Category Archives: Walking

Perhaps walking has similarities with cycling passions

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As an avid spectator of professional international cycling (despite never having ridden a bike), when I watched the short video Pleasure in Pain – A Cycling Movie filmed in South Australia, I felt so much of what was said was true for me when I walk.  I listened to well-loved race commentator Phil Liggett’s dulcet tones as he explained the aspects which cyclists enjoy.

For ‘once cycling is in your blood you cannot get rid of it’, I would substitute ‘once walking is in your blood you cannot get rid of it’.  One of the quotations used in this movie reads ‘Sometimes I ride my bike to nowhere, to see nothing, just so I can ride my bike.’  Sometimes as I walk, I look down at the ground without seeing, and enjoy the sense of my body moving, feeling the air pressing by, and noticing the day heating or cooling my body, but all the while moving my feet one more step at a time. Walking just to walk. Being directly connected to the environment through which I am passing. Thrilling!

I suspect Phil’s sentiments also hold true for all manner of other athletes and sportspeople who push themselves outside their comfort zones, but love it despite the pain and go back for more.

The Santos Tour Down Under race will be held again next January in South Australia; information about the race and more about the video can be read at this link.

Derwent Valley Gazette

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Despite the Derwent River emptying into the sea approximately 60Kms east from New Norfolk, reference to the Derwent Valley usually centres on New Norfolk and further west then north west. The reach of the Derwent Valley’s newspaper extends further to the highlands around the hundreds of lakes in central Tasmania. The Gazette (http://www.pressreader.com/australia/the-gazette-derwent-valley/textview)  is the ‘voice of the valley’.

The Gazette front page Aug 2015

I expect this regular newspaper will provide insights into local conditions and activities which might impact on my future walks.  For example, I have discovered there will be an Ouse & Highlands Festival on Saturday the 17th October. An entry on the Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/Ouse.festival) gives an indication of progress: ‘As part of the Children”s entertainment at the Festival we now have The Balloon Lady booked in as well as a Face Painter. It’s looking good.’ Another future activity will be the first stage of a trout fishing contest, the Tasmanian Trout Classic scheduled for the 29 and 30th August somewhere near New Norfolk.  Subsequent stages will be held at Arthurs Lake and the Great Lake.  Apparently last year’s contest attracted ‘huge interest from around the Valley, with a great crowd at daily weigh-in.’ It is a different world in the Valley: recent players at the New Norfolk Golf Club found ‘the entire course was frozen, but that didn’t stop some red-hot scoring.’

I look forward to reading more snippets of information about that new world inland from Hobart.

Walking again – not yet

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Regular blog readers know I am eager to restart my walk inland along the Derwent River, and that my next travel date is dependent on the weather being suitable.

Despite unexpected occasional snow flurries in the higher areas, Hobart’s rising temperature and minimal rainfall has become more agreeable by the day, so recently I decided that it was time to tackle the walk west from New Norfolk to Gretna at the end of this week.

Unfortunately, the long range weather forecasts in the Bushy Park area, where I will be camping overnight before passing through, indicate the mornings will be -3 degrees and the days only rising to 14 degrees maximum (I cannot see any pleasure in breaking the ice in the morning to make a cup of tea).  In addition, a few splashes of rain are forecast. In reading these projections, I am reminded that the climatic situation in Hobart is not the same as in areas located many kilometres inland.  So, regrettably I must let a few more weeks pass before continuing on.

For me the perfect walking environment includes a temperature of between 15 and 21 degrees Celsius, a sunny day preferably without a cloud in the sky, and almost no breeze (definitely no wind). Before each walk I hope rain has cleaned the air so that all the green vegetation sparkles – but that everything I stroll through is no longer wet. During the early walking stages, I had quite a few of such lucky days – and I am hoping for more.

Tent practice

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I have slept in tents but not for many years. Over the past days I realised that I have never camped in a tent without a car nearby, except for my overnighters on the Overland Track (during which I stayed in huts). That is, all my bushwalking experiences have been day walks not requiring the carrying of a tent.

Recently I set out to practice sleeping in my new tent in order to accustom myself to the noises of the night (at home I have double glazed windows so that sleep time is a silent time).  In order to complete my record of all aspects of my trek along the Derwent, I am including this post – but you will recognise a nincompoop in capital letters when you read about my first experience.

