Tag Archives: Hobart

Gellibrand

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The destination for Stage 2 of my walk along the Derwent River will be Gellibrand Point, at the northern end of the South Arm peninsula.

The name was conferred as the result of the first European settler in this area, William Gellibrand. William arrived in Hobart Town on the Ides of March in 1824 as a companion to his son Joseph Tice Gellibrand who been asked to take up the role of local Attorney General. William became a Magistrate in Hobart from 1826-1827. In addition, he has a special place in Hobart’s history because he set up banking here.

Initially, he was granted 2220 acres of land on the South Arm peninsula, and then later this was later increased by further grants. Land grants were routinely made to free settlers who then were allowed the assistance of several convicts to help clear and work the fields.

The site http://www.  southcom.  com.  au/~pottermj/pagef.  htm tells us that “as other settlers arrived, Gellibrand leased land to them and later they were able to purchase their lots. By 1885, many had purchased land on the Peninsula – some names are Musk, Alomes, Calvert, and Potters. Members of these family names are still in the district today.”

The site http://www.ccc.tas.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/The%20Convicts%20of%20South%20Arm.pdf

provides well researched detail: “William Gellibrand was a significant figure in Colonial society; he was a merchant and exporter but also served as a Justice of the Peace. After William died, his property at Arm End then passed to his grandson George Gellibrand who after leasing out some of the land placed it on the market in 1844 describing it as being studded with the tallest trees in the colony and having the very best vinery on the island, covering two acres of fertile ground with full bearing fruit.”

Fort Direction memories

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My posting about Fort Direction prompted the following response from a friend:

“Well in 1961, and I can’t find any reference to it on Google, the Fort Direction site was lent to the Methodist youth whatever to have an Easter camp and I was there.  I can remember the chapel and the kitchens etc and my friend Sue and I wandered far and wide and kept coming across rolled barbwire fences that kept us in rather than let us out.  We ventured as far as Roaring Beach which impressed me no end.  Christian youth camps in the 50s and early 60s were the hotbed for discussion especially philosophy and I can remember one of the groups that camp, discussing objectivity and subjectivity.  Lots of the brightest students went to these camps.

And this is when I first saw Ralph’s Bay as we travelled at dusk in a bus to South Arm and Fort Direction.  Over the years I thought this image of the tidal flats, so different from my experience on the north west coast of Tasmania, was something in my imagination. So when I had moved to live in Hobart and was exploring to buy a place, imagine my excitement when I found that very image and it was la de dardle!!!!”  (Or, as the map lists it, Lauderdale)

Fort Direction memories

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My posting about Fort Direction prompted the following response from a friend:

“Well in 1961, and I can’t find any reference to it on Google, the Fort Direction site was lent to the Methodist youth whatever to have an Easter camp and I was there.  I can remember the chapel and the kitchens etc and my friend Sue and I wandered far and wide and kept coming across rolled barbwire fences that kept us in rather than let us out.  We ventured as far as Roaring Beach which impressed me no end.  Christian youth camps in the 50s and early 60s were the hotbed for discussion especially philosophy and I can remember one of the groups that camp, discussing objectivity and subjectivity.  Lots of the brightest students went to these camps.

And this is when I first saw Ralph’s Bay as we travelled at dusk in a bus to South Arm and Fort Direction.  Over the years I thought this image of the tidal flats, so different from my experience on the north west coast of Tasmania, was something in my imagination. So when I had moved to live in Hobart and was exploring to buy a place, imagine my excitement when I found that very image and it was la de dardle!!!!”  (Or, as the map lists it, Lauderdale)

22 Aug 2014 Leaving South Arm and heading home, and final thoughts – Posting 8 of 8

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On the return journey towards Hobart, the bus deviated via large mudflats into the town of Cremorne adding 5 minutes to the trip, then it dropped me at a Lauderdale bus stop for transfer to another bus (because the Opossum Bay bus terminates at Lauderdale) approximately 5 minutes later (with his two way communication, the bus driver alerted the other driver there was a transferring passenger to be collected). Once on the Lauderdale bus, the trip towards Hobart deviated through the suburb of Oakdowns and so a further 5 minutes was added to the journey. After the bussing and the walking I was home in Bellerive at 3.20pm.

In this series of blogs for the first walk stage, I have provided approximate times for various sections of my walk as an indication only. I am short legged and plod slowly (and towards the end I felt I was shuffling like an old man). If you are tall and can happily stride long steps faster, then my walk will not be sufficient to fill the time between buses.  In fact some speedy walkers may be able to continue through the Opossum Bay community and walk to the end of Gellibrand Point, the most western tip of this piece of land before Ralph’s Bay makes its inlet.  My next walk will be designed to complete that section, and then I should be able to advise as to whether fitting it all into 5 hours is possible for the able.

