Tasmania

Wednesday, December 9, 2009     Burnie, Tasmania, Australia

Tasmania is a large island off the southeast coast of Australia, and is one of the 6 states of Australia.  Burnie is a small port city of about 20,000 on the north coast.  We took a bus excursion overland to the southwest into the heart of Tasmania, to the Cradle Mountain National Park.  Tasmania is hilly-to-mountainous, and the landscape ranges from lush and verdant to semi-arid.  Something like 80% of it is tied up in protected wilderness areas and national parks.  The rest hosts some very productive and important agriculture, including high-value crops like pyrethrum (for natural insecticides) and opium poppies (for legitimate pharmaceutical intermediates).  It is the home of the endangered Tasmanian Devil and several other unique species.   Here is a picture of a wild wombat which was kind enough to pose for the camera.

One of the stops in the national park was the reconstructed chalet of one August Weindorfer, a pioneer in the area in the 1920's and 1930's.

Throughout the forests in this part of Tasmania there are prominent stands of dead trees with white bark.  The tour guide explained:

"Several years ago we had a young, inexperienced botanist come through these parts planting trees - - only he planted many of the seeds upside-down and the roots came up, which is what you see today."

There's another story that the seeds came from the northern hemisphere and they were just putting out their roots in what they thought was the proper direction.

On the way back from the national park we stopped in the village of Sheffield, known as the Town of Murals.  They have had several competitions whereby international mural artists submit plans for mural paintings they would like to produce, in each case proposed for a particular blank wall on a building in town.  The proposals are judged, winners are selected, and the artists produce their mural paintings, for which they are paid.  Here is one illustrating the "post office tree".  In the late 19th century this was commercial timber country - rugged, with only primitive trails for the logs and the loggers.  The men would be out in the forest for several weeks at a time, but they would receive mail from loved ones, and would write letters to send.  So twice a week the postmaster in Sheffield would ride out on his mule and leave the mail in marked hollowed-out tree trunks, from which he would also pick up outgoing mail.