Last week I was tired when I put on shoes and socks (trying to be a little authentic), slipped on my headlamp and treked off into the night from my home’s front door. A few metres down the hill into my backyard, where I had pitched my tent earlier in the day, I unzipped the rain-dropped tent fly, fumbled with the tent zip, and quickly fell through the hole created, into the tent. Twisting around, I was immediately sitting comfortably on my borrowed mattress (thanks Ju) all the while slipping around on the new sleeping bag, reaching out and rezipping my tent fly, and untying my shoe laces. Off came the shoes and I was really pleased with the way one side of the tent fly makes a little vestibule. The shoes could sit there on the grass protected from the rain. Pulled in the legs and zipped the tent. It was difficult to keep still; the shiny sleeping bag surface was constantly moving beneath me.

I have an incline for a back yard, not very steep but my block of land is not horizontal.  Earlier in the day I had installed the tent in a place where the trees and bushes wouldn’t scratch past the tent if there was any wind, and where it didn’t seem as steep a slope as elsewhere. Of course I discovered a shiny sleeping bag on a slope is not conducive for continuous sleep. Ridiculously hopeless from the beginning and a good lesson learnt.

Inside the tent I had plenty of room, and was perfectly set up for a good night’s sleep. The sleeping bag was snug and cocoon like. I was wearing a thermal top, socks and fleece trousers but it was too hot in that little tube to wear them all. So I am very happy with the ability of my new sleeping bag to keep me warm overnight.

But whenever I wriggled or turned over, down I slipped heading towards the bottom of the tent. Each downward slide required a new effort from me, inside that zipped up close-fitting cocoon, to lump/hump myself back up towards the top of the tent. Get positioned. Go to sleep. Wake up to find I am turning over in my sleep and heading south. Grunt and groan to get myself back uphill again. Super sleep. Oh oh. Going downhill again. Repeat the manoeuvre. Rest. Contemplate how happily warm I am. Fall deeply and happily asleep.

Waking yet again, I realised the mattress was turning cold. I was very warm inside my nylon tube but where my body touched, a penetrating cold was coming through. Why, I wondered. Was the mattress deflating? No it did not seem to be. Unexplainable but not good. I willed myself to sleep and slipped off yet again into the land of nod.

It was when I awoke around 4am, the mattress was too cold, and I was at the bottom of the tent heading towards a foetal position that I remembered I did have a bed to go to.  Feet into the shoes, out into the drizzle, and then ‘home’. Yes – later I did feel rested. Friends can see a cartoon or two coming out of this ‘adventure’!

This weekend I headed into the country and, thanks to blog follower Ju, I was able to camp on a more rural property out in an apple orchard. Deliberately I set the tent up in an area that is normally considered a possum and wallaby thoroughfare because I wanted to see if the scampering and vocal gymnastics of these native animals would wake or alarm me.

Tasmania is home to 5 species of possum.  The type most commonly found where I camped would have been the Common Brushtail Possum (photo below is from Tasmanian Wildlife Matters http://www.wildlifematters.org.au/Brushtail_Possum.htm)

Common Brushtail Possum

Which of Tasmania’s two species of wallaby were grazing around me overnight, I will never know. It could have been either or both the Bennett’s wallaby

Bennetts_Wallaby2

(Photo from Tasmanian Wildlife Matters http://www.wildlifematters.org.au/Bennetts_Wallaby.htm) or the Pademelon also known as the Rufous wallaby (Photo from Tasmanian Wildlife Matters http://www.wildlifematters.org.au/Tas_Pademelon.htm)

Pademelon

There are no funny stories from my night in the orchard. I slept flat. The mattress didn’t become cold. The animals didn’t wake me.  I slept.  Outside in the morning, a carpet of hard frost covered the land – but I was never cold inside the tent. Apprenticeship over!

A light rain dusted the tent before dismantling, and continued while I packed up. So my only issue now is to find a clever way to dry a tent before repacking when I am out and about on my walks.

Special Anniversary

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Establishment Milestone remembered:

On 15 August 2014 I conceived the idea to walk the length of our Derwent River from the mouth to the source, and began this blog.  That was when I found the glorious photo of the Derwent River taken from the top of Mount Wellington and set it as my heading for permanent sharing with you.

Best Bester Bestest Good Gooder Goodest

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Did I attract your attention? Did I make you cringe? Perhaps I need to improve my writing or some other feature.

