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04.05.04

Transit of Venus [Substrate, Movement, Landscape] -  08:34:13
transit of venus campbelltown
This weekend at Carrick is Agfest, a sort of Agricultural Show you have when you are not having an Agricultural Show. IE its more focussed on the rural population than bringing the best of the country to town. I mention this because the Transit of Venus on the 8th of June, 2004 is being investigated with an all welcome sign (above) at Campbelltown. I guess they are a bit jealous of the Agfest at Carrick.
dead trees
We have already posted one of the delights of Campbelltown here. The picture above, taken near Jericho in the Midlands, highlights the end of the area's agricultural importance. It can no longer exploit what has developed over millenia. It must become sustainable.
The death of the the old trees is sad, its the end of the line for a certain style of production and its cares, for it encouraged the lack of recruitment from younger generations of gumtrees, grazed out, given no chance... just like the understory plants. But more importantly is the soil ecology. Neo-European pastures are not the soils they evolved on. The removal of understory plants, the ploughing and pasture revitalisation simply gave them no room to move. Insects, possums and old age were simply the last straw.
Reaching for the stars is one way.
There are good stories in te midlands of Tasmania, but this stark photo captures a deathly beauty, and Henka's Journey is a photoblog. It is driven by photo opportunities such as these.

03.05.04

Moving Stories [Substrate, Movement, Landscape] -  20:13:46
Mussels near shag bay

Today, the Third of May, 2004, marks the 200th Anniversary of the first Massacre of Tasmanian Aboriginals near Risdon Cove on the Derwent River in Hobart.

These mussels were a food source of the Paredarerme, whose Country the Redcoats were Settling.

They were eaten and their shells were piled into middens that were taken away by later Settlers to be used burnt in lime mortar.

They are too polluted to eat today due to the Union Carbide built Electrolytic-Zinc Works across the river.

Our society in Tasmania has not quite got the past in mind, still thinks of history as behind us, as something to argue about, when really it is something to move on, not from.

It is us. It is who we are.

To respect the land is to respect its pasts. To belong along with it. Not just over it.









The multi-voice poem Shag Bay by meika loofs samorzewski is an attempt at this kind of negotiation, a walk stepping around the obstacles, looking at tomorrow, but not always succeeding at the first step.

30.04.04

Two Tails [Wunderkammer] -  22:29:32


Skinks can regrow their tails.

I guess this skink did not lose its tail completely, but was only damaged a little. The healing scar/scab seems to have regrown into a tiny mini-tail.

27.04.04

That's not Erosion Control, thats Indulgent Engineering [Place, People & Path] -  10:05:36
This post is a follow up to Mountain Bike Bikies destroy Mt Wellington and More Speedy Slackness and their comments.

This is the view of the berm from our track, up from Jubilee Rd.


Here is the berm looking downhill. Our track goes off to the right.

The berm is a mighty obstacle if you are coming up from our track. No provision is made for us in its design, or lack thereof.
No remediation has been attempted. No planting of understorey plants for example either on the soft soil of the top of the berm, nor in the ruddy great hole from which the soft soil comes.


Another perspective on the trench. Nothing in this berm has anything to do with soil erosion minimisation. Everything has to do with the need for speed.


Anyways I have done something constructive. (Compare with the photo taken a week ago taken from the bottom of the bermed corner, at right.) As the large earthworks (such as it is for ordinary for ordinary walkers and I suspect most mountain bikers) supports the main pathway, it will continue to be. Therefore the cut-through through the Prickly Beauty(Pultanea juniperina) has be remediated and made psychological unattractive for most travellers. Remember, the most often travelled route is not so much the shortest, as the most comfortable (which might be include the shortest, quickest).

I have noticed at the site of this bermed corner, since my first post on the subject, that a number of wattles have had their branches broken to allow easier movement through the secondary cut-through. As well a wattle being half uprooted.

There have been a number of comments and a couple of emails. While errors have been kindly pointed out and there have been queries about my integrity, no one has dealt with what I have considered to be the main points of my outrage.


I repeat, nothing in this bermed corner has anything to do with "erosion control". While erosion control has do oubt be done for the good, it should not be used as a cover for course engineering improvements.

The question is this (to use some big words) is the experience of riding down the mountain less or more important than the experience of fiddling with the mountain (under the cover of riding down the mountain), ie, is the phenomenology explored and enjoyed by mountain bike riders that of "being at one with bike and terrain" or of the fiddling engineer "being at one with their indulgent view of what a course should look like, and making the world fit what is in their heads"????? Regardless of the impacts of their behaviour on other users and the environment itself, which created the terrain in the first place.

Thanks for nothing??

22.04.04

More Speedy Slackness [Place, People & Path] -  15:52:44


Not as bad but the attitude is all too apparent.

Main Fire trail Exit at the corner junction of Strickland Ave and Inglewood Rd, Cascades.

17.04.04

Mountain Bike Bikies Destroy Mt Wellington, Hobart, Tasmania [Place, People & Path] -  16:04:23
mountain bike damage on mt wellington 1
Mountain Bikers are a pain in the arse. Not just their own.

I have already described their arrogant impertinence as a postscript to a "where does you beer come from" story here.

Well have a look at these pictures.
mountain bike damage on mt wellington 2

The co-ords are:
S 42° 53.826'
E 147° 16.454'

6m accurate. Best approached from the Inglewood corner on Strickland Ave, Cascades.


