Strahan

Initially, I’d planned to only be in Strahan for one day. Due to a failure to turn on my cell phone alarm, however, I missed the bus to Hobart. And because it only comes every two days I was stuck in Strahan.

The extra time allowed me to take a hike I’d wanted to do the day before. For some reason the path was closed. It was raining all day, which seemed appropriate for walking through rain forest. Hogarth Falls were beautiful.

On my walk back through town that afternoon, one of the bikers was standing on the footpath by the tavern. He recognized me from the night before and invited me to join the group inside for drinks and watching the Melbourne Cup on TV. Admittedly, none of them seemed to care much about the horse race but had placed bets on it anyway. It was miserable outside so we stayed at the tavern talking sports, art, politics and so on.

The next day I created several sand sculptures. It began with a suggestion of two platypuses. Those two weren't enough to occupy much time--and by this point I'd done everything I wanted to do in town--so I made a turtle and a snail. There were a couple little girls playing with their dads on the playground nearby, so I asked them for advice on what to make next. The girls got fairly excited about a dinosaur and wanted to help. One of them promptly stepped on all of the animals I'd made thus far while the other piled some wet sand into a mound with me. They stuck around for a good fifteen minutes before getting bored and moving on. I finished the dinosaur and think it ended up pretty good.

After creating some art, I went to look at the two galleries. They both had some amazing woodwork as well as paintings, photographs and glass. Most of the wood pieces were crafted from Huon pine. The native tree has an incredibly fine grain, growing miniscule amounts per year, and has thus been highly prized by craftsmen since settlement. Most pine forests were hard to access and high in the mountain bush, which is one of the reasons why the railroads were built to the west from cities like Hobart and Launceston. Had the pines not been so difficult to log and transport there would probably be none left. After a while they realized how slowly the trees grew and that some in the forests were over 3000 years old. Now the piners only use trees after they have fallen naturally. It limits high production of Huon goods but still allows for their use.

The rest of the day was mostly spent birdwatching and drawing. Minimally exciting. Incredibly restful.