Since it is unlikely anyone else will have my success if they turn up at the gate of Fort Direction and get driven through the site, the only general public approach is to walk along Fort Beach having walked most of Blessington Road.  Based on the information I recorded, I suggest one way on this route from the set down bus stop to the Lone Pine Memorial will take an hour if you take time to enjoy the views and click photographs. Add the half hour return walk between Cape Deliverance and Cape Direction with its gun placement bunker and the whole excursion takes approximately 2 ½ hours.  As an alternative, you could spice it up by jumping the shore rocks like a goat, from South Arm to Fort Beach. I would guess another hour could be added to the duration of the walk.

I noted that the tide was going out while I walked, and that the high tide merged with the dune verges in places on Fort Beach. It made me think that on a high tide, this route might be impassable. In such a circumstance and if you had made the special trip and your heart was set on a beach walk, the expanses of the South Arm beach with their outstanding views, old pines shadowing parts of the dunes, and soft roaring Casuarina trees, would make a very attractive substitute.  You might be lucky, as I was, to see a giant fresh squid washed onto the beach being enjoyed by immature grey feathered winged large Gulls.

Many of our native birds are various shades of black and brown but we also have an array of colourful specimens. During my walk, the sun brought out not only the musical black and white Magpies, the hard cawing jet black Crows, but also plump pink and grey Galahs feasting on the ground, Mr Blue Wren flitting in and out of the shadows, a glorious Mr Robin with his red breast, and a flock of multi-coloured Rosella parrots.

My guess is that I walked around 10-12 kms including getting to the start and then continuing on.  But how much of the 249km length of the Derwent River have I covered? About 7kms. A great start! A memorable day. A very positive experience.

22 Aug 2014 Heading for the start of the first walk at Cape Direction – Posting 5 of 8

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The photo below shows Cape Direction. To the left of the headland trees is a concrete bunker.

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Heading toward Cape Direction, I walked along a vehicular track eastwards and down onto the firm sand of the beach at Pot Bay.  Large Gulls either Pacific or Dominican patrolled the beach, letting a mix of Pied Oystercatcher and Sooty Oystercatcher birds have a run around.  The protruding flat sandstone rocks on the beach featured empty oyster shells.

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 At the end of the beach I clambered up the rocky earthy banks amidst a rich layer of fleshy vegetation that looked good enough to eat. I knew that the pigface plant with bright pink flowers open to the sun was edible, but what about the rest.

The photo below shows a swathe of blooming pig face on the Pot Bay side of Cape Direction.

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What did the original aboriginal people eat? I would be very interested to learn whether some of the other plants could be used as food.

I had been warned that most of the old gun placements on Fort Hill were out of bounds, and again a high mesh perimeter fence made that clear.  But I was able to wander towards the one remaining structure outside this fence – one without tunnels. I waded on through high grass and onto another vehicle track that lead uphill to the remains of a massive concrete gun placement structure.

The photo below shows the concrete structure. The Iron Pot lighthouse can be seen in the distance.

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As I wandered inside the structure, it made no sense to me, and with no information to hand I was left puzzling as to why it was surrounded on all sides by rock and earth so the soldiers would not have been able to see an enemy coming towards the Derwent leave alone fire on such a ship.  Perhaps I am the first non-defence services visitor (can that really be true?) and everyone else who has visited perfectly understands how the building was used. 

From this structure it was a short distance east to open and exposed Cape Direction – the starting point for my walk along the Derwent.  Opposite, almost linked to the mainland at low tide by a series of rocky reefs, was the Iron Pot in all its glory.

The photo below shows Mount Wellington above Hobart, past Cape Deliverance and taken from Cape Direction.

 Towards Cape Deliverance and Mt Wellington

22 Aug 2014 Setting out to travel to South Arm – Posting 1 of 8

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The first stage of my walk along the Derwent River took me away from home for 7.5 hours. This included walking to the tip of the eastern side of the mouth of the Derwent River in the South Arm area, then gradually plodding northward on the eastern side of the river.  I am exhausted but exhilarated. When I stand on my feet or move around, my body screams ‘sit down, stay still, and never move again!’

