Category: phototrip

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Blue Tier + myrtle beech rain forest

The Blue Tiers is in the north east of Tasmania and we passed through it on our way to St.Helens.

The early settlers mined tin in much of the George River catchment area between about 1880 and 1930. The clearfelling of native forests by Forestry Tasmania continues supported by the forestry union, the CFMEU and the Tasmanian government, which provides every incentive to destroy the old growth forest.

Within it is a remnant of an ancient Myrtle Beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii) temperate rain forest:

root of Myrtle beech

This was in an area of regenerated rain forest full of ferns and mosses.

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Lake Pedder + Gordon Dam

One of the reasons for going into the Southwest National Park was to see the Gordon Dam and its effects on the ecology of the region.

Gordon Dam

Clearly the dam is the iconic symbol of modernity in Tasmania. A celebration of engineering and hydro power. But keeping the lights on in Strahan comes at a terrible cost—the flooding of Lake Pedder and the damming of the Serpentine and Huon Rivers to ensure high water levels of Lake Pedder so that there can be a continual flow of water from Pedder into Lake Gordon via the McPartlans Pass Canal to drive the power station’s turbines.

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exploring the rain forest

On the way from Queenstown to Quamby Estate to pick up Suzanne after she’d finished walking the Overland Track in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park I stopped off to explore The Franklin – Gordon Wild Rivers National Park for a couple of hours.

fungi+ tree trunk

I wandered around the man made track with my digital camera looking for an image or two that I could take with my film cameras. The rain forest is so messy and the light is so contrasty that I just concentrate on the little details in the open shade in order to be able to handle what consistently defeats me.

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industrial ruins

I leave Queenstown early tomorrow morning to pick up Suzanne from her Cradle Mountain walk at Quamby Estate near Launceston. These mining ruins are from the slag heap site at Zeehan.

industrial ruins, Zeehan

The site is rich both in terms of the ruins of the Tasmanian Smelter Co and the landscape. It is a site that I will have to return to. My time in Queenstown was too short.

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in Queenstown

I’ve spent the last couple of days doing a scoping study of the work that I want to do with the Linhof 5×4 over the next few days, as well as photographing bits and pieces with the Rolleiflex SL66. I’m annoyed.

The backup body of the latter has now gone and I’m down to the Rolleiflex TLR. The 5×4 Linhof becomes my main camera and the Rolleiflex TLR becomes the ancillary camera. I’m out of my comfort zone.

I have found three sites to work at with the Linhof. One is an area around the old Iron Blow Mine. The second is the burnt landscape around the Queenstown airport; burnt because it has had fire through it recently. The third is the ruins of the Tasmanian Smelters site at Zeehan.

slag heap, Zeehan

I know very little about the history of the Zeehan site. I know that in late 1882, silver-lead ore was discovered near the present day site of Zeehan and that this led to the largest mining boom on Tasmania’s west coast with Zeehan being dubbed the ‘Silver City of the West’.

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