Monday, February 27 .....

With our appalling public transport system, hitch-hiking is still prevalent in Tasmania. Most of them seem to be back-packers who hadn’t realised that there might only be one bus going in a certain direction each day. They’re often a bit hippy (but that’s not necessarily a bad thing) and it will be the female on the roadside holding up her thumb while her male partner tries to look inconspicuous in the background. I’m not inclined to pick people up but I know Jamie does it quite often and will even go out of his way to make sure they get where they are going.

Today, there was a hitch-hiker on the Georgetown Road just on the edge of the city. This was no hippy: he had on black flared trousers, white shirt and black waistcoat, with a hat and a cloth bundle on a pole. Jamie was astounded. Look, he said, it’s a German Carpenter Journeyman. Unfortunately, we had gone past before I could make the decision to stop.

I’d never heard of such a thing and had to get on the internet when I got home, and what a story I discovered. The tradition dates back to mediaeval times and is still alive in German-speaking countries. Before an apprentice could be promoted to ‘master’ he had to set out to travel around gaining experience.

The journeyman brotherhoods established a standard to ensure that wandering journeymen were not mistaken for tramps or vagabonds. They needed to be childless and debt-free (in modern times journeymen often need a police clearance) and were required to wear a specific uniform. This helps them to find shelter for the night and a ride to the next town. Each journeyman carries a log book which he gets stamped to show where he has been. In German, the journey is called a ‘waltz’ and the song, Waltzing Matilda, is based on the journeyman’s waltz. In English-speaking countries we still use the term journeyman but don't expect our craftsmen to actually make a journey.

At the beginning of the waltz, the journeyman takes only 6 Euros and he is expected to bring that amount, no more and no less, when he comes home. During the period of the waltz, he is not allowed to come within 50Km of his home town. The journey is expected to last 3 years and a day (in some cases, 2 years and a day).

Apparently, although not all apprentices take the journey nowadays, there are several hundred young men and women on the road at any one time. If we had been able to get closer, we might have found that the journeyman was wearing a golden earring and golden bracelets, and carrying a traditional curled pole called a stenz. The gold was expected to be pawned when times were tough or kept to pay the gravedigger if the journeyman happened to die on the road.

The fellow we saw today is one of four who are in Tasmania at the moment. The German word for the group is Wandergesellen (gesell is literally ‘companion’). They have completed the first year in Germany and are travelling the world for the next two years and 1 day. I found a story from the Examiner which reported that two of the journeymen had built a new chicken coop for a local family.

Isn’t it a wonderful story, and what a shame I didn’t stop!

Sunday, February 26 .....

I’m resisting making a comment about the farce playing out in the Labor Party. I’m old enough to remember (faintly) the stoush between John Gorton and Billy McMahon, and the later ones : Hawke/Keating and Howard/Peacock. Do they never learn? The best comment I’ve heard came from a female reporter on ABC who said it was like watching a dog chew off its own leg.

Jamie and I set off early this morning to drive to Hobart to see a demonstration of blacksmith skills. I plan to have a team of 5 or 6 blacksmiths working at the Craft Fair. It’s a big project but I wanted to see today’s demonstration which involved three smiths working in the same workshop. I needed to get an idea of the logistics of providing a working space, the equipment needed and the potential hazards. With all that heat, noise and sparks it will be an exciting attraction but we’ll need to have well-planned security to keep the patrons safe.

It was not a great day for it; the air temperature reached 35 degrees so, when they had the forges going in the shed, it was horrendous. They were working with a charcoal forge which is just a metal box filled with burning charcoal, with a fan forcing air in to increase the heat. There was also a gas forge, a cigar of insulated metal with the inside heated by a gas flame. Not only are they hot; they are also incredibly noisy and coupled with the mechanical hammer and the hand-held mallets, it was no symphony. It’s a hard physical job and a filthy one but the three men we saw today clearly love it. There were two of their wives there as well and they seemed to accept their lot in life quite happily.

I should say that the smiths we saw today are artists, producing work which is beautiful as well as functional. And pricey as well! I saw a fish which I thought was stunning but it was $5500 – too rich for me.

As we drove away from Battery Point (the workshop was in the old Mure’s Boatyard, which is a significant historic site in Hobart) we saw a large ship tied up at Macquarie Wharf. It was The World, that famous ship which is the home of a number of the worlds’ richest people. Their apartments are glorious and the ship keeps moving around so it’s the lifestyle of choice for those who can afford it.

A nice day out!

Thursday, February 23 .....

One of the best things to happen to Australian TV over the last few years has been the breakfast program on the ABC. At last, a show which has a quiet dignity about it and doesn’t encourage the inanities of a Kochie or a Karl.

