Veronika Wild

It’s Sunday night on the waterfront. At dusk the haunting Siren’s Call brings us together. Tonight is the last official night of Dark Mofo, though there’s still the nude swim at dawn on the Solstice.   The excitement builds as the sky darkens. Children wave lanterns decorated with cyclopean eyes.   Then to throbbing drums, grotesque figures begin to bob above the gathering crowd – evil spirits we are told – a hobgoblin, a black razorback pig, a loathsome dreadlocked red female. Some distance behind her is the Ogah Ogah, the giant papier maché Tasmanian Tiger in which we placed our slips of paper with our regrets and fears the previous Saturday. One of the wiggling, jiggling demons goes by - possibly some kind of  demented fertility goddess More people stream in from the side streets as we swarm, shuffle and trip along the waterfront. As we pass by the blood red Museum, Ogah Ogah obliges by stopping in the middle of the street and putting on a little dan...

A money free Festival- What an excellent idea! Great weather too Back in the Hills, it hasn’t taken long to feel as if Broome was just a mirage. However, I did have an unexpected pleasure on Saturday. Since my daughter was at home this weekend, she took the little girls and I to a small local event – The Festival of Forgotten Skills. Apparently it was to have been held in May, but the bad weather had led to its postponement.   Now the weather was perfect and it proved to be   a most enjoyable day. Held in the community garden, there were pizzas being baked in a big clay oven and you could watch all sorts of things being made - jewellery, rugs, mosaics, spinning and weaving. You could also try your hand at many of them including nature crafts, fabric painting, making lagerphones from bottle caps, fairy pendants and other things. Produce and seedlings were being given away to the musical accompaniment of a young girl playing an accordion. The atmosphere was that ...

It seems that Antarctica is the flavour of the month, or at least it will be in September when Hobart’s Australian Antarctic Festival will run from September 8 -11. There is the Antarctic Dinner of course which I’ve already mentioned and Polar Walks, but there will also be several open days, exhibitions and Expos, a special performance by the Derwent Symphony Orchestra in the Town Hall, an Antarctic Photo Competition and the opportunity to do a tour of the two Antarctic vessels , the Aurora Australis and the French L’Astrolabe.  School children are painting penguins to display along the waterfront and the State Cinema is putting on an Antarctic Film Festival which includes drinks, guest speakers, special readings and screenings and an after party. There will also be school tours and special activities for children, not to mention the huskies. Not sure if I will make it back to Tasmania by then, but if you   want to go to the dinner or tour the icebreakers...