Ghosts of Christmas Past
It’s the end of the year, and I doubt I’ll have a chance to do the best-of music, movie and TV lists that I’d wanted to—maybe in January, but given what that’s looking like, probably not—but there’s still time to squeeze in one last gallery at Detail.
Twenty-seven years ago I was in Tassie, home from Canberra during the Christmas break, with two of my best friends along for the ride: James was visiting from England, and Jane was meeting my parents for the first time. We spent an unusually wet and cold Christmas together, rather than the warm and sunny southern hemisphere version I’d promised, but still got out and about, as I took them to see my favourite places in the state. In between a homebound Christmas Day and my twenty-sixth birthday, the three of us visited the Hartz Mountains, Russell Falls, Port Arthur, and the Friendly Beaches. After James flew home, my parents, Jane and I drove west to Queenstown, Strahan, Ocean Beach and Henty Dunes. I’ve supplemented the photos of these trips with a dozen from one with my family to the northwest in Easter 1991, my first visit home after starting my Ph.D. in Canberra, which concluded with driving my car up to Devonport to catch the Abel Tasman to the mainland.
Most of these places are represented in my twenty-first century photos of Tasmania, but these older images are different enough to be worth collecting here, making a decent snapshot of the state in the early 1990s. (Keen-eyed fans of the site will recognise a couple from my first-ever gallery at Detail). I’ve set aside my photos of Hobart for now, to make a fuller ’90s gallery of my home city in due course, but for now, here’s Tasmania ’93.