Deal Island, Tasmania

Blog posts written during our caretaking stint on Deal Island, Tasmania, AU from December 2010 to March 2011

Guest blogger, Tim

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What is Tim doing all this time Lynne is busy brewing succulent stout, concocting 300 gourmet meals, growing tasty veggies, and working with her fiber? When he isn’t napping, he’s out cutting tracks (trails to North Americans). We have 7 of them totaling 15 kilometers. They need attention in varying degrees, using 5 methodologies: mowing, weed whacking (whipper snippering in Australian), sawing, pulling, and lopping. We tow a 3 blade mower behind our little toy truck for the compound and the longest part of 4 tracks.

Little Squally track

Truck and tow behind mower

When it gets too steep, I resort to a Stihl weed whacker, just like the one I bought for home and used on Bakers and Seguin Islands. It’s an art learning how to cut the ubiquitous and extremely tough grass tussocks and the metal blade attachments need sharpening with some frequency.

Tussock Grass

One of the tenets I live by–words of wisdom if ever I’ve read them– is written on the wall of the shed by some bored lighthouse keeper: “Time spent sharpening is time saved.” S. Maples, 1991.

Whacker Man

Pulling sea spurge is a Sisyphian task. The seeds are water born from the south coast of Australia and just keep coming. Come to think of it, all trail maintenance is endless. But I love the solitude and exercise and sense of accomplishment I get maintaining tracks even though Lynne and are the rare ones who actually walk all of them.

Needles and spindles

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After two weeks of dry sunny weather, it’s been raining for three days. Not as much as up in Queensland where rivers have flooded and an area larger than Germany is covered in water. Five towns there were wiped out in the past couple of days with loss of lives and major property. We’re just having a little rain and lots of wind. So, I’ve been indoors knitting and spinning and baking.

This morning, i finished a pair of socks. I knit them from yarn I spun from a sheep named Blackie who lives in South Australia. I had just enough yarn to finish them with about a yard of yarn left over. They will be extremely warm and are a nice way to bring the fleece back to the States. At the same time, I’ve been spinning a mixture of Tasmanian Mohair and merino and haven’t decided what to knit with it. One can never have too many socks.

Here’s an update of what I have knit or spun since we arrived.

Easy lace pattern PC140026.JPG Calorimetry 2 Fits my knee and head PC160025.JPG PC210037.JPG PC250079.JPG P1020083.JPG P1080120.JPG P1080125.JPGP1120118.JPG P1120126.JPG

Our work party managed to leave this morning. They tried yesterday but turned around due to crazy seas. There was a window this morning and they jumped through it. Last night we enjoyed self saucing pudding and a terrible movie. This morning I can hear my beer gurgling in the pantry and it’s a fairly soothing sound. Maybe even better than the beer itself.

We’ve had boaters in for tea and we’ve been invited aboard for tea. I used the words, “keen” and “bloody hell” without thinking twice the other day. No accent, just an expanded vocabulary. To clarify a further post, our friend Malcolm told us porkie comes from the cockney phrase, pork pie, which rhymes with lie. At least we haven’t been called seppies: septic tank, which rhymes with Yank who are full of –it. But maybe it’s just because most people think we are Canadian.

My lettuce is listing to the left

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We are having a run of windy weather for a change, right when my seedlings are beginning to raise their little heads above the dirt. I spent the afternoon putting protection around them because gale winds are expected until Friday. I had to prop up the corn once again because the plants were leaning to leeward. Somehow the peas’ tendrils held on. I encountered my first whip snake since we have been here in the garden. No lives were lost in videotaping it but it wasn’t as timid as I had expected. Nonetheless, it left and I escaped unharmed.

P1100122.JPG The lighthouse obscured by clouds.

Here are links to my latest film adventures:

The Garden Gale and white lipped snake encounter

The gurgle of beer brewing; and

Birds taking a bath

Ok, so perhaps I need a new hobby.