Blogger and follower of my blog, Ma, recently forwarded me a connection to Karen Andrew’s ‘10 Tips to Improve Your Blogging’. If you subscribe to Andrew’s newsletter she forwards the e-book to you for free: go to her site  if interested. The intention of today’s post today is to try out one of her suggestions. Andrews recommends bloggers ask their readership for ideas for improvement.

If you read the Frequently Asked Questions section on my blogsite you can see a list of my intentions for this walking project. Do you think I can achieve some of these goals in a better way? If so, what should I do?  Should the content be different?  If so, what ideas do you have? How about the format of the blog – should that be different?  If so, what suggestions can you make?

A big thankyou

I have been delighted with the engagement of many of my blog’s followers – those who give me gifts of links and connections to information and ideas are truly valued. Thank you. And an additional special thank you to all the writers of those wonderful blogs that excite and motivate me, and for those that make me rethink my conditioned and tired old ways of thinking. Blogging has opened new worlds for me.

Bloggers associating with mainstream media

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After blog reader Jo became aware of various discussions by people interested in blogging in association with mainstream media, he forwarded a link to me.

Friends know that I can talk the leg off a table about my walking and related research projects. Therefore, if an opportunity was presented to me to talk about what I am doing on radio, television or write for the print media, I would welcome this.  But at the moment I am not interested in being proactive and engineering such opportunities; I am simply enjoying myself too much with the research and walks.  Yet because I do hope to inspire others to get out and make their own life projects large or small, not necessarily along a river like the Derwent and not necessarily walking, then perhaps I should make the time to broadcast more widely using mainstream media. Have any of my followers thought through this and, of so, what have you decided or done?  What have been the outcomes?

My blog is already directly connected to social media. It has its own Facebook and Twitter sites, and is connected to LinkedIn. I like the fact that these manage themselves and require minimal action from me, thereby releasing me for further research. But is this enough?

In the online article, “Ms Perera said working with mainstream media helped boost her credibility as writer and her social media followers. ‘It helped me in terms of going forward with my blog… having being published in places like Fairfax just makes your work seem more substantial,’ she said.”  Until reading this, it had not occurred to me that some people believe a hierarchy of media types exists and that bloggers are somehow less credible than writers in the mainstream media.  What do other bloggers think about this, I wonder?

Carly Jacobs in the online article said ‘she knew other bloggers who had been burned by their interactions with traditional media. “I’ve got lots of blogging friends that have had very, very negative experiences in working with mainstream media. Particularly personal bloggers. A lot of the time they’ve been misquoted, or they haven’t really understood the relationship…. I think bloggers are a little bit more sensitive to other people’s privacy, whereas mainstream journalists are trained to get ‘the good story’ out of people.”’  I wonder if my followers have any experiences they wish to share on this point.

What about bloggers seeking financial gain?

I imagine all blog writers would love a dribble if not a rush of income from their regular reports. This is perfectly understandable for those writing with the commercial motivation to sell a product or a service. However, I believe there are thousands of us who simply love what we do and what we write about, and we will continue to do so without expectation of dollars floating into our bank accounts.  I will be interested in the viewpoint of those of my regular blog followers who have their own blog.  Are you already attracting or trying to attract sponsoring advertisers to bring you some income?

Golden acacias

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In our Tasmanian bush and in the suburbs Spring is evidenced by the budding and blooming of the early flowering native acacias. Last year, I included photographs of a few different varieties of these trees, commonly known as wattles, in various blog posts. Over the weekend during a suburban ramble, I was delighted to come across the early awakenings of a couple of wattle trees.

In my photo below, on the lower left of the image you can see some ‘open’ flower balls. As yet I have not been able to identify this acacia tree: it looked something like an Acacia Riceana otherwise known as the Arching Wattle, but it was not a prickly bush so this means it is another variety of the 950 species of acacias.

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Wattles have been known and used by Australia’s indigenous population for thousands of years as an excellent food source. According to WildSeed Tasmania  , the Acacia mearnsii ‘Black Wattle’ is one of a number of local wattle trees which have edible seeds suitable for flour production and for medicinal uses of its bark. More information can be read at Bush Tucker Edible Acacias. The Australian Native Food Industry says the edible parts are ‘Seed – the seed is harvested, then roasted and can be ground or sold whole. The flowers (without stalks) can also be used, typically in pancakes, scones and scrambled eggs or omelettes.’ This website also contains information about the nutritional value: wattle seed is a high energy source, contains a wide range of minerals and provides valuable fibre to the diet. The seed pods appear in the first part of the year so, when I am walking along the Derwent in the first three months of 2016, I will remember this readily available food source.

