Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery – when was the last time you visited a museum?

Recently I popped in at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart Tasmania. Apart from the historically rich and exciting exhibition about Tasmania’s intriguing history the art gallery upstairs held some treasures. Skipping the stuffed animals part of the exhibition allowed me enough time to browse around the fantastic art exhibits, oil paintings of a young Hobart thriving in an excited and young way bursting into an important port. I was struck by the age and the detail of the images before me, splendid in their majestic wooden frames. Images documenting a period of time hundreds of years ago protected full time by the gentleman curator, sat in the corner suspiciously eyeing the white lines running before the paintings, waiting for any sort of breach of boundary that would spell a warning of impending doom for these protected arts. Fascinated I wondered whether our images would be treasured, the simplicity of multiple reprints and being able to view images of the whole world from your living room anytime of day or night. Limited edition reprints are about as exclusive it has got over the last century, in-fact since the birth of photography, but what about one off originals, will we ever shoot an image and print it once and frame it in a huge 10 foot long frame and delete the file. Would this be enough to make a curator from the future sit in a protected room away from harsh sunlight and be enough to make people insist on whispering in awe. I can’t ever see any photographer decide to do this but sometimes I wonder what will happen to our great works of art, forever present on the world wide web for all to see, will they be immortal or drift off into oblivion, syphoned from the cyber world when our photographic kin decides there is too much data on the internet or whatever global network may exist.

Blackmans Bay – Kinston – Tasmania

The other afternoon Emily and I wandered down to Blackmans Bay in Kingston and played around with Emily’s waterproof camera on the beach! For a fun little point and shoot I was impressed with the quality of the images we could get.

Ida Bay Railway – Australias southern-most railway – Tasmania

While we were in Tasmania we headed down to Southport to see the Ida Bay Railway. A small independantly owned railway which meanders around 14km from the Lune River Station, along the banks of Ida Bay and Lune River Estuary to Southport Lagoon. It was originally set up by a 10 Bob pom criminal who after gaining his freedom in the 1800s then decided to forrest the Tasmanian hardwood found in the area. After several enterprises including brick building he and his family then replaced the wooden railway with metal rails in order to quarry the limestone found in the area.

Tourists are able to visit the area and camp out in the bush at the end of the line overnight and get the train back the next day.

The Ida Bay Railway, with a new owner and management and a lot of hard work has turned into a fantastic day out. We travelled along the tracks marvelling at the views and stopping in places to jump off the train to listen to the history behind the railway. We had lots of time at the end of the line to see the beautiful beach and scenery before jumping back on for the return journey to the station.

A wonderful lesser known tourist attraction well worth a visit.

Sea Shepard – Gojira – Greenpeace on steroids!

While we were in Hobart there was a lot in the news about the Sea Shepard crew who were docked in the harbour carrying out maintenance and restocking their supplies before heading out to rage a war against the whaling boats out at sea. While they were docked they were doing a lot of promotion with local and national news crews promoting their cause.

The crew are certainly dedicated and it is considered and honour to be able to serve as crew upon the ships owned by Sea Shepard. When I went down they were carrying out repairs to their high speed catamaran, Gojira. Gojira, although the smallest of their fleet is by far one of the most effective.

The Sea Shepard has recently registered their fleet in Australia after a rubbing paint with whaling vessels in the hope that they can get support from the Australian millitary. Sea Shepard has always been after the backing of the Australian Government to stop the barbaric whaling by the Japanese in Australian waters.