St Marys Tasmania
Hauling Wild Apples in My Boots Through Tasmania
It happens. Biking around Tasmania on a junk shop bike, I come across stuff I’d like to take with me. But often there’s just not room.
Take the apple season. In these late summer days, wild, well, let’s call them feral, apple trees drape their bounty across the dirt road shoulders. (Quick apple lingo: “feral” means you can reach them from your bike. “Someone else’s” means you have to climb across a fence and sidle up next to an apple… Continue reading
Ian Summers Plays the Twelve String Guitar in Tasmania
This week I’m rambling on Flinders Island, off Tasmania’s north-eastern coast. But instead of island life, because so many of you enjoyed a recent post on Tasmanian music, I’m going to feature another tune.
In a recent post, you got a chance to listen to Ian Summers’ play and discuss his banjo. In this update and audio recording, he talks about his twelve string guitar. How it came into his life in a sorry state. How, like my bike,… Continue reading
Ian Summers Plays Tasmanian Bluegrass
In my early twenties, I ran out of money, girlfriend and plane ticket in Tuscany, Italy. For just on a year, all I had to my name was a few lira, a jug of chianti and a battered copy of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”. Over and over I’d listen to that tape. I especially enjoyed the parts where the band is sitting around talking with other musicians. You get snippets of legendary voices —… Continue reading
Ian Summers and Cranks and Tinkerers: A Visit to St Mary’s, Tasmania
Recently, while camping in the Tassie bush, the leeches had a go at me. Curious, I decided to ask Tasmanians what they knew about these critters. In St Mary’s, the first town I reached after my walkabout, while looking for a fuel bottle for my Optimus stove, I ran into Ian Summers.
Ian operates “Cranks and Tinkerers”, an incredible collection of things mechanical, literary, acoustic and eccentric —… Continue reading