Finding cooked produce containing wattle seed in cafes or restaurants is not unusual. Native Tastes of Australia lists many recipes for mouthwatering cakes, pies, meat dishes and much more.

Yam Daisies

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Thanks to information and photographs supplied by blog follower, Ma from Melbourne, I will be more alert for the plant and flower Microseris scapigera or Microseris lanceolata known by indigenous Australians as Yam daisy or Murnong. Ma told me these plants would provide nourishment as I walked.

Yam daisy Microseris-scapigera-2-226x226

The photo above is located on http://www.victoriannativeseed.com.au/?product=yam-daisy . As the flower continues to open, the similarity with our common dandelion becomes obvious, and a number of websites suggest the dandelion head is similar to the seed head of the Yam Daisy.  It seems perfectly understandable that this plant may be referred to as the native dandelion and it explains why, when walking in our bushland affected by the intrusion of exotic plants, the possibility of misidentification exists. From Wikipedia I have learned that ‘the Tasmanian form is markedly smaller than the mainland Australian form’.

According to http://www.anbg.gov.au/gardens/visiting/exploring/aboriginal-trail  ‘This small perennial plant … has a radish-shaped tuber, which is renewed each year. In the spring the plant forms a yellow flower-head like a dandelion, and in the summer the leaves die off and the tuber becomes dormant. The tubers were cooked in baskets in an earth oven, producing a dark sweet juice which was much liked.’

The Yam Daisy has offered a traditional source of food for indigenous Australians. Wikipedia claims the tubers were ‘prepared by roasting or pit baking; the taste is described as “sweet with a flavour of coconut’.  Sounds yummy to me! The website http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/botanic-gardens/pubs/aboriginal-plantuse.pdf tells us that the ‘Yam Daisy was a most important staple food. Women dug the roots with digging sticks and then roasted them in baskets in an earth oven. Digging for roots turned over the soil and thinned out the root clumps, two ways of encouraging plant production. Aboriginal people didn’t take the lot or there’d be none left for next time! Aboriginal people believed that the roots of ‘murnong’ should not be collected before the plants flowered. This was probably because during the drier winter period before springtime flowering, the roots would not be fully developed.’

Women digging roots of yam daist State LIb of Vic

The drawing above by J.H. Wedge (1835), showing women digging roots of the Yam Daisy, is held in the collection of the State Library of Victoria. You can see a detailed drawing of a digging stick at https://www.anbg.gov.au/aborig.s.e.aust/roots.bulbs.html.

According to https://tasmanica.wordpress.com/tag/yam-daisy/ ‘… the Yam Daisy (Microseris lanceolata) or ‘Murnong’ as it is known by tuber hunting aborigines on the mainland, has a convoluted history. This makes it a subject of ecological and evolutionary interest to biologists. Its closest relatives are found in western North America. Based on morphological and chromosome studies, the Yam Daisy probably came about by the hybridization of two American species followed by long distance dispersal – quite a distance I might add. So it goes that aborigines were eating foods of American origin way back. This marvellous feat of intercontinental dispersal has been confirmed more recently by studies using DNA extracted from the chloroplasts (cpDNA) of American and the Australian/New Zealand species of Microseris (Vijverberg et al. 1999).’

In my walks along the Derwent River, I have seen these Yam Daisy flowers from time to time. Of course, next time I will look at the plants more closely.

Australian stamping grounds

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Blog reader, Ju, surprised me with an unexpected gift; a freshly minted set of postal stamps.  Recently Australia Post released the set noting 4 Great Australian Walks: The National Pass in New South Wales, the Cape to Cape Track in Western Australia, the Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory, and the Overland Track in Tasmania.

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On each of the four gloriously coloured stamps, a photograph of an iconic landscape represents each Walk. On the edge of each stamp, a white featureless body with a pack-on-the-back shape represents one or more people walking. Mentally you can pop yourself into the body and become that walker.

