A new year a new beginning

Midstream I’ve decided to create a new blog for the rest of my stay in Tasmania. I want a different format from the one I set up on my first visit in 2009, something that feels roomier.

In the spirit of beginning, some facts and observations about this place that is unknown to many if not most of us in the northern hemisphere. I’m amused at how often I get asked (in Canada) about my time in Tanzane-ia …

Tasmania is an island lying in the Great Southern Ocean off the southeast coast of Australia, making it, except for a few much smaller islands, the southernmost part of the country. I hadn’t known the Southern Ocean existed before I came to Tasmania. It encircles the continent of Antarctica; its currents and temperature play important roles in the weather here and the health of the seas worldwide. Here’s a glimpse of the island, a small map from the Australian Tourism Commission.

Australia is divided into six states and two territories. Tasmania is the smallest of its states and because it lies offshore it is often left off the maps. One of my favourite quotations about the island takes up this absence:

“It’s not for nothing that Tasmania gets left off the maps. Its geography insists that there are no seamless narratives here…”   C.A. Cranston – in her introduction to an anthology she edited: Along These Lines: from Trowenna to Tasmania.

Tasmania’s geography is definitely not seamless or smooth. The island is rumpled and varied, and characterized by inclines of surprising steepness. The link below leads to a relief map that shows how rumpled it is.

http://www.schoolmaps.com.au/img/p/102-186-large.jpg

Here’s a more elegant and concise description of the island, from R.H. Green’s book on Tasmanian birds:

“Tasmania is a mountainous island with a total land area of about 66,000 square kilometres. Peaks which rise above 1,500 metres are snow covered in winter. There are many lakes, highland tarns, streams and rivers; a picturesque mosaic of fertile farming communities among its valleys is broken by tall hardwood forests, ferny gorges, peaceful woodlands, and flowering heathlands. In an oceanic environment the Island lies as a broken archipelago extending south-east from the Australian continent, looking southwards toward the great Antarctic wilderness.”

Though Green’s book doesn’t cover every bird you might see here, its clear and detailed descriptions of the birds, their habitats and behaviour, are invaluable. He makes it possible for someone like me to begin almost immediately to distinguish between birds that differ in size but only minimally in plumage--for instance, the Pacific gull and the Kelp gull. The adult Pacific has a black terminal tail band, the Kelp does not. 

A year or so ago, in Toronto, I spread my Tasmanian roadmap out on the living room floor. I wanted to see the whole island and trace where I had been on it. When I stood up and stepped back from the map I was struck by its shape—how it resembled a human heart. Heart called to heart, I knew then I had to go back.

On a sunny day in early December 2013 I flew from Melbourne to Hobart, crossing the Tasmanian coastline near the mouth of the Tamar River.

I loved seeing the countryside change below the plane--mountains, expanses of forest, and farming areas, with villages and towns scattered throughout. I was thrilled when I caught sight of a feature I recognized: The Great Lake—too distant to photograph through the slight fog of the plane window but clear enough to name. 

A glimpse of fields and cloud shadows from the plane

On track for the Hobart Airport