HAPPY NEW YEAR from Sydney

For once we were close to the action on Sydney Harbour.

Midnight is normally way past our bedtime.

If Mevrouw T and I ever bother to celebrate the changing of the calendar, it’s usually a nice dinner with family and friends, switch on the telly to see the children’s fireworks at 9pm and that’s about it.

This year, a friend won Sydney harbourside tickets and kindly invited us along.

2015 – FACES AND PLACES

The cool dudes at Jang Island School, Indonesia

So here we are, nearly ready to tick the calendar over. It’s been another busy year on the road, nine countries, a few walks, some good bike rides, a lot of spectacular locations, and friends, new and old.

Apart from some travel articles for the mainstream press and a new play, I’ve been more active with the camera than with the keyboard this year. So it seems appropriate to look back on the year through the lens. A few shots worked out well.

A PARADISE FOR PRISONERS AND DEVILS?

If every day could be like this, I’d almost be content to stay for the term of my natural life.

Many of the first white residents could wait to get off Maria Island.

Convicts transported here in 1825 built Aboriginal-style canoes, begged or bribed whaling ships to give them a ride or tried their luck on the swim across the strait to mainland Tasmania, a few kilometres away. To see the island now, you wonder where they’d rather have been.

TASSIE RIDE #3 – Swansea and Triabunna

The view from Devil’s Corner. That’s Freycinet National Park in the background. I’ve ridden from there this morning. Well, I say ‘ridden’ but I wheeled the bike up the steepest bit.

You have to earn your fun on a cycling tour. Between Freycinet Peninsula and Swansea is the ominously named ‘Devil’s Corner’.

A wizened local rider I met at Coles Bay has warned me about it. ‘The worst bit of the Tasman Highway, that is. Blind corners, speeding drivers, no shoulder…I wouldn’t try it myself.’

Thanks a lot, mate. That’s rather like saying, ‘If I wanted to get there I wouldn’t start from here.’ 

TASSIE RIDE #2 – out to Freycinet

Nearly there. Just a short ride around Coles Bay and I’ll be able to get off the bike and climb those Hazards.

It’s a relief to have an easier day in the saddle. 50 kilometres, 26 of them along the flat of Coles Bay Road, where the shoulder is wider, the traffic is generally slower and there are encouraging glimpses of the Hazards Range ahead.  

And Freycinet Peninsula is one of Tasmania’s most popular natural wonders – with good reason.