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The image for Tasmania’s Overland Track is Cradle Mountain. This marks the commencement in northern Tasmania for the 60km walk which winds southwards and ends at Lake St Clair (regular blog readers know the southern end of that Lake is where the Derwent River commences its life).  I walked the Overland Track in 2006 and strongly recommend it to others; leisurely – over 6 days with walks off the main path and plenty of time to soak in the atmosphere.  I remember that when I saw some of the mountains on the west coast of Tasmania way in the distance, I realised Tasmania was not so large. I thought it would be possible to walk across this state from the east to the west but I have not pursued that idea. Yet.

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Looking across to Cradle Mountain and beyond, and at its reflection in the pristine Dove Lake at its feet, I can see a light powdering of snow.  Currently, snow is very topical.

Over the past few days, Hobart and the rest of Tasmania have received loads of snow the likes of which hasn’t been seen here for 30 years.  News and social media are brimming with sensational photos many showing the thrill of this unusual flurry: for example, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-03/snow-across-tasmania-forces-many-key-road-closures/6666838 and http://www.news.com.au/national/tasmania/cold-brings-warnings-and-snow-wonder/story-fnn32rbc-1227467164313.

Most appropriate for this blog about Walking the Derwent, is the photo I found of The Hungry Wombat Café at Derwent Bridge (the township at the southern end of Lake St Clair to which I will walk sooner or later). When you look at the photo below (taken from the website above), you will understand why I am not walking inland at the moment.

Snow at The Hungry Wombat Cafe Derwent Bridge 030815

Wild West with Ray Mears

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Blog reader, Be, alerted me to the third in a BBC program series, ‘Wild West with Ray Mears’. This episode focused on mountains and followed Mears travelling through the Appalachians, the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada to evaluate the landscape and its effect on the early European settlers as they moved west in North America.  Be indicated there was river edge walking and this reminded her of my quest to walk along the Derwent River in Tasmania – so I was eager to watch the documentary.

Ray Mears and Wild West DVD cover

I found that Ray Mears did access various rivers and streams to emphasize parts of his story, but direct connections to my walking project were slight. However, I found his story to be important because it has prompted me to ask new questions about the Derwent River and its most recent European settler history.  Hopefully others have already conducted research and can supply me with some answers – any leads will be welcome.

  • After initial settlement in Van Diemen’s Land at Risdon on the Derwent River in 1803, what was the nature of the westward push along the Derwent River by European settlers? Do we have names of the people and families of those who moved west? What are the dates associated with these movements?  What are their stories?
  • Why did they move along the River? Did they stop and set up camp, house or agricultural property? Do those buildings or farming properties still exist?  Is the land now in private or organisational hands or is it Crown Land? Or were people only passing through?  If so, what was their intended destination? Did people moving inland along the Derwent find some parts of the wilderness edging the River made their further progress impossible so that they moved away from the River? What are the movement stories?
  • To what extent was the River used for transport between Lake St Clair and New Norfolk? Where and when? What was transported on the River? Can anyone name ships/boats that were used? Were there recognised ferries across the River above New Norfolk?  I know the Derwent River has a series of rapids further towards the source.  Did these inhibit river travel?
  • In the rivers of the United States’ Rockies mountains, the ‘mountain men’ trapped beavers for their fur. Their fur was used to create a strong felt which could be used for those increasingly tall hats that were fashionable in the 18th century. What was the nature of any trade in possum skins and those of other animals that might have persuaded hunters to walk the Derwent River?  What are their stories?
  • Massive removal and usage of natural resources supported the westward movement of European settlers across America. When did forestry operations and logging commence west of Hobart in the Derwent Valley and how was the Derwent River used to support those operations? What mining expeditions and investigations were made along the Derwent River? When and by whom?  What were the outcomes of these searches and trials and finds?

Ray Mears met with a muleteer who explained why he loved being in the wilderness: ‘I leave no trace as I pass and just move through like a shadow’.  I hope that is how I walk.

Shelter for the walk

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In future months I will be sleeping out on a few nights when I head off from New Norfolk towards Lake St Clair trudging beside the Derwent River. In the past few days I have outlaid outlandish sums of money when I purchased the lightest sleeping bag and tent.  Collectively they weigh 1.99kg.  We all have our priorities and mine is clearly to walk to Lake St Clair with the minimum of discomfort.  For others who might follow in my footsteps and expect to seek the lightest gear, as an example here is what I bought.

