Veronika Wild

I blame those cooking competitions like Masterchef and the Superfood nuts,  for making formerly humble and cheap vegetables like parsnips cost $ 9.99. The standard price for a  lowly cabbage is  $5 and even at the height of the season, zucchini sold for $ 7.99. I am not sure what do about the rising price of other staples of the impoverished such as lamb shanks and soup bones (osso bucco) - plant a cow? - but I have begun to garden. I am now the proud owner of a small plot in a community garden and it is starting to show promise. The broad beans are up, the kale has yielded a few leaves and the broccoli are heading nicely. I have so many seedlings of Broccoli and Silverbeet that I have been giving them away. Even the weeds are good eating and probably add a few much needed vitamins to the winter food supply.  And yes, I have planted parsnips. Community garden - one of several springing up around Hobart My plot in April - it looks better now. (See below) I a...

Rokeby's Historic Watchhouse dates from 1850. It's Historic Trail starts here Rokeby is one of those little places on the way to South Arm. I had no idea that it had a history. Apart from the fact that there's a Police Academy is there, I had hardly heard of it at all. I always assumed that it was  one of those Johnny -come -lately suburbs, just another product of the post war baby boom with too many identical boxes and too little character, that you drove through as quickly as possible. That was, until I saw the sign indicating a Historic Walk  and decided to take a closer look.  Easier said than done. For a start, there was absolutely nowhere to pull over, especially with so much fast moving traffic behind me. Secondly, after driving around in circles and one -way streets for a while, looking  for somewhere to park, it was very difficult to tell where the trail actually started.  Lastly, the trail is very fragmented and while looking for the marker...

Tasman Bridge -   Photo with kind  permission from Leesa Shaw This photo reminded me how important the Tasman Bridge was to the development of the Eastern Shore and thus South Arm. After being able to be reached only by water transport i.e. a succession of ferries, the first  Bridge, proposed almost one hundred years earlier, was finally erected in 1944. The design was a novel engineering feat- a laterally arched floating bridge with a middle section that could be raised with lifts to allow for shipping. Unfortunately, the vast increase in traffic, enhanced by the postwar baby boom and increasing affluence which permitted private car ownership, soon meant that the two lane bridge was inadequate. These figures from John Sargent's " Derwent River Connections," (2004: 78) tell the story.  In 1924 the public ferry P.S. Kangaroo carried 120 vehicles a day, doing doing 14 trips daily,. By 1924 the  S.S. Lurgurena was doing 38 trips dai...