Past Surrounds
Although I visited Tasmania off and on throughout the 1990s, I spent most of it in Canberra, with trips to surrounding areas of New South Wales. As part of sorting out my old negatives, I’ve collected those trips into a few representative galleries at Detail…
The first revisits my gallery of the ACT, adding photos from 1994–97 and doubling it in size. More of Namadgi, more views around the city, and some new shots of hot-air balloons one foggy morning, from when J. was helping out her balloonist friend.
In the Canberra winter we would usually go skiing at least once in the Snowy Mountains, to Thredbo and Perisher, where between wobbly blue runs I would manage a few alpine shots (sometimes, as above, of wobbly blue worms). Cross-country was my favourite; it was good for taking photos of snow gums, now sadly endangered by climate change. We also visited Thredbo one summer with J.’s mum and sister to hike to the top of Kosciusko (the year before it got its z). This gallery of the Snowies is another work-in-progress, with more photos from 1998 to come.
The surrounding countryside of southeast New South Wales was also familiar territory in those years. This gallery starts with my drive up from southeast Victoria when bringing my car up from home after Easter 1991, before taking in visits with J. to the coast and southern highlands, the Blue Mountains, Narooma for whale-watching, more beaches, and Morton National Park on our honeymoon.
In 1996 and 1997 we travelled further inland, first to Dubbo in winter to visit the Western Plains Zoo, and the following summer on a road trip with my parents through Mudgee, Armidale, and up into southern Queensland, also included in this gallery. The last few photos are coastal rather than inland, but they belong with this trip.
We weren’t done with New South Wales in the 1990s quite yet, so let’s see what else turns up in the scans. The end of 1997, though, we spent somewhere else New…