Dark Mofo Spectra and Skywhale Tasmania

One of the happiest days of the year here for me, the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.  Which of course means it is all uphill, heading back to longer days, after that.  

This year, MONA (The Museum of Old and New Art), created a inaugural winter festival called Dark Mofo.  

"The Dark Mofo Winter Feast draws on age-old traditions of winter solstice celebrations and savours the core of these: family and community; feasting and produce; singing and music; subversion and masquerade; rebirth and renewal; fire and life."

But for us, it was just about the "Beam in Thine Own Eye" (Spectra) by Ryoji Ikeda and the Skywhale.  These two pieces of 'Art' where visually captivating and drew in thousands of observers like moths to flame. 

The Skywhale, mistaken by many at first for a turtle, was the work of sculptor Patricia Piccinini.  The sculpture with multiple mammaries caused a bit of a stir actually. 

On Wednesday, after Soccer, we met up with Daddy at around 6pm.  We ate pizza in the car, in a freezing cold and dark carpark before venturing onto the Foreshore track.  This track winds up and down hills and along the Rosny foreshore.  Now Coder uses this track regularly, riding his bike in and out of town this way.  But Coder is on a bike, and it's daylight, and he doesn't have 4 children to help safely navigate their way in the darkness.  So his original estimate of a 15-20 minute walk ended up blowing out massively to 1-2hours return, with a 10 minute photo shoot thrown in.

But!

We did it!  Amongst -much- whining and grumpiness I might add.  A few silly jokes back and forth and several verses of Old McDonald distracted them from their complaining for a few minutes here and there.  Luckily we did have the pram, so we did use that to swap out the two youngest, me either carrying the light one, or pushing the pram, depending.  

Well some of us are still smiling.  

On Friday night, once again after soccer, we took the boys in to see Spectra up close (along with the rest of Hobart it seemed!).  It is actually a series of incredibly powerful searchlights, and you can walk in and around them.  There was also really weird and eerie alien sounds playing, unquestionably adding to the ambiance and pure wow factor of the art piece. 

We were also treated to the Skywhale lit up in all it's glowing orange glory.  A site to be seen for sure!

3 of the boys in awe of the Skywhale.

Pichu was not a happy camper, he did -not- find it amazing or even slightly interesting.  Terrifying was probably the adjective he would use if he even knew what an adjective was.  He would not come out of his pram, and for him that is BIG, as he is always trying to get out of his pram at any chance.   He sat quietly at first (luckily) whilst we all went into the middle of the Spectra, but then refused to get out for a photo and that was the beginning of the end of our short little visit to Spectra.  I took the older ones in for a close look at Skywhale while Coder sat with Pichu a safe distance away (as measured by the volume of Pichu's obvious distaste for modern art and sculpture).

 Snapped on the iPhone so I can at least show him when he is older that yes he was in fact there also!  He was keeping a close eye on that thing!

Overall it was just such a unique experience and we are so glad we persevered on both occasions.  And also glad to get back home to warmth! 


I am joining Jess and all of the fellow IBOT bloggers.
)

Aurora Australis Tasmania

On Saturday night the Aurora forecast was high due to the arrival of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) courtesy of the sun.  It has been coming and going now for weeks, and we (we as in mostly Coder) have been trying to photograph it. We can see aurora from Tasmania a few times a year, but especially in winter. This event's strength was rated about a 6-7 out of 10. You could have likely seen parts of it from as far north as Perth!

There has been some amazing photos popping up on Facebook, but it's not the same as capturing it yourself.  To get the best vantage point it means climbing up the hill, at the back of our property, it also means doing so in the dark.  

On Saturday Coder canvassed the situation first, trekking up alone, with camera, to see if it was going to be worth having another crack at it.  The text messages I received from him were encouraging and I began organising the kids into warmer clothes while we waited for him to come back, as we wanted them to experience it aswell.  Because of the earlier Birthday celebrations we also had one of the boy's friends for a sleepover.

So picture if you will, a dark rocky hill, upon which there are 5 children  and 2 adults trying to navigate a clear path to the top.  The lighting spread between the group being one small torch, one iPhone5 and a mini light sabre (with the sabre part missing!).  The toddler is being carried by Coder, and I am carrying the camera on the tripod whilst holding the 4 yr olds hand as he stumbles over literally every rock we encounter.   The torch is being shared between the two seven year olds, so almost completely useless to anyone else, yet they do have a knack for pointing it right in your eyes!

