Hello !I'm writing to you from The Happy Backpacker in Penguin, Tasmania. It's been one of the first rainy days this summer in Tassie, the farmers will be happy! The weather for the rest of the week should be warm, from 9 to 20c First up are some more piccies from last week's stay at the YHA in Pittwater, courtesy of the German bloke, Matt  The blood moon at it's peak. It was quite special to be so remote and see it so clearly  A monitor lizard, maybe a meter or so long  The orb weaver (i think, also not venomous) who's web I walked into Last Friday I caught an early train to Canberra, arriving in at mid day. I checked in at the only hostel in the city, mostly full of French people in the city for construction jobs. Canberra isn't a city people normally come to when backpacking, but I wanted to see what the deal was. It's got a lot of potential, but its very clear it was designed with cars as the main way to get around :( It feels walkable but everything is so far apart that youd be silly to try and walk around (which i did of course) The museums and sights are really good though!  Cool plane. This part of the war memorial gave me similar vibes to the extension at Kings Cross Station  One thing Canberra does well is impressive lines of sight. In the distance you can see both the old and new parliament houses.  Thank you Gas Industry, your generous contribution to the war memorial will never be forgotten (Read the plaque)  The National Carillon. Donated by the UK to mark 50 years of Australia, i think.  Someone needs to go to Gateshead and double check the angel of the north is still there. (This angel is also in the south of Australia so doesnt make any sense)  The left is the relief used to print the part of the print on the right. Its made out of wood, not linoleum, so required a lot of processing to remove the grain from the wood. Nowadays this would just be done in Photoshop (or by a robot)   Old Parliment house lit up for Enlighten festival. They had loads of events inside & you cold just roam around and sit in the chambers  Parliamentary karaoke   On Saturday I hit up a few more museums.  Parliament, fittingly, looks rather evil here     Spot the Palpatine  Sunday saw me rise early to take the train into Melbourne. I ended up getting a coach most of the way instead because the train was too busy.  Monday I had a lie in before going to buy more camping gear ahead of the Tuesday ferry to Tassie.  A cool laneway (side street) in melbourne  Apple & Pear and Hokey Pokey gelato. Yum Tuesday was the day of my 11 hr ferry to Devonport, Tasmania. I was gonna join a group with a car to drive round tassie for a week, but the bloke was rather weird, so that fell through. Instead I stayed the night in Devonport.  The view leaving Port Phillip  A nice telegraph poll in front of the ferry in Devonport. It looks a lot less cloudy than it felt  Another example with Australia's obsession with making big versions of things On Wednesday it was rainy nearly all day. I decided to head to Penguin, a town named for its little penguins, to the west of Devonport. Its a lovely little town, very quiet.     Which takes us to Wednesday eve. I got a bit overwhelmed the past few days with planning the whole thing without a car, so gonna try and take it a bit easier the next few days. Tomorrow I'm gonna go for a hike then see where I want to go. Book ClubWe have a new segment because I just finished winner of the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Finishing it on Monday was the culmination of close to 6 months traversing it's 760 overwritten, incoherent and obscene pages. Books that reach this level of critical acclaim may normally make their way onto the big screen. Gravity's rainbow has evaded the big screen, simply for the fact that displaying a significant chunk of the scenes described in the book would likely be highly illegal in most countries. The narrative makes the plot of Christopher Nolan's 2020 film, Tenet, feel like a children's story whilst saying absolutely nothing of any interest. I cannot describe how upset I am with myself for deciding to push on with this awful book, nor how glad I am to be able to read something else. On that note... Bye for now! P.S. P.P.S |