  1. The tent, a Marmot Force 1P, has a bright lime green shell supported by slim ‘Featherlite’ steel rods. In this one person tent I will be able to sit up (head zone is 91cm high), load the contents of my backpack at my feet (length less than 2 metres), and sit my backpack outside in the triangular vestibule.  It has a full coverage fly. The documentation with the tent indicates the package weighs 1.06kg.

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Yes this is the tent set up in the comfort of my loungeroom!  It was a trial installation; first the tent and then the fly.

  1. The sleeping bag is a Mountain Design Ultra Tek 470 with a black 20 Denier shell, a vivacious orange coloured zip defining one edge and the inside of the bag is aflame with more brilliant orange fabric. Pertex Quantum is the windproof fabric used to reduce the weight without sacrificing strength and abrasion resistance. IApparently the fabric’s softness allows insulation in the sleeping bag to have more loft. A special feature is the water repellence of the 750 Duck Down Tek fill. The sleeping bag, including the stuff sack, weighs a mere 0.93kg.

Sleeping bags are temperature rated in 3 different measurements:

  • Comfort (C) is based on a standard adult woman having a comfortable night’s sleep
  • Limit (L) is based on the lowest temperature at which a standard adult male is deemed to be able to have a comfortable night’s sleep
  • Extreme (E) is a survival only rating for a standard adult woman

The temperature rating guide for my sleeping bag is C=1, L = -4, and E = -21 degrees.

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I still need to obtain one further comfort item; an inflatable mattress which weighs next to nothing.  More research required.

Food for the walk

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I have been planning for overnight camps, which I will need to make when I continue walking into the wilderness along the Derwent River.  On many occasions, the highway, byways and back roads will be far distant from the River making it necessary to pack shelter and supplies for one and two overnight stops. I know I won’t be able to carry much weight and so all things feather light are being researched and sought.

As part of my preparation, recently I purchased an Ezidri food drier.

Ezidri Ezidri mesh layer Ezidri ordinary layerDried food

Over time I have sliced spring onions, carrots, beetroot, capsicum, garlic, leaves of silver beet and mushrooms, and reduced them to tiny dry twigs and flakes. In addition, I have dried pulled slivers of precooked chicken legs and turkey mince.  During the process four bananas were sliced and dried. Can you identify all the shrivelled remains in the glass jars above?

Yesterday I experimented with reconstituting some of these foods and making a meal – albeit on my kitchen stove top.

Firstly, I added a small portion of all the vegetables plus a small quantity of the turkey mince into a small zip lock bag.  Then I sprinkled a little cayenne pepper, ground a few fresh back pepper corns and sea salt crystals, and added a small teaspoon of chicken flavoured powdered stock into the zip lock bag.  After closing the bag I shook it to mix the ingredients.  Into my billy I poured these dry contents and then added a 600ml bottle of cold water.

I was curious to learn how long it would take for the meat and vegetables to swell and soften.  After 15 minutes I could see that full reconstitution had not occurred. However, I was bored with waiting and I imagined that in the bush I would be ravenously hungry.  For the sake of the home experiment, I decanted the ingredients into a normal saucepan and cooked the meal on my kitchen stove top for 10 minutes.

I am delighted to say this was one of the best tasting meals I have had in a long time.  The liquid was gloriously coloured by the beetroot and despite many of the vegetables not being fully reconstituted, all the food was soft and full of original flavour.

When still in the zip top bag before cooking, I weighed the meal: only 100grams.  This low weight is very encouraging. My next experiment will be to cook a meal using the dried chicken. I can only imagine that should be equally successful.  But more research required.

Searching for my place in history

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When I talk with strangers about my project to walk from the mouth to the source of the Derwent River, people often ask why. I trot out a range of reasons but, in truth, it is never clear to me at a deep level why I am making this walk.

My experiences over the past few days have given me new insights.

Earlier this year I began immersing myself in family history searches, with the view to knowing something of family members who were born and had died before me.

When I realised that the 150th anniversary of arrival in Melbourne Australia from England of the first family with my surname, from which I am a directly descended, will occur next year (2016), I decided to find and see where they lived in Victoria. Last Friday, I walked the Melbourne suburban streets of Carlton and the areas governed by the Boroondara City Council in Hawthorn of Glenferrie, Auburn, Deepdene, Kew and Camberwell.

