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1-29-09

Royal Tasmania Botanical Gardens
http://www.rtbg.tas.gov.au/

I tried to get over to the place where the first prisons were located but I had a terrible time dealing with the damn freeways. Exits were on the left and right and I got excreted on a wrong road and it took me quite a while to get turned around and back over this bridge to get another run at it. I was about to go over the bridge again when I noticed a sign for the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens and decided I would rather see that then a damn old rock prison anyway.

The old iron entrance gate was fantastic.

How about that way cool cast bronze door knob?

These are the rock wall surrounding the gardens.

There was a little building that I went into and asked if I could leave my riding coat there. The people were very nice and said “ sure”. This was inside.

Outside was this really nice wood carving of an old time gardener copied from an old photo. He has his carved wooden basket and out of the picture is his little day pack with probably his lunch. They said when the gardens were open to only members that they had to pass dress restrictions before they would be allowed in the garden. You might notice that this worker is wearing a tie…

OK now some serious flowers.

This is a really an interesting flower. The flowers are actually the little blue ones and the white things are just for display. The gardener gal said that they sort of look like butterflies and I thought that was a nice description of them.

This Rain Forest walk was fantastic.

I have to put this in here for Chad as he is from this Monterey country. The photo of the tree was really hard to get with all the others around but a touch of home for ya Chad….

This is in the Oak Forest. They have oaks form all over the world.

This was in the Fern building.

One of my favourtes.

I went back to pick up my coat and got to talking with the guy that I left my coat with. He told me that I needed to go in the next room and check out the paintings that this young woman did. I thought he said she was very young when she did these but after reading this blurb, she was probably a little older.

In this room was also a commemorative piece of needle work for some sort of anniversary (190years?) or something. I took a couple of close ups to show the fine detail on some.

I have been visiting with several folks about what is happening here in Australia concerning the economy and society in general. One woman was telling me that she had a small business that had about a dozen well-tuned workforce. One day a person came from the government and asked her is she would hire a person that they were trying to get work for. Well, she didn’t need another worker but the government was going to pay the major part of the wages and she thought that she would do it as a public service sort of thing. Well she said that after about ten people that they sent, she went to the government person and said that she couldn’t use any of those people, as they were totally unable to do even minor work. The government woman finally told her that these folks were ‘unemployable’ but they had to try. Evidently there is a major welfare population here and they have not worked for generations. I asked it they were aboriginal and she said “oh no, they were all killed off years ago.” Another person I talked with about this said it was true. I then said that we learned in school that the criminals were brought to Australia and maybe that criminal element was populating the country. He said the real criminals were  hanged in England and only the people that stole a loaf of bread or some clothes to feed and cloth their families were brought down here. He did say that if they needed an architect or somebody like that, the police would grab one on some minor charge and send them on down here. They put the prisoners to work and evidently a lot of work clearing the farmland was done by these prisoners. They got a  reduced sentence if they worked and some even got land but I think it was the ones that were more upper class.

One person said that a lot of these people here in Tasmania were really inbred and evidently that is true. One guy said that there is an area called Black Bob that is famous for having inbred population. He said that in the old days they even had people chained to the wall there because they were uncontrollable. I have the area marked on the map. What would you do, go around it or through it, and stop for a Coke and a visit???

Note: My new Australian friends might find this all wrong but that is what I have been hearing from the locals and thought I would write it before I forgot it. Sorry if that isn’t the way it really is…… Rx