I used to love doing the Which Way Challenge but lately, I don’t get out with my camera much so it’s been hard to find new which ways. This week is no exception. These which ways were taken within 300 metres of my house.
Speed Limit
There was an event at the football ground not far from my house. This stretch of the Huon Highway is normally a 100kph zone so these signs were placed near my driveway.
Which Way?More speed restrictionsScott’s RoadOff road parking
Traffic controlThe dirt road to the clubhouse.Walking home.
As I walked home later I passed this old abandoned dirt road. When we first moved here in 2002 you could follow this road past some properties and exit on to Scott’s Road but after some time a small bridge over the Kermandie River fell into disrepair and neither the property owner nor the council wanted to fix it so the Huon Highway end of the road was closed. Now you can hardly tell it was ever a road.
This has been a busy week for me and although I made a trip to Hobart last week I had to hurry home to get chores done so did not have time to take my camera for a walk as I had hoped.
Delving into the archives I came up with a few photos that I thought it would be fun to play with. Mostly I used Picasa adding a cyan or sepia filter effect but for the Hobart ones I used Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Walkway from Adelaide Railway station to Adelaide Oval.
The Bourke St bridge over Southern Cross Station
A pedestrian mall in Sydney.
An iconic view of Sydney from the harbourside walk.
Although Cee is not hosting the Which Way Challenge at present I could not resist posting these Which Ways as I have been waiting to post snow photos for a long time.
A friend was kind enough to take me for a drive to the outskirts of Geeveston late Friday afternoon. It had been snowing since the night before but was now starting to melt away. Â These were taken on one of the roads that lead out to the forestry areas. We were not in a four-wheel drive so we stayed on the main track, a good graded earth road where there was snow on the verges. The tracks that lead to the various coupes are 4WD only and they had a lot more snow. It actually did start to snow while we were out so at least I can say I have been snowed on for the first time in about ten years.
Snow on the verges.
Tracks in the snow
One of the forestry tracks.
Untouched snow. This is about as heavy as it usually gets in Geeveston although higher altitudes will get more.
I don’t very often find myself on a major highway. We don’t have a lot of multi lane highways in Australia and when I have been on one, usually while trying to get in or out of Melbourne, I have usually had my navigators hat on and been too busy map reading and looking for signs to take photos. David and I drove up the Hume Highway from Melbourne to Canberra once but all the photos I took on that journey were taken in towns off the highway. We didn’t find the highway particularly interesting. I’ve been on the Western Highway between Adelaide and Melbourne both with David and with Naomi more times than I care to mention but have never taken a lot of photos on the highway itself, mostly in the towns where we stopped. The only one I found showing the highway itself was once when we parked on the side of it to photograph a train. People who know us would say that was typical.
Ribbon of Highway
In Tasmania our biggest highways are still only two lanes in each direction but that doesn’t mean we don’t use the word highway to describe major roads. The highway I have documented in pictures the most often is the one I live on.The Huon Highway.
This road runs from Kingston just outside Hobart to the far south of the state passing through Huonville, Franklin, Port Huon, Geeveston and on to Dover.
The photos here were taken at various times and places on the Huon Highway and also on the Southern Outlet which is the highway that connects Hobart to Kingston. In most places the road is merely one lane in each direction but the section that climbs up to the top of Vince’s Saddle has two lanes on the up track in each direction. The Southern Outlet is a two lane highway.
The Huon Highway is narrow and winding especially south of Geeveston. There are few opportunities for passing and motorists are often frustrated when sharing the road with heavily laden log trucks, and in season, tractors hauling hay or apple boxes. Caravans and motorhomes are a common sight between November and May and often hold up traffic too. However, when you are not dealing with any of those things, going around a sharp bend or watching out for roadworks, fog or ice in winter you are permitted to do 100 kilometres an hour which is highway speed. Since we came to live here the lighting has been improved with the addition of more “cats eyes” on the road and the verges have been widened in places but it is probably not most people’s idea of a highway.
The pictures in the gallery were taken between my home and Geeveston at Huonville and from the bus either on the Huon Highway or the Southern Outlet.
We live next to an electrical substation and between it and the boundary of our property is this “No Man’s Land” which looks like it should be a road or driveway but isn’t.
We’ve tried to find out who is responsible for it. The council doesn’t seem to want to know about it and it doesn’t have a name. Maybe its Crown land. Although there are now houses behind our place they can’t access this track by car although the back neighbours sometimes walk along it to get to the Huon Highway. That always sets Cindy off barking because the track is on higher ground and she thinks that the space is ours. She sometimes sneaks out of the back garden but thankfully instead of heading for the road she goes the other way. There are overhead power lines in the paddock behind us so the electricity authority has installed a gate and warning signs in recent times. Cindy, of course, can’t read and will duck under the fence and head off in search of possums, wallabies or to try to visit the neighbours.
Cindy loves coming up here.
The Road to Nowhere – Not really a road at all.
The Old Road
Years before we came to live here the Huon Highway, which runs past our house, was realigned. I suspect that it may have been done around the time that the substation was built in the 1960s. Here you can see a portion of the old road. When we first moved in there used to be an old Mile post in front of the substation but when they replaced the fencing it was destroyed. I was a bit sad about that. Of course we’ve had the metric system in Australia since I was a teenager but you can still see Mile posts here and there around Tasmania.
I don’t drive so I spend a lot of my time getting around by bus. I took these on a trip from my home in the Huon Valley to Hobart and then on another bus to my sister’s place 80km north of Hobart. A trip of 140km altogether.
