the French Savoie; o.d.o. (standing for one day old and so crumbly), a fresh cheese marinated in olive oil with roasted red pepper, garlic, and herbs; saint, a surface-ripened soft oozy cheese with a white mould; 1792 (the year the French first stopped in Tasmania), another surface-ripened cheese, this time brine washed; and gabriel, also surface-ripened, a delicious runny goat’s cheese. We left the Gabriel and o.d.o. for another evening but devoured large portions of the others on slices of a fresh baguette from Cullen’s, with olives, cherry tomatoes, green grapes and fresh cherries on the side. An unbeatable meal!

Did I mention that earlier that when we stopped at the Cheese Factory and bought the cheese we ate at Dennes Point, I bought a delicious milkshake for Kevin and very good caffe lattes for Irene and me? On a nice day there are tables outside the shop, under the eucalypts, where it would be lovely to sit and eat. The shop also sells T-shirts with a pair of boots on them (the Factory mark), notecards, and some sweets, if I remember correctly.

A SATURDAY URBAN WALKABOUT

Last Saturday, after our usual breakfast with friends at Cullen’s Bakery in Moonah, Irene and I went on a long prowl of shops and galleries in downtown Hobart. We began near the Art School, looking at fine jewellery and some fabulous wooden furniture, and then spending time in Art Mob (www.artmob.com.au), a gallery that specializes in Aboriginal Art. There’s a gorgeous show hanging at the moment, work by Dennis Nona, plus stacks of paintings not hung, and small items like Christmas ornaments and notecards, painted boxes and small trays. I bought a few small gifts, all the while wishing fiercely I had the money for a painting for myself. We had a brief chat with Euan Hills, the director, and he showed us photographs of an astonishing and large bronze canoe by Nona, called Two Brothers, now installed in Saudi Arabia. It would be fun to put that canoe beside Bill Reid’s, installed at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC.

Staying in the Hunter Street area, we went on to the Art School’s gallery to see the show (Silent Witnesses I think it was called—where was my field notebook?) by Frances Watson. The work, several installations, was done to complete her degree and is both brilliant and mordantly funny. She examines the weight of domestic objects within and on lives and families, while at the same time ambling among various conventions of the still life. I liked the show enormously, found it moving and exciting, and was delighted that Frances herself was there so I could tell her so.

Next stop on our ramble was the Carnegie Gallery, to see Light and Shade, featuring the work of Lorraine Biggs and Chantale Delrue. Both these artists make very beautiful images, and it’s also interesting to note the contrasts between them. Delrue is anchored in fine details, using dyes derived from natural materials to make precise images of butterflies and plants, all found on Mount Welllington. Biggs has focused on the hill as a shape, and her paintings explore repetitions of this large landscape form—in all instances depicted so the light emanates from behind the hill with a rich gold tone and the sky is luminous. Both artists address the body—Delrue by creating pieces that use the lungs and the heart as containers of growth (vases for branches and plants), Biggs by the velvety echo of a breast, sometimes nippled, in her hills.

From gallery to market—we strolled through the Salamanca Market, checking out jewellery, lovely scarves, handbags, gorgeous fountain pens, threading our way through the crowd. We stopped at Say Cheese and shared a cheese plate for lunch, stepped into the Handmark Gallery to look at more paintings by Delrue and photos by Christl Berg. Then it was up the Kelly Steps to Hamden Road and Sandy Bay to paw through secondhand books at Rapid Eye and Kookaburra. Irene and I each found irresistible things of course, and with our bags laden, called an end to the walk and went home.

Repetition marked the day—our repeated steps from place to place, the repetitive patterns of aboriginal art, repeated images and objects in the work of the 3 women artists, and then in the plethora of bird books we discovered in the shops. Watson had a quote from Gilles Deleuze written on one of her pieces: “If we die of repletion we are also healed by it.”

A MUCH-NEEDED BREAK FOR PARKS?

Monday, 7 December 2009.

The Mercury’s lead article this morning announces that the state government is about to thaw their freeze on public service hirings and makes specific reference to Parks as an area that needs attention. That’s very good news, if it turns out to be more than a pre-election gambit.