It was quite a journey, amongst torch sharing politics and questions about the distance to the final destination, but we made it to the top.  After setting the camera up we turned off all light and waited for our eyes to adjust.  

We were not disappointed, whereas it was not as active as it had been for Coder, the boys did still get to see it, along with the Milky Way, a satellite and even a shooting star! 

And it was about then, about 8 minutes in, that the complaining started.  Yes it was cold, yes it was windy, and yes the computers were back at the house.  So Coder took them back to the house and I stayed to try and get some more Aurora photos.

The problem with our vantage point is there is a pretty annoying hill right in the way, with a very annoying flashing red light on top of it (though not annoying for passing planes I am sure).  So I did try and get some without the light, but as it turned out the light really adds something to the photos anyway.

With tripod, shutter release cable and freezing cold hands I persevered, shielding the camera with my body to try and make a wind break.  

They may not be brilliant Aurora photos, but what makes them awesome is that we took them ourselves. 

Coder was very fortunate to see the Aurora when it was fairly active and was able to get these few photos before the kids came out. Photo by Coder.

 Photo by Coder.

Photo by Coder.

 Curtains of Aurora.  Photo by Coder.

 There is that light I was telling you about. 

The clouds were starting to gather, but in this case, looking back towards Hobart they helped to block out the city light horizon glow.

I was trying to get a photo without the red light!  I had the shutter open for around 50 seconds in this one, and it caused star trails. 

And this photo was taken about a week earlier, by Coder.  Pretty cool hey! It was a plane taking off.  Notice there is no red light, it was installed on the tower only very recently.

I am linking with Essentially Jess, for IBOT (I blog on Tuesdays). 

A Royal rainy rendezvous in Richmond.

Today we, like thousands of other people, decided it was a good day to visit Richmond.  Not like any usual busy touristy day in Richmond, this one was a 'special' busy touristy day in Richmond.  

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwell (Camilla) visited our little village, walking through the streets looking through some of the shops, even popping into the Pub (maybe for a quick pint?).

We weren't going to go, but I figured that Prince Charles will be the King one day (probably) so it would be good to go along and soak in the atmosphere and take photos for the future generations to have a look at.

 Oshawott tried to get into the spirit, but he just wasn't sure what all of the fuss was about.  He did have fun meeting a nice policeman though!

Pichu was fairly tolerant of sitting around for over an hour, only having a few tantrums here and there..

The police presence was impressive and there were zoom lenses as far as the eye could see!

 I thought these photos were pretty funny!  FBI agent, Police Captain (or something high up), and a monk checking their smart phones.

After popping into the Richmond Arms for a pint and some Rissoles and Gravy, the Royal couple once again braved the streets to greet more people. Naturally it started to rain.  But no problem, they had 'people' that scurried off to get umbrellas for them.  The rest of us.. well we got wet.

 Can't forget the selfie. Me, perched up on a bench, trying to balance and operate the camera at the same time.  Charles took forever to come out of the wood crafting shop!



Have you ever had a glimpse of someone Royal or famous?

If you have enjoyed reading and/or my photos, please head over and like my Facebook page.  And follow along at Twitter. 

I am linking up with Grace today at With Some Grace, for FYBF. 

Best Tassie weather by far.

And this is NOT it.

It's going to be 1 degree overnight, with snow showers forecast for above 500 metres.  That means we will probably get some snow flurries up here.  Not enough to see on the ground, nor make snowmen unfortunately, but just some flurries of it swirling around in the wind.  The "feels like" temp in the morning will undoubtedly be negative something, which is not uncommon, especially on Saturday mornings it seems, when we have to brave the soccer field. 


It's pretty depressing really, especially when you really don't like the cold.  Not the snow flurries of course, snow is the silver lining of winter.  But give me a 40 degree day back in Broken Hill any time! So feeling sorry for myself I went back and looked through some of beach photos taken last Summer.  We had a long warm (sometimes hot) Summer, though I did miss most of it while we were away for 2 weeks in Coolum, and then 5 in Broken Hill. 


The most memorable days we had in Tassie over summer were definitely February 25th and 26th.  It was a glorious 39.4 degrees and windy on the Saturday!  The day of Legoman's 8th party, which we were going to the park for.  Opps!  We loved it, but many of the guests' parents were clearly struggling.  Just a quick change of arrangements and I had 100 water balloons ready to go.  