I’m still spinning and knitting. I’m almost done with my second sock and am spinning tasmanian mohair with organic merino wool. Very nice.

Above the lighthouse

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The Deal island Lighthouse doesn’t actually sit on the highest point on the island but it’s close. The lighthouse is officially at 305 meters and is 12.5 meters high. We climbed to the peak just next to it, which is higher but wasn’t a good site for the lighthouse because it’s only dirt and rocks. There’s more granite at the lighthouse site and it’s not as close to the edge of the cliffs.

Looking down at the lighthouse Survey marker at the island's high point, Deal Island
Survey marker at the high point
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It was hot and calm and we enjoyed a picnic lunch at the lighthouse. The wind came back with a vengeance today but we still had visitors. A lovely family of four on a trimaran, Mustang Sally.

Tim keeps trying to lure me to the edge of very high cliffs. Should I worry?

Should I worry?

View from 1000 feet to the rocks and surf below. There’s not enough perspective to really see how high we were.Should I worry? copy
But the views of Barn Hill, Dover and Erith islands were spectacular.
Barn Hill, Dover and Erith Islands, Kent Group

Island and house guests

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I only need to look around at the rocks to find all sorts of interesting things. I met a GP from Sydney the other day who was happy to learn she wasn’t the only one seeing things.

How did I miss this duck?
I am not the only one who sees a duck here, am I?

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I wish I was imagining things instead of seeing the spiders I have found around the house. Apparently they are relatively harmless but I wouldn’t do well if I found one on me when I was sleeping.
A visitor told me they would probably only bite if provoked. I asked, “what if I screamed loudly?” He said you could try that. Actually, there would be no thought behind screaming if I found this on me. Chelsea had one inside a bus. I bet there was some screaming there.
Oddly enough, Australians almost uniformly fear ticks. I can handle ticks. It must be something about the devil you know…
     

I run with kangaroos

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But they are faster than me. It’s surreal. I take my iPod when I go for a run. The other day I was listening to a live concert in Central Park, while I ran halfway around the world from Central Park. Today I was listening to Elton John singing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and the magical nature in the song is much like here. We see wallabies all the time. When we walk by them, they are slow to do anything and usually cross the track in front of us and hop away into the tussock grass. Well when I run by, they fly. Their pace picks up considerably. It’s as if they are showing off. I’m not sure if it is because I am running or because I am singing out loud at full volume.

.Joey trying to go home

This kangaroo wouldn’t be a fast runner because it has the youngest joey I have seen.

While I was running downhill into a valley by a creek, I heard the whoosh of huge wings and the flock of Cape Barren Geese which has decamped to Garden Cove, soared by. All the while, I am surrounded by rocky hills and turquoise seas. I hope I never forget this experience.

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I’ve been knitting and spinning like a mad woman. I have designed a pair of socks I am knitting with wool I spun on the drop spindle. I have also been spinning mohair and merino together. I am going to try dyeing with onion skins and lichen. The benefit of lichen is you don’t need a mordant ( a chemical that causes the dye to stick to the fiber) to make a permanent dye. Just like my singing, this has effects on the wildlife. Today I saw a lizard wandering around in the sun room with some mohair fuzz stuck to its back leg, sort of like toilet paper on your shoe.

The ocean racers have arrived

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There are several big races in this area right after Christmas. Our first visitors, who will go unnamed, stopped by after they dropped out of the Sydney Hobart race due to problems with their sails in the gale force winds. They walked up the hill to the compound, looked around a little, took a few pictures and walked back down to the boat. A quiet group.

The boat below was a winner.

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Yesterday, the winner (I think) of the Melbourne Hobart race and two other boats, who finished, arrived and the party began. There were 20 people ashore for the barbecue. Toasts were made, pictures were taken. It was a clubby group and everyone seemed to know one another. They had the air of people who had come through an ordeal together and survived and even won. Every one of them was in awe of Deal Island and were sorry they were in a rush to go home and couldn’t spend more time to explore the island. Most have been on the boats since Boxing Day and one boat’s head wasn’t working. They were especially eager to get back home and off the boat. When the boat left under the cover of night, a bugler played taps.

