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If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.


You might be fooled into thinking that the top of Mount Wellington is a peak of some kind, with Henry, Ezra, Jennifer and I all precariously balanced on tip toes while endeavouring to take photographs and spit on the people below us.

Alas, you'd be wrong!

The top of Mount Wellington is in fact a Mars-like landscape. In February 1836, Charles Darwin himself visited Hobart and climbed the vicious beast. In The Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin described the mountain thus:
"... The summit of the mountain is broad and flat, and is composed of huge angular masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation is 3,100 feet (940 m) above the level of the sea. The day was splendidly clear, and we enjoyed a most extensive view; to the north, the country appeared a mass of wooded mountains, of about the same height with that on which we were standing, and with an equally tame outline: to the south the broken land and water, forming many intricate bays, was mapped with clearness before us. ..."

You can see Henry above doing his best Darwin impression...

Comments

Roddy said…
My theory is that Darwin would have had no concept of Henrys' theories.
yamini said…
It sure looks like Mars landscape in the background. Did Henry make any discovery, while on top of that mountain?
Kris McCracken said…
Yamini, he did find a dozen lizards.

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