Fred's Logbook
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| Date / Time: 2013-09-23 20:00:57 | Voyage from: to | ETA: |
| Fred-Report: Hi all again, I am still in the Southerm Hemisphere for a little while. There are amazing places on Earth here too. I am now back in Tasmania. Settle down in Hobart for few weeks. Hobart is the capital of the Southermost State of Australia. It's is a nice little city, with good food, nice people and heaps to see around! Julie is back in the lab where she will start soon to analyse her samples she collected in Antarctica during our cruise onboard the Polarstern. I am not allow to join her in the lab because she is measuring iron in ice and sea water at a nano molar level. It means she has to work in ultra clean conditions, under a laminar flow hoot that kind of blow out the air and keep the atmosphere ultra clean. She is wearing special lab coat and gloves for all the manipulations. Everything has to be acid cleaned before use…I'm not sure I wanna take a HCl bath! Despite that, we are still travelling around a bit during the weekends. Here is few of my Tasmania stories: Last Saturday I went to Salamanca Market. This is the most famous Market in Tasmania. It is set between graceful plane trees and the mellow sandstone facades of historic warehouses It attracts thousands of locals and visitors, every Saturday of the year. There is food (yummy yummy), handcrafts, flowers, and even musics. Local people come and play in the street. It is a lovely place to spend a sunny saturday morning. When I went there, Lara was doing a little exhibition about her studies about the Whale Sharks in Ningaloo in Western Australia. Learning about whale sharks at Salamanca Market  For her PhD she is studying this threatened species and more particularly it movement patterns, population dynamics habitat and what he is eating. It is important to know these stuff in order to protect this species. Lara is from Barcelona and is doing her PhD at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies like Julie. Did you know that humans are the whale shark biggest threat? If you wanna know more about that, check that blog out: www.saveourseas.com/projects/whale_shark_feeding_ecology Later during the day, we went to a Chilian Party (hmmm back to old memories). The Chilian/South American community is quite big here in Hobart and for the Chilian independence day they were organising a party with traditional music, traditional dances, food and drinks. What a nice line up for the chilan party!  Enjoying the Chilian music  Had the opportunity to try the traditional Empanadas. Sort of a base filled with meat, onions and eggs (the Pino) and the vegetarian version of that one filled with cheese and mushrooms! It goes along really well with a glass of Pisco Sour! At the moment Julie has 2 friends visiting from Belgium. On Sunday we went to Mount Field National Park West of Hobart for a little hike the the Russels Falls. These water falls are super impressive. Really big and full of water has the weather hasn't been that good lately. What a cool view from the Russels Falls! So much water!!! Can we go for a swim??  The hike took us on a easy walk through a mixed forest comprising towering swamp gums, the tallest flowering plant on Earth, and species typical of wet forests and cool temperate rainforests, such as dogwood, musk and myrtle. Towards the falls, the track is framed by stunning tall tree ferns. The falls themselves are impossibly picturesque.At night time glow worms can be seen among the vegetation on the approach to the falls, however, we didn't get a chance to see them as we were there during day time. During the hike in Mount Field: with Julie's friend. From left to right: Laure, Margaux, Julie, Eric and Melissa. A bit of Belgium in the other side of the world as, except Margaux, they're all Belgian. Maybe that's why I had to drink that much beer??  We finish the day at MONA (The museum for Old and New Art) in Hobart. It is the largest privately founded museum in Australia. The museum presents antiquities, modern and contemporary art from David Walsh collection. David describes the museum as a "subversive adult Disneyland". From the outsite it already looks quite special with tennis court at the entry and some weird objects! We didn't visit the museum as it was already quite late in the day but instead went for a beer degustation! The are brewing their own beer. They're called the MooBroo. They're really tasty (and some of them strong!). We tried the "triple" which is a seasonal one. Had the feeling to drink a Belgian beer! Beer tasting at the MONA  That it's for the moment. I'm now getting excited to go back in Antarctica and getting ready with Julie's housemate, Alyce. We'll talk about that later. Hope you're all going fine wherever you are and are enjoying the life as much as I do! Cheers From Tasmania Fred Photos       | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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