I found all the streets in which my great great grandfather lived, however his houses have been replaced with various vintages of newer architecture. The landscape was changing while he lived in Melbourne when massive land sale and building booms wiped away acres of farmlands. And, of course, since he died in 1889 ‘development’ has progressed.  Nevertheless, because homes built in the 1880s still exist with their facades intact, I developed some understanding of what an original streetscape might have looked like during that decade.  Unfortunately late 1860s and 1870s buildings are no longer in evidence.

Throughout my-day long walk, I felt very much attached to the areas where he lived. A weird sense of belonging.  Albeit transient. And I was profoundly happy that in every street, one or more magpies warbled as they watched my progress.

My father’s family home, located in rural central Victoria, has always been special to me. It was during my early childhood visits that the music of the magpies perched on trees above nearby gold-mine slag-heaps, caught my attention. I have loved their intelligence and beauty ever since. Therefore, I should have not been surprised when I made a trip to the family home on Saturday and the wonderful sounds of magpies made me weep.  It seems the melodic notes of these black and white beauties provide me with a marker of family places, and also to other places where I gain so much pleasure.

Throughout my blog postings following the walking stages along the Derwent River, I have recorded my observation of magpies, and my delight in their song.  Rarely do magpies fly through my part of suburbia, so now I realise that part of my purpose for walking the Derwent is to hear the glorious communications of magpies. I guess it is my way of finding my place, as I make my own history – which becomes part of my family history.

Commencing research about the original aboriginal communities living and walking along the Derwent River

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In earlier posts, I acknowledged the original aboriginal custodians of the land over which I have walked: refer to https://walkingthederwent.com/2014/08/21/acknowledgement-of-country-to-the-moomairremener-people/, and https://walkingthederwent.com/2014/11/10/the-paredarerme-people-the-original-indigenous-owners-of-the-land-along-the-derwent-river/.

My last blog posting referred to a book telling the story of a walk from the mouth to the source of the Yarra River in Victoria on mainland Australia.  Many steps of the author’s journey were associated with aboriginal stories past and present and this made me wonder what could be learnt here in Tasmania around the Derwent River. The history of aboriginals in Victoria and elsewhere on mainland Australia, is very different to that in the isolated island state of Tasmania.  Around 10,000 years ago, when the sea rose to form Bass Strait, Tasmanian aboriginals were cut off completely from their relatives on the mainland of Australia.

From the 1870s, for the next 100 years, the official Tasmanian government line was that the entire aboriginal population had been exterminated. No full blood descendants of the original indigenous peoples have survived however there is a sizeable minority of population in Tasmania now who proudly declare themselves as descendants from specific aboriginal ancestors.

During these cold winter days, I have started research seeking to understand the lives of indigenous bands and tribes which roamed the land from the mouth to the source of the Derwent River.  My starting point is my belief (which may be found to be incorrect) that, prior to European settlement in Van Diemen’s Land (later renamed Tasmania),

  • indigenous peoples had a significant history with activities, practices, laws, dress, property that are unique as a collection, although individual aspects may be common with mainland indigenous peoples.
  • indigenous peoples had a perfectly functioning tribal family system
  • indigenous peoples had a perfectly functioning interaction system with other tribes
  • indigenous peoples had a perfectly functioning communication system with other tribes
  • indigenous peoples were thriving

Most historians, anthropologists, sociologists, other researchers and various document writers have introduced ‘facts’ and conjecture about the nature and impact of events subsequent to European settlement, and I suspect this has been to the detriment of understanding the original situations of indigenous people.   As a result, I suspect at least some people who identify currently as having Tasmanian indigenous heritage, focus more with the outrages of the past 200 plus years than with the life of their ancestors, pre-European settlement. I wonder whether historians, anthropologists, sociologists, other researchers and various document writers (almost all of whom were original settlers in Van Diemen’s Land, are the descendants of the non-indigenous peoples, or are in some other way, non-indigenous) have presented a clear picture of the nature of the original indigenous peoples without the shadow of events post-settlement in 1803. Considering the political activism of some of the descendants of the original indigenous populations, their attempts to censor studies and dispute evidence, and their destruction of ancient artefacts, it may not be possible to create a clear picture, however I plan to try (and it may take time).