Water balloons were a hit.

Who had more fun?

This is a Minecraft inspired cake, gone terribly terribly wrong.  The idea was solid, but the picture I had in my head certainly didn't come to fruition.  39 degree temperature didn't help much either!

On the Sunday it was also a beautiful hot day and we take every opportunity for a beach day here as if it will be the last, because it just might be snowing the next day! It's just that unpredictable.


Actually, I even put on my bathers... not at all thinking I would actually need them.  Even if the sun is melting icy poles, the water will always be frigid.  Born and bred Tasmanian's will disagree, but I grew up in Broken Hill and 18 degrees water temp is too cold.  It was such a lovely relaxing day, mostly.  I mean, there was still the small matter of 4 children to keep an eye on near the water, and Coder was surfing part of the time, or boogie boarding with the older boys.  This made the (seemingly) frequent pleas from Oshawott needing a toilet very difficult to orchestrate.  But we managed.  And it was so hot that I did go into the water!  I admit I did not get my head wet, but I certainly got my bathers wet! Baby steps...


Pichu had his own unique way of cooling off.

 And discovered tantrums on sand are not a good idea.

We stayed at the beach all day, it was 5.30/6pm by the time we left. No big deal when it doesn't get dark until 9.30/10pm in Summer.

The Birthday that just keeps on giving.

Voltorb had his actual birthday on the 30th of May.  That was the day before we flew out to Broken Hill for the Holidays.  After the Pirate Party, we kept the actual day low key.  Just presents (at 5.45am!), a dozen helium balloons and 2 dozen Pokeball cupcakes to share with his class.  No really, I didn't get him the balloons, i'm not taking credit for that, in fact the little boys and I were just in the right place at the right time to get those.


The day before, we were at Harvey Norman, searching for iTunes cards on special.  I needed to add to the movie selection on the "i" devices before the flights.  At the register there was a lady squirting a creamy like substance into empty balloons.  I was curious.  She said it was to coat the inside of the balloon so the helium doesn't leak out of the latex.  They were replacing all of the old balloons with a new bright orange theme.  Having 2 wee ones with me, of course they offered us some of the old ones.  Well it ended up being more then some, which resulted in quite a circus getting them to, and then in, the car.  It was a blustery day, naturally, and I had Pichu in the pram.  Somehow I managed to maneuver us across the car-park with balloons slapping me in the face.  Oshawott thought this was hilarious.


I sent Coder a message with one of these pics.  Wise as he is, he made a prediction, there was to be much screaming at home later.  Wise, wise words.

Nothing unusual here...

Really! nothing unusual... see? Pichu is having a tanty.  

All is right with the world.

Just wanted a balloon Mum.

One of the bunches.

Pichu was frustrated (read: screeching) because he couldn't reach the string once he'd let go of it.  Which, in turn, meant I had to follow him around retrieving it for him.  Not such a fun game for Mummy on a school night at dinner time. I fixed it by tying 2 extra lengths onto it.  

The birthday boy first thing in the morning. It was just the two of us awake so I let him open just one present to tide him over until a more respectable hour. Don't you just love the bed hair?

The Pokeball cupcakes that went to school.  This is what they looked like in the kitchen,  and i'm glad I took a photo then because there was a bit of an accident trying to get them to the car.  I was holding 2 trays balancing one on top of the other, had my bag over my shoulder and holding Pichu's hand so he wouldn't fall on the rocky path.  Well he stumbled didn't he!  I had to extend my arm down to stop him from falling, in the process, having the opposite effect to the other arm, like a scale, it went up.  Cupcakes went flying.  They fell upside down.  Naturally.  Luckily they had lids on them and I was able to salvage them with a little icing touch up inside.

In Broken Hill, Voltorb was lucky enough to have another Birthday celebration with our family there.  Which meant more presents, and more cake!

Pikachu cake

Ever since the Pirate party, Oshawott has been regularly talking about his Birthday, even though it is 3 months after Voltorb's.  He tells us he is going to have a jumpy castle (he's not.. sorry Bubbie) and an Oshawott (the Pokemon) cake.  Now the cake I can do!  One night in Broken Hill he was being a bit of a ratbag at bed time, didn't want to go to sleep you see.  Having learnt from the best (Legoman) I can now negotiate very well at bedtime.   I told him we would make some cupcakes the next day and decorate them like Oshawott heads as a practice run for his big birthday cake.