Franklin News and Views

Geocaching: Up the Derwent valley Again : Saturday , 29 March 2014 It was a predicted fine day and although quite cloudy and misty in Hobart it became sunnier as we drove west. The ...

Bushwalks: Mount Styx : Thursday 20 March 2014 From the top of the head it sounded plausible; go on a bushwalk to Mount Styx and because it is not a long walk col...

Bushwalks: South Wellington Milles Circuit : via Ice House Track and Potato Fields Tuesday 11 March 2014 On top of Mount Wellington a temperature of 21 degrees was expected with Hob...

Wellington Park: Erica at the edge of Wellington Park – Kalang Site... : Tuesday 4 March 2014 The aim in this particular area is to bring back the Erica line to the outside of the bush.  Beyond that is an extensi...

We had our bathroom tiled by Gary McDonald from South Arm.  The work was a very good and the cost quite acceptable.  If you are looking for a tiler in the Hobart area of Tasmania then it would be worth considering Gary for the job. His business name  is Sun City Carpentry & Tiling Services His service is promoted as quality bathroom renovations.  All types of carpentry and ceramic tile laying Mobile  0417 937 840    After hours  03 6239 9759

This article was originally published on The Conversation . . SPC Ardmona's bailout is crucial given China's food safety record By Christopher G. Baker , University of Sydney SPC Ardmona’s $22 million lifeline from the Victorian government seems to have saved Australia’s largest food packaging company. Yet the firm’s recent tribulations are a reminder of why I regularly choose to buy products at the supermarket that are more expensive than the alternative. Local produce: Victorian workers and politicians have rallied behind the SPC brand. AAP One reason is that Australian food standards are generally world-class when it comes to the amount of contamination allowed from metals such as lead and cadmium. Although it is not always possible to police this perfectly, these standards allow a high degree of confidence that Australian food is free from contamination. Contamination issues The story is different elsewhere. In China, for example, the past decade has seen ...

  From the report in the Conversation   quote Globally  …... Thirteen of the 14 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001. That means that according to the Government’s advisor and probably many in the Government they would have us believe that the the people worldwide who keep these weather details have been conspiring to tell a lie for the last 13 years .  That is truly a remarkable achievement and must be brilliantly organised and without anyone of them spilling the beans.   Here is the article in full 2013 was Australia's hottest year, warm for much of the world By Blair Trewin , Australian Bureau of Meteorology ; David Jones , Australian Bureau of Meteorology ; Karl Braganza , Australian Bureau of Meteorology ; Neil Plummer , Australian Bureau of Meteorology , and Rob Smalley , Australian Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed 2013 as Australia’s hottest year since records began in 1910. Average temperature...

  I have been reading the Guardian Australia since it started up here in 2013, it gives a good run down on Australian and world news.  The Australian news is gradually getting more content.  I hope it flourishes as, apart from Fairfax newspapers, there is not a lot of options if you don’t like the Murdoch papers.

Books: Four Degrees of Global Warming edited by Peter Chr... :   Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World  edited by Peter Christoff My rating: 3 out of 5 stars     My review After...

Bushwalks: Harry Walker Tier : Thursday 12 December 2013 It was fortunate that the weather for this walk was mild and that the drizzly looking sky to the south didn’t re...

Bushwalks: Lake McCoy and Mount Pillinger : 29 November – 1 December 2013 Whilst making plans for a walk to Mount Pillinger we discovered there was a geocache on top and one also at ...

Roaring Grill The Roaring Grill is a very welcome addition for dining in North Hobart. We both decided on eye fillet steak (200 gram) cooked medium. It came with champ potatoes and chopped salad and we also ordered a vegetable side dish, although in hindsight we could have done without. Bear in mind we are not big eaters. The steak was very tender and tasty and beautifully cooked Shared a coffee infused crème brulee with almond biscotti which was most enjoyable. The meal however was a bit saltier than what we like. Service was good and the wait for the food was about what one would expect. The steaks were crusty on the outside and next day, after both not sleeping well, I did a search on the Internet and discovered that salt is used by many chefs when cooking steak. As we do not normally have much salt, this may have contributed to the sleep problem, if it was actually used in the cooking. 5/5

Future Bushwalks: Freycinet Peninsula : 25 - 27/28 September We find that it is usually late in the day by the time we get to the desired camp some 1k south along the ridge leading...

Books: A Matter of Principle by Conrad Black :   My Review A Matter of Principle by Conrad Black My rating: 1 of 5 stars Reviews I had read prompted me to buy the book, but so far it h...

Bushwalks: Quoin Mountain : Wednesday 11 September 2013 The track through the Long Tom property (private) was followed to a junction with a logging road which was fo...

My Garmin GPS was working fine when suddenly it said can’t unlock maps and wanted me to set up maps and then recalibrate the compass. This was very annoying, but anyway I had no choice but to do as instructed. But it was only the basic world map without all the detail that I previously had. However it continued to give the message can’t unlock every time I turned on the GPS. I searched Garmin website and also emailed Garmin for help. I did find a reference to the message relating to the Garmin Nuvi navigator and also on another web site specifically relating to GPS’s. On this site 3 people had the very same problem of suddenly the maps not being there. Incredibly a crucial file gets deleted from the GPS; how it happens is a mystery but it is very poor of Garmin not to have the software robust enough so that this can’t happen. I tried the solution suggested, but it did not make any difference. Then a few days later I realised that I had made a spelling error in the file name and whe...

Cluey Voter: Voting below the line made easy This site lets you create your own how to vote card which you can take into the polling booth.

I think the Age for iPad is a good App and am surprised at people only rating it 1 star. It would be most interesting to view ones they give a 5 star rating; they must be absolutely brilliant Apps. However none of the payment schemes now introduced suit me. I am not living in Victoria or NSW and both the Age and SMH are very much state centred. There is plenty of other good articles but you can’t buy the papers it on a casual basis. Apart from the localised news, there are also several writers of opinion that I don’t want to read, let alone pay money for. In this modern age it should be feasible to provide a tailored application to suit other areas that leaves out localised Vic/NSW issues. I am not opposed to paying and have made donations to some news sites. At the moment I can get sufficient news and information from Guardian Australia, The Conversation, New Matilda and the ABC. There are also several other sites I read via RSS feeds

  By Fay Johnston , University of Tasmania and David Bowman , University of Tasmania Look at satellite images from Southeast Asia this week and you will see large areas of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore blanketed by dense plumes of smoke. These smoke plumes have severely degraded ground-level air quality . Extreme air pollution has caused Malaysia to declare a state of emergency and Singapore to embark upon strained dialogue with Indonesia about its responsibilities. Forest destruction, carbon and biodiversity The fires are set purposely to convert rainforest into land that can be used for agriculture and plantations, mostly for palm oil production. Maps show that many fires escape control into surrounding forests and plantations. Research from United Nations University shows that collectively, these fires are destroying a global hot spot of tropical biodiversity. The fires also ignite peatlands , releasing enormous stores of carbon into the atmosphere. For ...

Bushwalks: Butlers Hill : Wednesday 12 June 2013 In the Chauncy Vale area there is plenty of very pleasant bushland and the walk to Butlers Hill on the southern sid...