Posts from — July 2007

Since our launch on July 1 we’ve recorded visitors from 117 countries, and had the odd email wanting to know where our island is situated.

With a bit of help from satellites and The Living Earth we’re able to show you exactly where we exist on the famous blue marble. Visit them to see a much larger image.

Tasmania is the last bit of green on the bottom, below Australia, with Antarctica being the next stop if you continue south. We’ve added a little white arrow to rub it home.

Artefacts missing from Mawson’s Hut in the Antarctic since 1971 are on their way back to Tasmania after being discovered at a New York auction house. A spoon used by Sir Douglas Mawson and two planks of wood carrying the Australian Antarctic Exploration insignia were listed for auction at New York’s Swann Art Gallery earlier this year.

Antarctica has a special place in the hearts of Tasmanians, and a visitor has pointed out this amazing photograph of Orcas sprinting along a channel which has opened in the ice.

It comes from an equally impressive photo-essay on Time magazine’s web site — Life Beneath Antarctic Ice by photographer Norbert Wu, who writes:

They are headed deep into McMurdo Sound, where they hope to find food.

They must hurry, however, for wind conditions can cause the channel to freeze again, cutting off the whales’ access to air.

Today’s Flickr Friday comes from Melbourne-based ‘woowoowoo‘ who writes “As we waited for the Spirit of Tasmania to leave the Mersey estuary, the sun set in the most fantastic blaze of colour.”

Editor’s note: If you would like to be featured here, simply upload your photographs to Flickr [signing up is free] and we’ll find them. We check regularly for new entries tagged with ‘Tasmania’ or, better still, ‘thisTasmania’.

Forget the jewels, the world trips and the flash cars … new thermal undies top the wish list of the woman who has won $10 million, Tasmania’s biggest ever Oz Lotto jackpot.

Kingston-based marine biologist Lyn Irvine, and Andy Townsend, a Hobart freelance photographer and computer programmer, produce bestselling calendars each year celebrating Tasmania’s Antarctic connection.

Here’s a gallery of their inspiring work.

Gondwana

Battery Point

Great Lakes Wallaby Leg pocketed with Madeira Figs & Muscatels with Roasted Baby Beets, Dutch Carrots and Kipfler Potatoes and a Roasted Garlic Jus

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The search for a Danish backpacker who went missing on Tasmania’s snow-capped Cradle Mountain more than two weeks ago may not be resumed for months. The search will not resume until the weather improves and the snow on the mountain begins to melt.

Be awed by Stuart Gibson’s Shipstern Bluff portfolio.

By Emily Davey | Tasmania, of late, is realising its potential in the surfing world, and rightly so. After years of being kept a very good secret — our waves, our environment, our island and, most importantly, our surfers, are being exposed for what they really are: absolutely classic.

One thing that is consistently evident throughout our island state is the down-to-earth nature of the surfing community.

This is expressed through wide appreciation of Tasmania’s natural beauty. Local photographer Stuart Gibson has captured this beauty time after time and is now sharing our state’s best breaks with the world.

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In the bleak black of winter — days and nights — our Antarctic teams, at Casey, Mawson, Davis, and Macquarie Island, still found time to party and celebrate mid-winter and the gradual increase in day length, although even now they can barely measure it.

We thought we would share their party pix.

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