Leo's Twitter Updates for 2008-04-07

• We've stopped on the way to Bicheno on a backroad to shoot a farm. Next Ross Bakery of Kiki's Delivery Service fame. #
• Bruce Dale tells the farmer he's a former Nat'l Geographic photog. Then uses my name to try to convince him to let us shoot. Works. #
• @alexlindsay says he finally gets Twitter but still no sign of Dvorak. #
• It took us 8 hours (for a 2 hour drive) but we're finally here at the Diamond Island in Bicheno. Loving the sound of the ocean out my door. #
• The Diamond Island in Bicheno, TAS doesn't do breakfast. There's a bread machine in your room and you wake to fresh baked bread. Excellent! #

Meandering The Midlands Highway

We made it to Bicheno at 6 last night, turning a two hour drive into a full day's journey. Never travel with photographers if you're in a hurry to get somewhere, and expect to take extra time if you're with Winston and there are cows anywhere to be seen. (Oddly enough Winston also consumes mass quantities of beef.) In many ways the countryside looks very familiar to us Northern Californians -- Tasmania is at latitude 42° south - San Francisco is at 42° north -- but then you run into a wallaby or a quaint English village and the illusion is dashed. And I've never seen skies quite like this in Petaluma. As we were driving along the Midlands Highway, we passed a giant sign made of red wood that read "T-R-E-E."

We stopped to visit the farm next door, and the farmer told us the story of the sign. In 1996, to publicize the deforestation of Tasmania, a group called Landcare painted a huge dead Eucalyptus tree bright red. The tree was burned by disgruntled farmers, but resurrected as this red sign by artist Ray Norman, Jack Jaffray, Landcare and others in March 1997. It stands by an experimental grove of trees, planted to show what the area might look like if it were returned to forest. The tension between "progress" and the environmentalists in Tasmania can be seen everywhere. I'm sympathetic with the greens who want to preserve this wild and beautiful place, but it's also true that the character of this island comes from its settlers. The quaint town of Ross is a perfect example. It was as if we were in the English countryside. Ross has the oldest bridge in Tasmania, built by convicts in 1836. One of the convicts, a forger, carved elaborate abstract designs into the bottom of the bridge. The historic Ross bakery was the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki's 1989 animated movie, Kiki's Delivery Service. The bakery is mecca for visiting Japanese tourists who come to see the bakery and Kiki's room. My daughter Abby asked me to get a picture of the room. It looks like the ghost of Bruce Dale is visiting it.

I've uploaded more of my pictures on my SmugMug page. To look at them full screen, press the Slideshow button. You'll see many more pictures on the real photographers' blogs at digitalmedia.oreilly.com/adventure. We stayed up late last night putting up a web gallery of our best pictures, so far. If you want to see why I am blown away every day by these world-class photographers, take a gander at www.xyzadventures.com/galleries. And don't forget you can buy prints of many of our pictures to benefit Save The Tasmanian Devil at our public reception, 13 April from 5-7p at the Henry Jones Art Hotel in Hobart, TAS

Leo's Twitter Updates for 2008-04-06

• Up at 2:45a again for the radio show (it's Monday here). I'm going be a guest on the Charles Wooley show after. #
• Streaming the Tech Guy live from Australia at http://twit.tv/live - I'll stream my bit with Charles Wooley after, too. #

On The Road To Bicheno

Bruce Dale, Winston Hendrickson, Angela Drury, and I head out of Hobart on the road to Bicheno. Caution: this video might make you carsick!

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Leo's Twitter Updates for 2008-04-05

• My first batch of Tasmania pictures are up at http://leolaporte.smugmug.com #
• My daughter has joined Twitter. @abbylaporte - I'm so proud. #
• 3:46am Time to get up to do the radio show. zzzzz #
• @acedetect I have a feeling you wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same. You wanna be where everybody knows your name. #
• I'm in studio at Sea FM in Hobart, Tasmania, ready to do the Tech Guy radio show. Video: http://twit.tv/live Chat: http://irc.dslextreme.com #
• No @veronica is not coming to work for TWiT. I'd hire her in a minute if I could! I'm sure whatever she's got planned is better than TWiT! #
• That was fun! Streamed walk to the hotel and visit with the photogs at breakfast. Next show: Port Arthur at ~6:15p PDT. http://twit.tv/live #
• Ack sorry - change of plans. Can't do more streaming video today; my backup battery isn't charged. We'll do it tomorrow. http://twit.tv/live #
• If you wonder why I prefer SmugMug to Flickr just visit my Tasmania pictures and press the Slideshow button. http://snipurl.com/tasmania #