Tasmania  a beautiful place,and filled with really interesting people.!

Tassie is logging old growth forests,and using it for wood chips!     Myrtle over hundreds of years old cut and felled for wood chips!…this makes me as an Australian feel very uncomfortable.   I ponder at what the Australian fur seal hunters, of a bygone time, considered the right amount to take, or mutton birds.!     I ponder over understanding the thinking of sheep versus the Tasmanian Tiger.     Land and the expansion of the coloney,what do we need to protect and yet continue to prosper.

I regognise that “Bloody Actors” having a say ! what would they know, a bit like Garrett bashing!

I’m not an expert but I figure I know the difference between to much and progress, lets face it it all gets down to bucks!

Love some data around Eco tourism and its benefits for the future.

I hope the balance between “Return to the Shareholder” and the Idealism around preserving wilderness doesn’t tip so far that the damage done,creates a threat for future generations

Family”s that earn from mining and logging want the best for there family’s ,however will they be at more risk if the attitude changes towards is the current thinking?     Change happens fast,  the distance between Tassie and the rest of the world, is changing.

There is an election in five weeks!  my question is can Tassie lead the way in recognising the special place they have and share this with the world and turn this into an earn?

My time with 7th generation Tassie occupants was special,the place is special,I ask can we talk about a lass reliant wood dependence for the “Apple Isle”and a recognition,of extraordinary skills to survive in a harsh environment,with a balanced approach.     Moving into the 21st century!

However I’m a “Mainlander!” what would I know!

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Celebrity Tennis Day - Sunday 7th, February 2010 11am – 4pm

Hi Guys, Thanks for following me today for a really worthy cause. I am MC – ing today at the Celebrity Tennis Day at Chatswood.  Check out the Photos below as we post them up live during the day. 16 high profile celebrities along myself with Double Drummer hope to raise $20,000 for Diabetes Australia-NSW by demonstrating that being active helps prevent the fastest growing chronic disease in the world. There are going to be more Stars here than the Constellation.

Bring the Kids along…. Active Kidz perfomance on Kids Court at 1:15pm

Here is the list of great Ceebrities playing today in the Tournament.

• Layne Beachley
• Guy Leech & wife Helen
• Liz Ellis – Aussie Captain Netballer
• Kerri Pottharst – 2000 Olympic Games beach volleyball
• Lindy Olsen – A 3-Time Miss World Natural Figure champion
• Stephanie Brantz – The female face of sport at the Nine Network
• Corey Brown – Melbourne Cup Winner of “Shocking” 2009
• Trevor Chappell _ Ausse Cricketer
• Angie Akers – Beach Vollyballer
• Trya Turner – No.5 Beach Volleyballer, playing
• Mark Bosnich -
  Australia’s best ever goalkeeper, representing Australia 17 times and playing for English Premier League clubs Aston Villa, Manchester United and Chelsea
• David Peachey - Australian international and New South Wales State of Origin rep. fullback, ‘Peach’

Guy Leach

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Simon

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Simon Westway (Me) Miquel’s Maestre caught up last Friday evening for some spanish Tapas.

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Crown Land is owned by all of us isn’t it?   This remote untouched wilderness, one of the last temperate rainforest stands in the world is 60 million years old!   Cook’s Ship ‘The Endeavour’, made of oak, was a seedling when the trees in front of me were young saplings. Australian dinosaurs lived here once and later the indigenous Tarkiner people.Their ancient middens on the Tarkine coast are reminders of  thousands of years of undisturbed living.

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A D9 Dozer (a bulldozer with a large blade it the front) cut an exploratory track through here six years ago, the evidence it left behind is heartbreaking, This area is fragile and old, Trees 400 to 600 years stand proud – myrtles, eucalypts, celery top pines.  Old man ferns by the hundreds thrive as nature intended below the dappled canopy. The Huskisson River, wild and pristine, seen by only a handful of persons, flows undammed and uninterrupted an hour or two’s walk away.

I’m here for an ’Into The Blue Writers and Meditation’ course, hosted by Tarkine Trails, a group of people who care passionately about raising awareness about this extraordinary place. In our intelligently designed low impact camp, nestled in the moss covered wonderland, I’m reminded of  Banjo Patterson ‘s ‘ visions splendid’ and ‘wonderful silence deep’.  Black Cockatoo’s punctuate the sound of air moving through the wind swept canopy above me. Its a long way to the top – I don’t think that’s what AC/DC had in mind,

I am informed by my Tarkine guide Trev, that this area may still be logged – a  60 million year old wilderness brought down for toilet paper and wood chips, with mining exploration and a 23 million dollar tourist road posing an immediate threat. I accept that for some, driving the latest SUV to a car park to see the giant   600 year old Myrtle, a waterfall and some ancient mega fauna may be as close as they are going to get, but there have to be far less invasive ways to enter a place like this.

The wind carries a unique cry  – the Tarkine needs conservation action!  It is now a contender for world heritage listing but the movement needs support. These former tree hugging greenies set up Tarkine Trails to illustrate the potential of eco tourism in this area and to give it the value it deserves. Visitors from all over the world have traveled with them on a range of walking trips through the old growth forest and along its spectacular coastline.  Tapping into an international tourist market of people who want to make a difference as they travel, is just one part of the campaign.

Cradle Mountain and the Franklin are great Tasmanian success stories! Getting those ‘little buggers’ out of the trees would have been very tricky, but thank god for them. Integrity has a higher value in a place like this.  The time is ripe for another success story in the Tarkine and I aim to be a part of it. My boots are going to get muddy if D9”s are the future!

As you can see my New Years trip to Tassie was more than a little life changing, but I must leave you with this important question:

Sleeping bag

Sleeping bag cover

Why do you never fit with each other!

Simon Westaway is an Australian Actor and Voice over Artist

If you want to visit or help the Tarkine:

Tarkine Trails: www.tarkinetrails.com.au

Tarkine Coalition: www.tarkine.org

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Thank you to the film makers who make us think! its such a beautiful medium

Gotta catch a ferry     havn’t checked the type but here goes!

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