I've seen paradise...!

filed under tasmania trips by Jochen

Last weekend we did bushwalk #9. This time the road has led us to South East Cape where we did the eastern part of the South CoastTrack. The western part was closed because of bushfire :)

Man, if you think you have allread seen paradise… forget it! This is it! The walk itself wasn’t that hard, ok for me and Florian it was pure fun to climb the rocks on the coastline, although it was not that easy as it sounds cause sometimes your big backpack is a heavy duty for your balance. For Judit it was even harder and so Florian and I sometimes carried her backpack.
But after this rough track we reached “paradise” and we stayed there for one night! It was awesome, lying in the white sand on the beach under the starry sky and just listening to the sound of the waves clashing on the nearby cliff.

On the next day we went back, but not along the coastline. This time we took the track though the bush and above the steep coast, which offered us many other awesome lookouts. But before we hit the road we enjoyed the cool water and the waves of Surprise Beach where we stayed.

Finally there’s only one thing to say: “We have seen paradise!”

bushwalks #8 to Mt. Wellington - Silver Falls

filed under tasmania trips by Jochen

Originally we wanted to go to the Wellington Falls, but somehow (again: no map!) we picked up the wrong track and reached finally not the Wellington Falls, but the Silver Falls. They are not that big as the Wellington Falls, I guess, but it was a relaxed walk on this bloody hot day, and an awesome place to play a little bit with my camera ;)

bushwalks #7 to Mt. Wellington

filed under tasmania trips by Jochen

So, it’s time for a short update of you guys out there!

It was very quiet around here in Tasmania, so we all could get many of our work done. Flux worked on his thesis and I started to work on my German Carnival website faschingsfreunde.com what I should done a long time ago. But after 2 and a half weeks of doing “nothing” it was time to find new challenging adventures.

The first trip was up to the summit of Mt. Wellington, the mountain next to Hobart. Sounds like ordinary hiking, but it was hiking with a special twist, couse we started with a compas but no map. Ok, we had a map, but it was an overview of Hobart, with a little dot in the lower left that pointed the summit of Mt. Wellington. Not really helpful!

What I did was taking photographs of the maps on bigger junktions or resting areas. It was really funny, standing in the middle of nowhere and use the compas to make your camera point north ;)

We only got lost one time, which costs us 20 minutes walk back. Not very much if you consider that the whole tripe took 10 hour.

We saw many strange and weird things, like a tree that looks like it was bleeding, an ant that was 5cm long and of course the bushfirefields! (@Tanja: Told you so! ;))

After all it was a hard an awesome day….. more to come!

Bushfires around Hobart

filed under tasmania events by Jochen

The fifth season in Tassy has begun, and I’m not talking about the Carneval Season like in Germany, although it’s very hot also.

The last few days we had very warm and windy weather here in Hobart, and the risk for bushfires jumped up from zero to 60% + . It was a little bit scary, when Dan came into my room and asked: “Hey, have you seen the bushfires?” and I sad “No, but I’m not in the mood to drive an hour to see one”. “No, just look out of your window!”
Well, in front of my window it a big tree, so it was hard to see anything. The only thing you could see was a small orange glowing between the leaves.
So we went up to the Horton-Media-Room, and from there you had free sight across the whole plain.
I took a few pictures. They are all at the same possition, but I played a little bit with the options of my camera. ;)

Here you can get more Information about the bushfire situation here in Tasmania.

New Years Eve - What a awesome night!

filed under party tasmania by Jochen

Florian and I had no clue what we were going to do on this years new years eve. Infact we knew a view options what we could do, but had no masterplan at all!
Fortunately a view days ago a group of 16 US girls arrived at Jane to spend there new years eve in Horbart (... and do some Studies ;)).
After the first view sentences it turned out, that they were as clueless as we were and so the girls asked us to join them and see what night brings.

We met at 9:30 PM and an awesome night began…

We went down to Salamanca Square straight into Knopwoods.
It was unbelievable! Rock ‘n roll all over salamaca and the harbour, even Davie Street was closed. I don’t know how many thousands of people where on the streets around the harbour in that night and it was absolutely impossible to cover these crowd on a picture.

After the first drinks the whole bunch headed for The Telegraph, which is from now on referd as the “Purple Bar”! We had a lot of fun in there, the drinks where cheap, and the music was really good.

But as allways the time was moving to fast and it was close to midnight when a guy, seemingly the son of the harbourmaster guided us to an awesome lookout where we all could enjoy the great fireworks of hobart-harbour.

