To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.

Stalactites? We've got a few... Hastings Cave, Huon Valley. June 2011.

Hastings Caves - deep down in the south of Tasmania - was our destination last Saturday. Henry was initially reticent, but once assured that there are no bears in this state (koala's included), he ventured into the subterranean depths...

Stalagmites? Them too... Hastings Cave, Huon Valley. June 2011.

Newdegate Cave is the largest of the Hastings set. in terms of a cavern, it's a big-un! As today is my last day of freedom, we're heading to the east coast for the beach. Don't fret, because I have plenty of cave pics to savour through the day.

Spooky? Absolutely! Hastings Cave, Huon Valley. June 2011.

We spent an hour in Newdegate's massive and varied cavern. Everywhere you turn there's something to look at: flowstone, stalactites, columns, shawls, straws, stalagmites and the unusual helictites that grow in all directions!

Comments

Roddy said…

The speech really wasn't wasted on you. You either have fantastic recall or you were taking notes that I didn't notice

13 June 2011 at 16:34

Kris McCracken said…

I listened.

13 June 2011 at 18:27

Roddy said…

I guess I did too as most of it stuck in my head as well.

13 June 2011 at 20:27

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

This will hurt me...

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