Since shortly after my arrival, I’ve been both impressed by, and concerned about, the parks here. At Lake St Clair, where I lived for three weeks. I was bowled over by the variety and beauty, and by the warmth and generosity of the staff. But I was also startled at how few staff there were, and quickly became aware of how stretched they were, trying to cover the needs of visitors and of park maintenance.

In fact, I was able to lend a small hand to maintenance when I accompanied one of the rangers on a walk, to Shadow Lake and back by Mount Rufus, to post a closed sign on a trail that was temporarily unsafe and inspect the tracks for fallen trees. We found a lot of trees down, sometimes covering the track completely, so walkers had to negotiate their way over, under, and around trunks and branches. We were able to shift some trees, and remove branches, but others had to be left until the ranger could get back up with a chainsaw—and to do that he had to wait until someone could be freed elsewhere and sent in to accompany him.

Eucalypts are called “self-pruning” since some species tend to drop limbs throughout their life, for no apparent reason. They are also often shallowly rooted and blow over or lose large branches in windstorms. Keeping tracks clear of fallen trees is an on-going job, and not limited to wild parks, either. The steps down to the cave on the Bedlam Walls walk just outside Hobart were blocked by a tree earlier this year; the parks people announced at the time that they could not afford to remove the tree and the steps were simply closed. (Though it was possible to negotiate under the railing and down to the steps if you really wanted to get to the cave.)

When we drove to Mount Field Park in October we found a popular trail had been closed for tree removal and wouldn’t open until some time in December. A letter to the paper, in response to the announcement that some special funds had been procured to do that maintenance work, stated the trail had been in serious need of attention for some years.

Tasmania’s parks are a tremendous—I’m trying to avoid the language of investment, without success it seems—resource and asset. Stunningly beautiful, full of birdlife and varied terrain, with a large network of tracks and overnight huts, they are widely used by both residents and visitors. They form an important part of the ecology (human and natural) of this island and deserve to be properly cared for. I’ve yet to meet a Tasmanian who doesn’t value the parks, or a park worker who isn’t dedicated to them. It seems odd that the state government has not been willing to give them the attention and care that they both require and deserve.

BIRDWALK

It’s 8:45 p.m. here and twilight is settling in. The sky is still bright over the Derwent, but Mount Nelson is dull. It’s been a gorgeous warm and sunny day with no rain though showers were forecast. It’s a week since I’ve attended to this blog. For those who are wondering, the nature writing workshop went well, though we weren’t able to walk in the park.

But this morning the McGuires and I walked in a lovely park, the Waterworks Reserve. We joined a birdwalk led by Don Knowler, who writes the weekly bird column for The Mercury. I’ve been enjoying his column since I arrived—he’s a passionate birder who has lived in England and America as well as here and has a healthy sense of humour that comes through in the writing.

I reckon about 50 people turned up for the walk—not surprising, given the weather and the fact that it was well-publicized. Knowler said his usual crowd was only half a dozen but I find that hard to believe. Birding with a crowd that size is a challenge—especially walking on narrow trails through the woods—but Knowler handled that well by explaining what birds we might expect to see, and telling us stories about his own birding in the Reserve before we set off. He’s an entertaining and knowledgeable a talker about birds, so a wonderful companion on a walk.

The morning was chock full of birdsong—the striaited pardelote was repeating itself as we started off and Knowler pointed out cracks between bricks where they had nests. He also noted a white-eyed heron and a native hen off on the grassy areas. I couldn’t see either of them, but did see the little black cormorant that flew in and perched on a railing. And eventually I got my glasses on the pardelote—my first sighting of one.

The calling continued as we wound through the bush—the shrike-thrush, various cuckoos, currawongs, a bronzewing in the distance, the grey fantail, all gave voice, though I couldn’t see any of them. When we came out of the trees and were standing near the water a sudden racket of ravens and then a pair of kookaburras announced the circling of a white goshawk overhead—a bird I was thrilled to get a clear sighting of and a ringing note to end the walk with.