Virginia Trioli is a star. I think her Twitter address says all that we need to know about her: LaTrioli. No false modesty there, Dame Joan Sutherland was La Stupenda; Virginia clearly sees herself in that company. I know that lots of people can’t tolerate her ‘rudeness’ when she interrupts her political guests, but I see it as her determination to pin them to answer the question she has asked. Even if she doesn’t get them to tell the truth, she does show them up to be the weasels they really are. I can’t wait until she comes back; Karina is pretty but is a lightweight compared to Latrioli.

Now Michael Rowland. I can really relate to him. I suppose he could be called a dweeb (is that a word?) and I can see a lot of myself in him. He loves puns and never resists the temptation to share his delight in them. He’s also a fan of Monty Python and is prone to quote from one of their movies at odd times. This morning he was interviewing Nicola Roxon about Kevin Rudd’s resignation, and the whole tone of the interview was very serious. Nicola was suggesting, po-faced, that Kevin saw himself as a messiah, ready to bring the ALP out of the wilderness. Michael couldn’t help himself and blurted out the line from the Life of Brian, ‘He’s not the messiah, he’s just a naughty boy.’

A magic moment in this whole fine mess (that’s a reference to Oliver Hardy in case you missed it).

I’ve spent today in town. I dropped the car off for a service this morning and thought I would have a quiet day away from the computer. It was a good chance to spend an hour or two in the Library and Harvey Norman and Officeworks. Great!

In the Mall, I met this bloke busking with his alpaca. I suppose it was, technically, busking even though neither the man nor his alpaca sang or played an instrument. The alpaca (beautiful creature!) had a leather pouch around his neck and would lift its head to receive your coins. I reckon the bloke was on to a good thing.

A postscript to my comment on the book, The Hound of the D’Urbervilles – after the first chapter or two the cleverness became quite forced and the plot was certainly a bit thin. If I were writing a report on it, I might say: Began with great promise but its fundamental weaknesses soom became apparent.
It’s back to obscurity for Kim Newman.

Wednesday, 22nd February .....

There are always lots of tourists in Deloraine at this time of the year. It’s hard to move in the main street with all the caravans and motor homes driving slowly through the town, looking for a parking spot or just taking in the sights. The locals get a bit anxious and it’s hard to find anyone who really welcomes them.

I noticed one 4WD outside the bank with a geocaching symbol on his spare tyre cover. It’s funny that I have just been sorting out the caches I’ll be looking for on my next excursion, and there’s a reminder on the back of someone’s vehicle. I sneaked a picture but was caught in the act.

This fellow introduced himself (Ed!) and told me he was house-sitting a place in Devonport. He and his wife Liz are very keen geocachers and were heading for Liffey Falls where one had been planted. He told me about a mega event which had been held near Wagga last year and he and Liz had picked up 317 caches in a 24-hour period. I’ll bet all the fish he catches are a metre long and all his eggs are double-yolkers.

Monday, February 20 .....

It’s not often I find a book which grabs me by the throat and impresses me as much as Moriarty - The Hound of the D’Urbervilles by Kim Newman. The eBook website I use is being inundated by the Romance genre (if I see another cover showing a burly and half-naked Lord of the Glen, I’ll vomit). Sadly, I just skip through the list and tend to watch out for authors I know and it’s rare that I open an unknown title to see if I’ll like it.

I noticed Moriarty – The Hound of the D’Urbervilles today and, as there was nothing else of interest, apart from a Bolitho novel by Alexander Kent, I downloaded it to have a look. I was trapped immediately by the pithy writing and the clever references to Sherlock Holmes. There has been a bit of a push recently to write modern novels featuring Sherlock Holmes; the Mary Russell books by Laurie R. King are the best of these. But I haven’t seen anyone focusing on Professor Moriarty until now.

Kim Newman entitles the parts of his book with names which refer to Conan Doyle stories. So, Newman’s A Volume in Vermillion obviously refers to Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet. Newman’s A Shambles in Belgravia makes you think of A Scandal in Bohemia, and The Problem of the Final Adventure refers to The Adventure of the Final Problem. Clever!

The writing is also clever and I was delighted to come across the phrase ‘cosplay protest’. When we took Madeleine to Japan in 2005, we visited Harajuku where every weekend local teenagers come together dressed in the most outlandish costumes (costume play = cosplay). Clearly a cosplay protest is when the protesters dress in costumes; in this case, they wore convict outfits with broad arrows.

I read a lot of books but I become bogged down sometimes when the language is simplistic or stilted and I have to turn to Reginald Hill or Colin Dexter, authors who treat the reader as if he has some level of intelligence. Kim Newman falls into this category.

I looked him up on the internet and he is certainly something of an oddball. He always wore a long cloak at University and belonged to something called the Sheep Worrying Theatre Company. I’m not keen on the name. It sounds a bit like a tasteless New Zealand joke and reminds me of the British Ukulele Orchestra which is touring Australia at the moment and promises its audience a ‘plucking good time’. Typical English smutty humour!

Sunday, February 19 .....

