This will hurt me...

  Ezra hops. Cloudy Bay Beach, Bruny Island. June 2021. Welcome to Nowhere River by Meg Bignell After something on a rocky start, I ended up enjoying  Welcome to Nowhere River  an awful lot. My fear after the first few chapters was that I was being treated to a 'painted by the numbers' chick-lit bit of fluff, populated by cardboard cutout characters moving through familiar patterns to a predictable conclusion, Thankfully, Meg Bignell soon starts to subvert the conventions of the form, and we are treated to a range of well-rounded characters (particularly the women of Nowhere River). Our central character (Carra) is allowed some rough edges, and the author is brave with how she deals with many of the key relationships. As a Tasmanian, I'm not sure that I ever really fully believed in the town, but I enjoyed the story nonetheless. In addition, the story's arc was enjoyable enough to overcome a couple of rather predictable twists. With plenty of laughs and a few tears to ...

  A pair of pandanis, Lake Dobson, Mt Field National Park, Tasmania, April 2021. Van Diemen's Land by James Boyce This book is a worthwhile addition to the works on the early history of what is now called Tasmania. With a primary focus on the first generation of invaders - both convicts and colonisers - while somewhat saddened to find that it is a bit light-on in detail on the island's original inhabitants, the brief glimpse we get is sound. Of more central focus, Boyce explores the significance of the convict presence to the evolution of Van Diemen’s Land. He helps explain the strange  Weltanschauung  that compelled a tiny group of landowners to expunge both convict and Aboriginal from the formal records and popular memory. Such efforts - including the renaming of the island to Tasmania in 1856 - were not without success. However, I think that Boyce is correct when he observes that "Van Diemen's Land never vanished but, by edict of an embarrassed ruling class, it wen...

The Tarn Shelf. Mount Field National Park, April 2021. Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan A strange thing this, Flanagan's first novel. There are moments of sublime beauty in which the rugged Tasmanian west is at once a critical character as it the creator of life and deliverer of death. Beginning with the moment of local river guide Aljaz Cosini's death, the book unravels through a series of flashbacks, imaginings, visions and hallucinations. From here, we travel backwards to Aljaz's birth, then further back to the births, lives and deaths of his forebears. From here, we jump back and forth across time and place, occasionally revisiting Alijaz in the split second of his death as the story plays out. Make no bones about it; the book can be hard going at times. Filled with magical thinking and allusions to Tasmanian history's hard and dark tales, our narrator stands in place for the State. The mongrel stock of convict and free settler, of immigrant and a darker ...

  Seagull on a chimney (I know, I know, it's serious), Hobart, March 2021. Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish   by Richard Flanagan Where to start with this odd beast? We start with a caution that our (initial) narrator cannot be trusted. From here, we enter into his reconstruction of a text that our untrustworthy narrator warns is one of another unreliable narrator. Master Gould (sic) is most insistent in his testimony that the reader cannot trust his account. In this remarkable and peculiar novel, Flanagan explores the nature of memory, history and the very grand stories that individuals and nations console themselves. What is 'true' much depends upon who is asking and what is it they wish to hear. In this, the history of Van Diemen's Land presents exceptional fodder. More succinctly, it is a tale of a bullshitter. The narrator is a bullshitter in love with bullshitting. In that, he understands that bullshit is all that we can ever have. From here, the r...

Ezra finds a tree. Walk to Cathedral Rock, Mount Wellington. http://sundaystealing.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/the-super-bowl-li-questions.html  01 What is the worst nickname that anyone has ever called you? I never liked “Finger” (McCRACKen). It generally led people in an impure direction. 02 Have you got a favourite flower? I like pansies. And proteas. 03 Do you add a sauce, ketchup or other artificial flavourings to your food? I’m not sure what is meant by “artificial”? If you mean “condiments”, I occasionally use them. Mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire Sauce, soy sauce. That kind of thing. 04 Describe yourself using only words that begin with the letter 'T'. Tenacious. Thinking. Tumultuous. 05 What is your lover's pet name for you?  You’d have to ask her. I’m not sure that she says it out loud. 06 What is your least favourite colour? Teal. Or cyan. Or maybe puce. 07 Who did you vote for in the last election, and did they win? I honestly can’t remembe...

Lazy Australian fur seals #1. The Friars, south of Bruny Island, Tasmania. September 2013. Wordless Wednesday. Lazy Australian fur seals #2. The Friars, south of Bruny Island, Tasmania. September 2013. Lazy Australian fur seals #3. The Friars, south of Bruny Island, Tasmania. September 2013. Lazy Australian fur seals #4. The Friars, south of Bruny Island, Tasmania. September 2013. Lazy Australian fur seals #5. The Friars, south of Bruny Island, Tasmania. September 2013.

Can you believe it? He's smiling in a photo!

That's right. We've been using Henry as bait for the infamous Blue Ringed Octopus...