My walk started at Bellerive when I jumped on the Metro bus No 640 that departed from Hobart at 8am. The sky was blue and cloudless but I was rugged up and beanied to avoid the early morning chill. I was nervous, and queasily excited. This felt so much like travelling into the unknown when overseas; an unknown destination (years ago Ru took me to a weekend market at South Arm, and prior to that I had driven down and back to Opossum Bay – but I have never spent time in or explored the area), unknown bus stops and reliability of timetables, new maps, unknown people and circumstances, and no idea how long it would take me to cover the stage I had planned.  The return bus was leaving Opossum Bay at 2.02pm and the next one wasn’t leaving until 5.55pm. I wanted to time my walk to catch the earlier rather than the later bus because I knew my feet wouldn’t last long. I calmed myself with the realisation, that unlike the situation with most of my travels, I had a mobile phone and sufficient funds for a taxi if need be.

Nothing I imagined turned out to be.

I had thought there would be no one on the bus because everyone would be heading towards Hobart.  Of course, this was a dopey idea. But I was the only passenger from Lauderdale onwards as the bus sped along the uneven bitumen rattling strongly (these buses are not designed for nonurban areas).

What did I see during the bus trip? Peak hour traffic streaming towards the city. The Bridgewater Jerry steaming down the Derwent to the sea. The early morning sun in the driver’s eyes. Hard winter sun on the new growth on gum trees.  Yellow floral masses on wattle trees.  Dew still sparkling on wet grass. Rare smoke trails from occasional chimneys.  Sheep, horses, llamas, billy goats, olive trees and small house orchards. It was a simply gorgeous day to behold.

The bus route deviated through the back streets of Rokeby, a tiny suburb still 30 kilometres from Opossum Bay. From the upper streets the blue flat glittering expanse of Ralph’s Bay (which is fed by the Derwent River) was stunning.

The Bridgewater Jerry … or is it Gerry?

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This morning the Bridgewater Jerry obliterated my view of much of Hobart from the eastern shore. The Derwent River stopped being visible. In the sunshine, its fast moving roll down the river towards the sea was spectacular.

The Bridgewater Jerry moving down the Derwent River with Mount Wellington in the background. Taken from the eastern shore 17 August 2014

The Bridgewater Jerry moving down the Derwent River with Mount Wellington in the background. Taken from the eastern shore 17 August 2014

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The internet offers many sources of further images and information. Examples are listed below (I was surprised to learn the Jerry has its own website, a public sculpture has been created in its honour, and Australia’s premier dictionary contains an entry. That’s not all – have a look at the websites listed below).

http://www.bridgewaterjerry.com/  … The Jerry has its own site showing one glorious photo but with no identifiers, date or other information.

 http://prelive.themercury.com.au/article/2012/07/02/342041_tasmania-news.html … In 2012, the local newspaper The Mercury published a short story with a couple of views when “ ‘Ol Jerry rolled into town”.

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/esereth/9252562361/ … this Flickr site offers a sensational air view of the jerry

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDsVB5Nz3K8 … thanks to Damien Brockie’s time lapse video you can see the movement of the fog down the Derwent river heading towards the sea.

 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/26190783 …

This site shows a scanned copy of a 1946 newspaper article which described the draught as keeping ‘the thermometer at freezing point’. The article pointed out that the township of Bridgewater has been libelled because the fog starts further up the valley. Apparently, at the inland town of Bushy Park the fog is known as the ‘Bushy Park Blizzard’.

 http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/05/13/2569108.htm  …..

In May 2009, Carol Raabus wondered where the name ‘Bridgewater Jerry’ came from.  She reflected that “It’s that time of year when the mornings are crisp and you just don’t want to get out of bed. You look out the window and see nothing but a thick fog, blanketing Hobart’s suburbs from the Hobart docks, up to Bridgewater and further up the Derwent Valley. But where did the fog get its name? And should it be spelt ‘Jerry’, or the less common, ‘Gerry’? One theory of the origin of the name is that word ‘jerry’ came from London, where it was thieves’ slang for mist or fog, and the term was transported to Tasmania with the convicts. David James writes in The Companion to Tasmanian History that the first written reference to the fog, although not using the name Jerry and not coming from Bridgewater, was in 1821 when Governor Macquarie wrote he couldn’t leave Austins Ferry for Hobart until 12.30 one day, due to the thick fog.”

 http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/B/Bridgewater%20Jerry.htm ….

David James (2006, Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies) declared “the ‘Bridgewater Jerry’ is a fog which occasionally affects the Bridgewater Hobart area. At night, in cooler months, cold air drains down the mountains of southern Tasmania as katabatic winds and collects in the Derwent Valley. Fog will form if this invading air is moist and cool enough. It drains out of the valley in the mornings, blowing the fog with it. The fog mainly affects the Derwent and the northern and western suburbs of Hobart, but occasionally reaches the Eastern Shore.”

https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/map/search/word/Bridgewater%20Jerry/Tasmania/ …

The Bridgewater Jerry has an entry in Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary. “A dense, remarkably compact stream of fog which occasionally rolls down the western shore of the Derwent River (presumably from Bridgewater) into parts of Hobart.

