In This Issue :
Hopefully by the time you read this you’ll have already pulled out your bushwalking sunhat and rucksack out for a bit of springtime adventuring. The evening sunlight will help you stay outdoors for a bit longer to enjoy the flowers and green sprouts.
You’ll want to dig out your gumboots so you can join an excursion panning for sapphires in the northeast of Tasmania. While you probably won’t find massive gemstones to turn into jewellery, you definitely will find yourself in cold water amongst waterfalls, treeferns, and other keen fossickers. Good luck!
If you find yourself keen on a few days hard trekking in the dolerite mountains, check out Mountain Journal’s trail notes on the spectacular Gould Circuit. Just near the north end of Lake St Clair, this area contains some of the most rugged and striking of the high Tasmanian mountains.
We’ll also look back in time from here. There’s a 1954 documentary – A Tasmanian Story – that rides strong on the feelings of progress and industry of the time. It’s a bit of a time capsule to attitudes, ideas, and aspirations of five decades age, and perhaps reminds us of how nuanced our modern views of “progress” are. Keep your eyes open for a view of the train platforms, street cars, and metro buses of the 1950s! If you look very carefully, you might even find a seaplane!
And to round it off, we’ll look in fine detail at a map published by a prominent British cartography house in 1834. Arrowsmith’s map includes a wide region of the famous “blank space”, but it also has some curious things included. Using our virtual magnifying glass, we’ll zoom in to some of the sketches and notes…only 180 years ago nobody could have even imagined aerial photography, to say nothing of satellite images available via smartphone!
Enjoy!
All the best,
The Editor