After the awesome fireworks we went to the Isobar.
More Party, more dancing with live music, more…. more…. more…..
But inside the Isobar it was f****** hot and so a few of us decided to take a breathout outside, relax and enjoy the still warm temperatures. But the fun didn’t stop outside! There was a cool girl-fight, a pursuit with the police, sportive attractions, and partypeople as far as the eye can see!

.... as you can imagin, to many things have happended to write them all down.
Finally theres only one thing to say: “It was the most awesome new years eve I ever had in my life!”

TASSY X-MAS 2004

filed under tasmania events by Florian

It’s summer. It’s warm. Let’s have a BBQ, let’s have Christmas! Why not? We’re in Tassy! ;-)

First a biig biig thanx to Martin and Suzanne who invited us to their farm from Friday to Sunday! Your program made that x-mas unique! Now i finally know where Microsoft got the main windows desktop background from…

But from the beginning. It’s Friday and work is finished. Yeah!

Germany: Drive home, go to church, have dinner, get your presents, sing halleluja and go to bed. Germany. You know that. Well, quite interesting, yes.
Tassy: Drive to a farm with its own oyster beach, do not go to church, take a deep breath of fresh air on the beach, climb some trees, feel like in the early 80s when you were young and wild and lay a last brick before the x-mas program starts. And it starts – yes – with some dead animals on the BBQ to increase the power. Even the dog can’t await it now! On party no. 1 you first learn how to build a catamaran on your own. Nice work! Time for a glass of good red wine. On party no. 2 it was more the white wine and the sparkling wine that made the girls wild ;-) It was one of these partys where you enter the room and – wouuuzz – feel comfortable instantly. And it wasn’t only because of Gracie, Kartherine and Laura (or was it?)... ;-)

Saturday, 25th, the day after.

Germany: Get up, have breakfast. Play with your new toy truck. Have lunch. Sleep. Have tea. Have dinner. Germany. You know that. Well, quite interesting, yes.
Tassy: Get up when computer scientists are used to get up. Jump on the farmer’s truck and have a hellride to the breakfast table. Oh stop. Just before the breakfast you get your presents directly out of Santa Clause’s old socks. But now: Invade the buffet! Pull your neighbor’s firecracker (and break together due to the ~~best~~ jokes you’ve ever heard…), put on your christmas crown and start the day with a good breakfast. And hurry up ‘cause lunch at a friend’s place is already waiting! Too much stress? Well just relax a second before the turkey needs some help in the kitchen… After lunch it’s time for the presents. And here in Tassy even bloody German visitors receive something! After all that wine and food it’s time to mix it all up for a better digestion. And if you’re able to do that old David Copperfield trick you’re ready for the dinner party. Beside more bacon, salad and wine you start sophisticated discussions about the Tassy way of indicating in roundabouts while the moon shows his beautiful face. After dinner you go on an illumination sightseeing trip. Ehm a what? Yes, true, Tassie’s are a bit more enthusiastic about decorating their houses even if it may use additional 18 kilowatt hours… Crazy. Well after such a long day it’s finally time to say hello to all the computer networkers out there! ;-)

And before you can turn around, it’s almost Sunday, 26th – the day when god preferred to chill out.

Germany: See 25th (Well yeah, as a difference you’re usually a bit more sick now from all the food). Germany. You know that. Well, quite interesting, yes.
Tassy: Relax. Have a walk to the oyster beach. Play with the dog. Enjoy the nature. Reflect the great weekend.

We, Jochen, Flux, Stephan and me would like to say a big THANX to

Suzanne and Martin for your invitation and the great program!
Doreen and Rick for the catamaran party on friday!
Sue and Warwick for the highlife party on friday!
Jeannie and Rod for the great turkey lunch on saturday!
Rosemary and Graham for the dinner on saturday!
all Tassies we’ve been visiting for their great hospitality!

This christmas was definitely one of the best we’ve ever had!

earthquake shakes hobart

filed under tasmania living by Florian

After the last quake near Bremen Jochen reported we had another one between Tassy and Antarctica on Friday 2am. I recognized it cause my screen was starting jiggling… First I thought someone was walking with very heavy steps in the room below, but that seemed to be a bit strange for that time and power.