  • Contributor’s comments:A front of fog Cold air drainage condensing. Usually ‘Bridgewater gerry’ describing the phenomena on the Derwent River from Bridgewater to Hobart but I have often heard it generalised in southern Tas. Not in any Tas lexicons. Suspect origin is post-WWI Gerry = German and looks like a gas cloud. The effect usually is that a bright clear and crisp Hobart morning swamped by cold fog flowing down the Derwent from Bridgewater: “Did you see the gerry running this morning? I was on the bridge when it hit.” Generalised: “Careful about buying a place in that valley, there might be a right old gerry running down there in the winter.”

  • Contributor’s comments:The Bridgewater Jerry gently rolls its way down the Derwent at the start of a winter day, often shrouding the low-lying riverside suburbs for most of the morning. Those people living in Hobart’s hillside suburbs would often be basking in brilliant warm sunshine before plunging into the dense, wet and cold on their way to work or school.

  • Contributor’s comments:I believe this term comes from the days when the Bridgewater Causeway was being built by the convicts – there was one named “Jerry” who was always smoking a pipe leaving a cloud behind him. Therefore when a fog was seen on the river it was associated with Jerry’s pipe.”

 http://www.arts.tas.gov.au/news_archive/unlikely_icon_celebrated_in_sculpture  … The Bridgewater Jerry, a unique fog that rolls down the Derwent Valley, has been immortalised in a public art project led by artist Tony Woodward.  Unfortunately all the links to an image of the sculpture, its location and other information do not work.  Where is this sculpture?  Does anyone know?

A new idea – starting out

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A year or so ago, I read the true story of an English man who walked the length of the Thames River in England. He did not start one day at one end and continue walking until he reached the other end. Instead the walker fitted many stages of the walk around his normal working life. Through his eyes, and via his words on the page, I discovered a new way of seeing and understanding the everyday world one step at a time.

Half a world away in Hobart Tasmania Australia, the mighty river Derwent wends its way from further north moving south over approximately 249 kilometres past Hobart towards the sea. Last weekend, I realised that if I could walk the edges of the Derwent, then a wonderful adventure might unfold.

As I reread the above, my writing seemed unimpassioned and lacking the excitement I feel about this idea.  How fabulous to walk along our wonderful river with all its changing temperaments and colours; on some days to walk beside its ruffled surface or its mirror sheen. To look across at parts of the city, the hills and the mountain.  To enjoy the bobbing and sails of the yachts. To be reminded that I live in this marvellous place.

And when I walk, I want to share my discoveries. I will write the story of the walk firstly on a blog followed by a later publication in a hard copy format – complete with photos.  In addition, I will align the walk with the various set down and pick up points of commuter buses of the public transport system. In this way, I will make the walks accessible for anyone without a car.

Alive with the idea, I alerted Ju and Jo. I knew they would contribute valuable information. Already the ideas are flowing.  Immediately, Ju expected to walk some stages with me – an obvious and appropriate response.  I expect other friends may wish to join some stages.

It is unlikely the stages will be walked sequentially. Rather we agreed that I should buy detailed maps on which to mark out the length and track of distinct stages. Then, depending on the weather of a day or my mood, I can select the stage that best meets the situation.  Stages will not last more than a day, but the length of any stage may vary. In winter a stage may last a few hours.  However, during the long days of summer, a stage may last many hours.

The walks will not always be on the rocky or sandy foreshores of the Derwent river. Sometimes these river edges may be place for our footfalls. At other times we may cross grassy slopes over hills or pass along the concrete pavements or bitumen roads of suburban streets. On occasion, permissions may be needed to pass through private land.  But such possibilities are ahead.

Each walk will be an incremental path through unknowns. Only once the length on both sides of the river has been covered on foot, can the patchwork of stages be brought together and moulded to tell a story.

Today I purchased five maps: New Norfolk (5026); Richmond (5226), Hobart (5225), Taroona (5224) and Blackmans Bay (5223). Collectively these cover a small part of the length of the Derwent river.  The initial aim will be to determine the walks from the sea ends of the river at a point in the Blackmans Bay suburb (on the western side) and near the township of Opossum Bay (on the eastern side) then continuing upriver and finishing at some point in the vicinity of New Norfolk.  Further west then north some of the river flows through untracked wilderness so that serious bushwalking plans will need to be developed for those distances.  The aim is to walk the most easily accessible bits first.

A wind ruffled Derwent River shows off the the pleasures of the water. being overlooked by snowcapped Mount Wellington

A wind ruffled Derwent River shows off the the pleasures of the water. being overlooked by snowcapped Mount Wellington