Around the world – Tasmania

Today I’m participating in Shannon’s ‘Around the World in 80 Blogs’. You can find the other participants here. I personally am looking forward to clicking around the world and finding myself some new blogs to read as well.

I live in Tasmania, at the bottom of Australia. I’ve done posts about Tasmania (with photos!) before on my other blog if you’re interested.

I’m about 50 minutes drive from Hobart, the capital city. Being Tassie though, that leaves me in the middle of nowhere. I’ve got farmland on three sides of me and a road on the fourth side, with more farmland across the road. Last year my neighbouring paddocks held sheep and the occasional herd of cows.

I suppose I am in the middle of a tiny little township, there is a pub [a bad pub. food is shocking, I’ve seen inside their kitchen] and maybe half a dozen houses within a kilometre radius.

Last year I took photos of sheep. Lots and lots of sheep.

This year however, I’m surrounded by a sea of Opium poppies.

Yay me.

I’ve also got abandoned houses to photograph.

And creeks where bushrangers used to swim. Author Nan Chauncy lived here and now, it is named after her. Chauncy Vale.

We don’t get very much snow where I am living at the moment. The occasional dusting on the surrounding hills is about it.

You can’t see the mountain from where I live, but Mt Wellington is gorgeous. I could happily live underneath it (again – we used to live in the city, underneath the mountain) if it wasn’t for the damp and the cold. Also snow. I don’t do well with cold and wet.

I take a lot of photos from the car. Sorry about that.

I don’t go into Hobart very often anymore, as I don’t drive. I miss being within walking distance of the city.

A few months ago, it flooded here. Rained and rained and rained. I’m fairly sure that the underneath of my house has only just started to dry out. My grey water system and the back corner of my paddock still hasn’t recovered.

[This is not the back corner of my paddock. This is the river, breaking it’s banks and flooding my neigbouring paddock.]

I’m almost tempted to nip over and pinch one of the pine trees for our Christmas tree this year. Do you think the farm manager would notice a missing tree? Then again, that is part of the poppy paddock. It’s probably wise not to venture into that one this year.

Tasmania has a lot (A LOT) of spiders. Snakes too. All our snakes are poisonous so I do my utmost to avoid any and all snakes. It didn’t stop a snake scaring the shit out of me a few times a week when I was a kid though. There are also lots of insects.

We’ve also got echidnas. Aren’t they cute?

And Blue Tongue Lizards.

Pretty architecture too.

So really, all you’ve learnt from this foray into my corner of the world is that I live in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a sea of poppies.

We get good sunsets though. I’m not complaining.