Here’s what I found on volcanolive.com:
Great Earthquake (North of Macquarie Island) – Magnitude 8.1
Friday 24th December 2004
A great earthquake occurred 495 km north of Macquarie Island (Australia) on Friday, December 24, 2004 at 1:59 a.m. local time. It was located at 50.240° S, 160.133° E, at a depth of 10 km. The earthquake was felt in Hobart, Tasmania and parts of the south island of New Zealand. Macquarie Island is an Australian territory located 1500 km south-east of Tasmania. It is the only island in the world composed entirely of oceanic crust and rocks from the mantle. The island group, with mountains rising 400 m above sea level, became a World Heritage site in 1997. This was an intra plate earthquake. The last earthquake of similar magnitude in the Macquarie Rise region was in 1924. This was the largest earthquake in the world this year. Earthquakes of this magnitude can produce tsunamis.
And another article from The Mercury:
Hobart shakes as quake hits island
An earthquake that struck 700km southeast of Hobart early yesterday was the world’s biggest in four years.
The quake, which hit near remote Macquarie Island just before 2am, measured 8.1 on the Richter scale.
Macquarie Island, inhabited by 22 scientific expeditioners, is in the Southern Ocean, about halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica.
Macquarie Island station leader Graeme Beech said the expeditioners all slept through the quake and had not discovered any damage.
But many residents in the greater Hobart area and along Tasmania’s East Coast reported “feeling the earth move”, police said.
Tasmania Police received seven early-morning calls related to the quake but nobody reported any damage.
University of Tasmania geophysicist Michael Roach said the quake released several thousand times as much energy as the 5.6 quake in Newcastle in 1989.
The Newcastle quake left 14 dead, 165 injured and more than 10,000 buildings damaged.
“This sort of event occurs once a year worldwide,” Mr Roach said.
“It’s lucky this one was well away from a population centre because it would have been extremely devastating.”
It was comparable to the quake that flattened San Francisco in 1906 and to the 1985 Mexico City quake, which killed about 9500 people.
Geoscience Australia duty seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said an 8.1 quake would “completely destroy man-made structures”.
“There’s no way a man-made structure could sustain an earthquake of this size,” Dr Sinadinovski said.
“If such a quake occured anywhere under any major human structure, the structure would not survive.”
Mr Roach said an 8.1 quake could be felt by residents as far as 2000km to 3000km from its epicentre. But damage usually occurred only within a 200km to 300km radius of the quake.
This is from ABC

From the USGS Earthquake Hazard Program

the last week has begun...

filed under tasmania organising by Florian

12 days of silence and then 4 postings on one day – you can see how busy we are here in AAD ;-)
Well, on the one hand Christmas is the celebration of gladness but on the other hand my last week in Tassy has just begun… I’d really like to stay but imagine: In 10 days I’ll be able to enjoy original German Laugenweck, Bratwurst und Hefeweizen again ;-)

Well, but before Tassy will be over for me there are a few things going on during the next few days, so stay tuned:

Christmas from friday till sunday (Christmas eve party, Christmas lunch, Christmas tea, Christmas dinner, Salamanca market on boxing day)
The Hobart yaught race with the first ships arriving next tuesday

C-212 aircraft visit [update]

filed under tasmania stuff by Florian

Better then a daily soap: The daily emails concerning the potential departure of the new AAD aircraft to Antarctica. Due to bad weather conditions down at Casey (one of the Australian Antarctic stations) the aircraft has been tied up at Hobart airport for nearly 10 days now. I don’t wanna know what that parking lot costs the Australian Government every day…

AAD bushwalk to Mt. Picton

filed under tasmania trips by Florian

Thanks to D2 (1) from the data centre we (Jochen, Stephan [2] & me) were invited to a really nice bushwalk in the Hartz Mountains National Park last weekend. Goal was the summit of Mt. Picton, 1327m a.s.l. With 11 people we were a really big group this time.

Well, the first thing you learn is: Never buy a used car from a Tassy unless it’s not a 4 WD offroad vehicle. ‘Cause here you take your normal all-day car even on bad unsealed ralley roads full of pot holes ;-) But anyways – the walk started with a great rain forest passage (humidity: high, temperature: high, inclination: high, water loss: high) with steep and partially muddy sections where you were very thankful for the good pair of hiking shoes you wore. The higher we got the more unobstructed the landscape got. And for the first time in my life I saw a wild Austrian in the free hunting ground.
Finally we stood in front of Mt. Picton mountain with nice views all around: The perfect place for having lunch.

The last passage up to the summit became a cool hiking trip over massive Tassy rocks. The view from the top of Mt. Picton was worth every drop of sweat: an incredible 360 degree panorama! Impossible to catch in a picture, maybe you’ll get an impression of the view by downloading this video I took.

Altogether it was an exausting but cool walking trip – I drank almost three liters of water during that walk. In the end some recreation exercises helped some of us to loose some dispensable power.

So: Thanks David for organising that walk, great job!

(1) Due to the fact that three out of nine data centre members are called “Dave” they introduced a numbering system from D1 (Dave Connell) to D3 (Dave Watts) with D2 (David Smith) in the middle. Very Tassy.
[2] Stephan is a mate from Jane Franklin. An Austrian. Well, that’s not his fault, isn’t it? ;-)

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