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The barbecue area is at the land end of the pier with a huge grill tables and benches.

Some things are universal though. At least two of the boats had female crew. I talked to several and they had withstood huge seas and knockdowns of their boats. Well a group of women were going out to one of the boats in a dinghy but they were having engine trouble. All the men stood at the beach and snickered. i know they were thinking, “female drivers” yet these women sailed the Southern Ocean in a gale!

Our grid

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We don’t have one. We depend on no utility companies, only the wind and rain. (Except for Telstra internet and phone and we haven’t had internet for two days). We are well stocked with power and water. We get our energy to run a freezer, refrigerator, lights and computers from a solar array which generates about 7.5 kwh daily, and the energy is stored in a bank of batteries. We seem to use about 3.5 kwh daily.

There’s a backup generator if the sun should stop shining. This replaced a diesel based generator system. Not much fun getting the diesel up the hill or paying for it.P1030114.JPG

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We get our water off the roofs of the houses. Our drinking water is collected in a new fiberglass tank and we filter it through a ceramic filter. The rest of the water comes from two concrete tanks, from which Tim occasionally scoops out dead bats. The next major project is to cover the tanks and keep out the bats and other wildlife.

We run a little honda engine, which pumps the water (but not the bats) up a hill to a tank about 1/4 mile from the house. It takes about 20 minutes to top it off. Then when we want water in the house, we just open the tap and it runs down the hill. Lots of engineering came before us. We just turn on the light switch and flush the toilet.

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Sweet.

We speak the same language, but just use different words

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We all speak English here. First of all I still can’t believe the US has not adopted the metric system when the whole world uses it. So I have to translate all measurements and weights, kms, grams and cms. But there are words here I haven’t heard before and we often have to ask what someone is talking about. Before we arrived, we were advised to bring a doona for the bed. When I was trying to figure out how to get internet service here and corresponded with Bigpond, the largest provider. They told me I couldn’t get a prepaid or month to month contract. Apparently they told me a porkey because I was able to get it through their parent company. I bought tomato paste squeeze and sachets. We eat sultana and bran cereal. Instant coffee is simply Nescafe. Milk is full cream or skinny. The other day someone asked us if we have chooks on the island because it would be hard for them to get used to the wind. We are greeted with, ” how are you going?” and aren’t sure how to respond. Yesterday we picked up some dunnage from one of the coves to build a bench.

There are also unlimited ways to convey a carefree life. “No worries, mate”, ” too easy” and “sweet”.

doona; light blanket or duvet

porkey: lie, not true

squeeze: packet or tube (i think)

sachets: packets

sultana; large like a raisin but not a raisin

chooks: chickens

dunnage: driftwood

Uh oh, I’m seeing things again

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I spent a good part of the morning spinning yarn and looking out the windows. I think I was hiding from the flies for a while. Later in the day I walked to Garden Cove to look for a grave there and then to the Lighthouse with Tim to close it up for the day. On the lighthouse tower, I saw a monkey I haven’t seen before. Or it might be a mouse in a dress.

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Then I found a pac man rock.

Pac man rock

But I was really on a quest to find more about some of the history here on Deal Island. I was looking for a grave of a sailor near Garden Cove. He was on a ship sailing by in 1849 when he died. His shipmates came ashore and buried him near the beach. His marker was replaced in the 1930’s by a lighthouse keeper who used wood from a boat that sank in one of the coves. After a little hunt, I found it.

JS Sept 30 1849
I cleared some of the weeds around it. It was strange pulling weeds from over a grave. I thought twice when there was a little resistance. It’s in a beautiful location near Garden Cove. The marker says, “JS Sept 30 1849”.
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Garden Cove
There was a sealer’s settlement near Garden Cover around the same time. A cave has been found on Erith Island, just next door, which was inhabited about 7,000 years ago but nothing that old has been found here…yet.