It seems mountain bikers do not just want to enjoy the mountain on its own terms any more, they want to aggressively make it submit to their indulgent need for speed.

What happen to mountain biking on our mountain.

KEEP YOUR SHOVELS AT HOME!!!

If you really want nothing more than pure speed-- then go jump off the bridge. (I can let you have the co-ordinates for that too).

Mountain bikers obviously have no sense of ecology. Particularly, they have no sense that digging in bushland is a major soil ecology disturbance event. It allows the weeds in, you morons. Did you consider that!!! Selfish git.

Mountain bikers obviously have no real sense of the environment they move through, otherwise they would accept the constraints of the terrain rather than indulging puerile need for speed alone.

Mountain bikers obviously have no sense of social relations, otherwise they would know a whole bunch of greenies live down below and walk up to a junction right here. Here, where they have dug a half metre into the mountain for no reason other than their selfish desires.

Mountain bikers are obviously morons.

Not only have they bermed this corner, previous riders have slaughtered the understorey with their need to cut corners. LAZY MORONS!!

For the saving of momentary milliseconds they have killed many a bush pea, the Prickly Beauty (Pultanaea juniperina), which have been growing on this ridgeline for thousands of years.

So now we have two scars and no remediation work (replanting, weeding, sitting and reflecting on it all).

Who will save us from wannabee engineers!!! WHO???

16.04.04

Regrowth [Place, People & Path] -  11:48:16


43° 21.105'
146° 58.518


The co-ordinates are not of the pictured stump. They are of a bird/animal box put in last Friday, Good Friday, amidst the great loss of shelter for any local animals in a clearfell operations.

The box was put on that lump (probably) that is a pushed up stump in the right of the picture, right on the crest, against the sky.

Its next to a logging track that rides up the ridgeline. But this picture does give you the idea of clearfelling. I.E. Industrial Forestry by Forestry Tasmania.

It has just been replanted. They tend to pay about $70 per thousand planted. Its usually some industrially modified ecalypt, something wot used to be a blue gum, or shining gum.

Walking on the clearfell, between burnt windrows and ashed soil, the interesting thing was which plants had come up following such disturbance. It was mostly Goodenia ovata and a raspwort (Gonocarpus sp). They make up most of the greenery you can see in the photo.

I've never thought of them as colonisers!

13.04.04

Rocky Muddy Estuary [Place, People & Path] -  12:37:12



















The are two types of people.



High tide people and those of the low water.


.

07.04.04

Journey to the Source [Place, People & Path] -  14:19:07

How does one find where the water for Cascade Premium Beers is collected from? (As mention previously The Urban/Bush Interface Ecology of Beer.)

Well continue reading...

Just above Bus Stop 23 on Strickland Avenue Cascades, and just before the newly reconstructed bridge over the Hobart Rivulet, there is a rough ramp.

It is headed by a boom gate with an old sign referring to an unfashionable teenage motorhead sport. Can't remember when I last heard a trail bike.
Parents are just too safety conscious these days.



Another sign on the boom gate also says you are not allowed to go on Cascade brewery Property.

And a little bit further on there is another sign, demurely standing among wattle foliage...


But you will have to ignore these signs if you want to see the source. You will have to be intrepid.

And don't stop to collect the signs of past lives! Distraction could mean failure!!



If you see this ricketty bridge you have gone too far!!

Keep to the low road you will find the source. (Not as picturesque as the bridge though!)


And here it is...



S 42° 54.248'
E147° 16.536'


If you do go on to see the bridge you will presently notice the following.



Mountain bikers have taken over from Trail Bikes as the trespassing bushwalker's bete noir.

And here they have not only come pre-armed with a spade or shovel to build a momentary-airborn-feeling-inducing ramp, but they have added to the damage all the little tracks do. And not just by passing-by. It is premeditated!

To build the ramp they have dug at the edge of the path, killing plants, disturbing the soil and adding the the likelihood of erosion, and therefore, dirt in those premium beers Cascade Brewery makes!!

All just to be in the air for a few milliseconds!!!



If you are really worried about not tresspassing, you should go and ask the Mouheneener first. The brewery is built on their traditional land.

04.04.04

Animal Backyards [Substrate, Movement, Landscape] -  11:04:20
plover

ABC TV is running an animal survey called Wildwatch.


We're asking you to tell us about your garden and with the information you provide, we could build a picture of what is actually happening to our wildlife and how best to conserve it.



The information will be used to inform policy and planning across Australia, by councils and local groups.

If you have seen my post on Anti-Gardening you'll know I fully support this initiative!!

03.04.04

Tree Butt [Gumtrees] -  08:44:01














I don’t know much about this photo except that it was taken by Jason Passioura’s dad.


Probably somewhere in NSW, probably in the late 70s or early 80s.

I got a copy after a long day chatting and drinking milkshakes at Jason’s house in O’Connor in the mid 80s.

It’s hard to identify the eucalypt -- it’s obviously not a stringybark or ironbark, which makes it one of any of a number of gums.

02.04.04

Eastern Sunset [Substrate, Movement, Landscape] -  11:55:11

As we live beneath the Mountain in Hobart we don't get to see amazing sunsets often because the Mountain is in the west and blocks the view. But the light show can still bounce off those clouds to the east. So this is the eastern sunset.


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