I can’t believe the fuss that everyone is making about the video of Kevin Rudd showing frustration, and expressing this in a perfectly normal way. Have we become so precious that we can’t accept that some people deal with stress by mouthing-off. Swearing is a traditional part of Australian culture. I don’t necessarily agree with it but I’ve heard worse in a primary school playground. I wish the journalists could find another bandwagon and give us a break from the interminable ‘Will he, or won’t he make a bid for the leadership?’ Tony Abbott must be thanking his lucky stars that this distraction is keeping journalists from asking the hard questions about his lack of positive policies.

After my good walk yesterday, I had a quiet day at home. I had taken my GPS with me yesterday and realised that I had come very close to a number of geocaches so I took out the folder where I keep the data on the caches and sorted out half a dozen that I will pick up on my next trip to the Gorge.

It seems I have a busy week coming up: a Giant Steps Board Meeting tomorrow night, Rotary meeting on Tuesday and Craft Fair committee meeting on Wednesday. On Tuesday, we’re meeting at the Rotary Pavilion for a barbecue. We have a couple of containers there where we store Craft Fair equipment and we’ve decided that we’ll drag it all out and do a stock-take. As you can imagine, after the Fair all we want to do is get everything out of the way and out of the weather. We always have good intentions of repacking all the gear but only get around to it every third year or so. This is to be one of those years. I have been told that one container hasn’t been opened for at least three years so it will be quite exciting to see what is stored there.

As I have said before, I don’t read the local paper very often but I happened to pick up a copy yesterday when I stopped for coffee. There was an appalling article about road-kill. Tasmania has an unenviable reputation for the amount of road kill you can find anywhere you go. I’m sure there are various reasons why it is so prevalent here but it’s not a good look for a state which sells itself as a ‘back-to-nature’ destination.

Lloyd Whish-Wilson (what a great name!) has a farm at Hillwood just up the road from us. He said in his article that he was driven to write the article after finding a fully-grown echidna squashed on the road outside his gate. What hurt him was that it was run over on the centre line so the driver must have swerved to hit it. It wasn’t an accident. Andrew has been keeping records of the animals he finds along his road frontage. In the past two years he has identified a sea eagle, two Boobook Owls, a Little Owl, Swamp Hawks, two Quolls, several bandicoots and wombats, and innumerable possums and wallabies. I didn’t keep the list so I’ve relying on memory but the rarer animals and birds stuck in my mind. Andrew believes that a fair number of the victims were run down deliberately and, if that is the case, what sort of sick individuals are we allowing to drive cars. How on earth could you hit an eagle by accident?

Saturday, February 18 .....

I needed a walk today to clear away some of the cobwebs so I packed some lunch and set off mid-morning. My destination was the Launceston Gorge which advertises itself as the most visited tourist attraction in Tasmania. Hmmm! Possibly true, but I would have thought Port Arthur might have a claim on that title.


However, it is beautiful and well worth several visits. My plan was to complete an easy walk and add on something a little harder if I felt up to it. Early in the days of the colony, a power station was built to catch the water in the South Esk River and a lot of work was done at that time to attract visitors into the area. I started walking from the beautiful Kings Bridge, along the northern side of the Gorge until I got to what is called the First Basin. The Second and Third Basins have now been inundated by Lake Trevallyn, but the First Basin is spectacular. There is a large swimming pool, beautiful lawns for picnics a suspension bridge, restaurant and cafe and a chairlift.

The chairlift claims to have the longest span of any chairlift in the world and I have no idea whether that is accurate or not. The restaurant, imaginatively called The Gorge Restaurant, is surrounded by beautiful gardens, super trees, ferns and rhododendrons. Peacocks were introduced here years ago and they still frequent the area. It’s certainly a great place to re-generate and relax.

I was impressed with a very large pine tree which seemed to have footholds cut into the trunk for the whole height of the tree. The tree was an odd pinkish colour and the foliage was a bit dry so perhaps the tree is reaching the end of its life. If so, it will be a major job to remove it safely.

One of the problems that limited access to the Gorge is that it is a very steep climb down from the carpark on the southern side – OK for young people but a bit hard for older folk to get back up to the car. But, today I discovered that the council has built an Inclinator which runs from the carpark, right down to the lowest level with three other stops in between, to give access to the cafe, toilets and the start of other tracks. Fantastic! I bumped into one of my past staff members and, like me, she was heading for the inclinator to take the easy way down.

On the way back I was surprised to find an art piece in among some big boulders. I've walked here many times but have never noticed it before. It consisted of two round stones with flat polished faces. On one was engraved the words LISTEN VII SILENT and on the other, the same words but in mirror-image. I notice that the words LISTEN and SILENT contain the same letter so perhaps there is something magical and significant about their conjunction.

Anyway, by the time I wandered around, I didn’t feel like an extended walk and was happy to get back to the car and head into town for coffee. A good day out!