Heavy lifting. Fossil Bay Cove, Tinderbox. December 2012. We've actually been away all week and all of these posts have been automated, so this week's Theme Thursday theme is actually VACATION.

Ferns. Waverley Flora Park, Bellerive. December 2012. Sunday Top Five ? Okay, My Top Five Reasons For Not Doing A Top Five Today! I don't feel like it. I REALLY don't feel like it. Whining children are annoying me. I have washing to hang out. I don't feel like it.

Snug Falls. Snug, southern Tasmania. October 2012. Theme Thursday and again, for a week we are TOGETHER. Just like these photographs are TOGETHER. Henry and Ezra are usually TOGETHER. Jen and I are more often than not TOGETHER. Ice creams and sticky hands. Chocolate and guilt. Sex and death. Bert and Ernie. Wallace and Grommit. Christmas and regret. Flags and racists. Some things just inevitably go TOGETHER. Jen adjusts. Snug Falls, Snug, southern Tasmania. October 2012.

Tasmanian badlands. Somewhere on the Midland Highway (around Bothwell). February 2012. Sunday again and consider this week's Top Five a companion to last time . Thus, without further ado: My Top Five People Named Ezra! Ezra McCracken : Handsome devil heart-breaker-type... Ezra Jack Keats : Storybook hero... Ezra Pound : Angry fascist poet... Ezra Heywood : Free love socialist-type... Ezra the Scribe : Lead the Jews from Babylon-type...

The little bloke has nerves of steel, the constitution of an ox and the character of an aged Bactrian camel. Just look at that resolute gaze as the frigid waves crash into him!

Who put that rock there? Tasman Peninsula, January 2011. That's Hippolyte Rock there. Apparently, it's a small granite island and part of the Tasman Island Group, close to the south-eastern coast of Tasmania around the Tasman Peninsula. I snapped this shot from around Eaglehawk Neck (to the north). The island has a flat top and is surrounded by steep cliffs up to 65 metres high. It belongs to the Tasman National Park and houses a whole bunch of breeding seabird species, including Little Fairy Penguins, Short-tailed Shearwater, Sooty Shearwater, Fairy Prion, Common Diving-Petrel, Silver Gull and Black-faced Cormorant. Australian Fur Seals also knock about the island, which makes it an attractive proposition for Great White Sharks... The view south from the east side of Tasman Peninsula. January 2011. The presence of the seals probably does enough to justify the tag "shark-infested". No sign of dorsal fins in this photo though. The Devil's Kitchen, as viewed fro...

This used to be an orphanage. Poor orphans! St Johns Park, New Town. March 2011. The King's Orphan School , later, the Queen's Orphan School , was built in 1833 to provide for people who weren’t quite orphans; that is, the children of convict women, orphans those whose parent were unable to support them and abandoned children. It seems that the ‘school’ was a bleak and over-crowded establishment, with headmasters who were more interested in their own profits than they were the wellbeing of the children in their care. The minutes of one of the Board of Management meetings makes for grim reading. … Children had never been furnished with Porridge, but merely a very thin Gruel -- that the Oatmeal provided for making a thick porridge could not have been used, & that what had been used was never weighed or measured. -- that the Childrens Tea was made in a Boiler contg about 6 Galls of water, a handful of Tea with some Sugar & Milk being thrown into the Boiler, wit...

He is back in Tasmania!!! Now what?

Henry is a firm believer that Tasmania is a nice place, but that there are too many trees and that they spoil his view . Being a determined fellow, he's made it his life's mission to take a few out, starting with this one!

Back when Tasmania was still Van Diemen's Land, a lot of babies died. A lot of babies. Earlier this week I spent my lunch break wandering around St David's Park here in Hobart looking at the gravestones they tore up to make a park. I snapped a few photos off, and noticed the preponderance of children's gravestones. The stones alone tell a bit of a story so I'll keep my mouth shut and let you look.

The fine features of the Hyro building in Hobart. Sunday Top Five Eleven! Today's list is in celebration of Tasmania's epic run chase to defeat Western Australia on Friday, which saw rookie wicketkeeper Brady Jones snare two fours off the last two balls of a four day game, with no wickets to spare. It is only fitting then that today I offer up my Top Five Eleven Favourite Tasmanian Tigers! I've tried to keep a balanced squad, but top be honest, my distaste for the two most famous Tasmanian cricketers - Ricky Ponting and David Boon - has seen me pass them over at the selection table. Similarly, two imports - Michael Beven and Shane Watson - have also been overlooked because, well, I've never liked 'em. Thus, the side is not the strongest batting lineup ever seen. That said, if we have a green top and a bit of cloud in the sky, I'd wager that my pace attack would keep any scores very low. McCracken's Tasmanian Tigers All-Time Squad Jamie Cox : Wynyard's...

Sometimes, truth can be found in the margins . Here is a little seen angle on the Aurora Australis , which has now left port for the heady journey through the Southern Ocean . Good luck people. God Speed!