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Little watercolours

I walk around the city at lunchtime and in odd moments on weekends, and document that on Instagram here. I take photos of very ordinary things.     I made myself a target of posting a drawing or some sort of art for every fifth post. This was to give myself an incentive to keep drawing, even if they were just small scribbles. And I have tried to ignore quality control; just post whatever is new in the notebook.

I found these tiny 7cm x 7cm blank books at Artery. The paper is very thin but they are fine for micro-scrapbooks so I am doing some drawings and paintings to that size.

Above is the corner of Devonshire Square and Browne St, West Hobart.
Below is the bottom of Warneford Rd, South Hobart where it meets the Hobart Rivulet,
with houses in upper Liverpool St in the background.

St John's Park

I dropped Marcus at indoor soccer before 7 last night (Sunday) and went for a walk around New Town, with a vague plan to wander through the nearby school oval and follow my nose. It ended up being the most interesting short stroll through an abandoned-seeming but fully-maintained government education/health/social welfare precinct. While that sounds dull, it is anything but. It's made up of buildings from just about every decade back to the 1830s. I am yet to research all this but there's information here.

I say it seemed abandoned but everything is maintained, lawns mowed etc. And there were cars parked all over the place, so there were people at work in the buildings although it was Sunday evening. There are actually three aged care facilities in the area, so that explains it I suppose – I heard music from one of them called Rosary Gardens. The zone had a Chernobyl feel; so quiet but no vandalism, no hoons driving through although it is wide open with two entrances from main roads. I didn't trespass or hop any fences (this time) to get these photos.

Anyway – I clearly know very little so I am going to just dump the photos here and caption them as I find out more.

I walked in via Ogilvie High School. There was a casual game of cricket happening on the oval. I have come across these before, just a crowd from the local Indian or Pakistani community (you'd love to think both) with their families picnicking around the boundary.

Ogilvie High School (1937) has a nice art deco vibe like a few state schools around Tasmania. The St John's Park precinct is up the hill behind it. This is the northeastern end of a very large parcel of state government land that runs NE-SW from  New Town Road nearly to Augusta Road.

These buildings are unoccupied at the moment it seems. But there are cars parked around; there are people inside around here somewhere even on Sunday evening. It's very interesting to me that there is NO graffiti or other vandalism visible here.

The Infants Orphan School, 1861. This is now one of the aged care homes. 

Gellibrand House (1939) was built as a home for World War I veterans. I'm not sure if it's in use now.

I love this corner with its split level roller doors.

I think this is the original 19th century Kitchen (I had guessed it was an incinerator).

I guess they fed wood into the stoves through these??

This joins the old kitchen building to the new (1959) 2-storey red brick kitchen.

I didn't photograph the front of the church and orphan schools because I have before. I've added an image below for context. This is behind the northern orphan school wing. I love the prefab steel stairs.

Two orphan school wings (boys and girls separated) were built from 1831 and 1833. The church in between them was completed in 1834. The white building here was the boy's school.

Nice carved lettering on the dedication stone of the new Kitchen block.

A genuine Musset hut.

Hydroelectric substation 

Above and below: Wingfield House (1939). It was built for kids with polio by the Tasmanian Society for Crippled Children. Like Gellibrand House I couldn't tell if it's still in use, but there’s certainly no kids here now.

The Dorney House

Yesterday was the 2nd day of Open House Hobart, when a wide range of government and commercial buildings and private homes are open for inspection. We chose the Dorney house, which sits all alone in the bush on Porters Hill. Interior photos from its heyday can be seen here.

The site was chosen for a concrete defensive fort in 1910. The house (and its two predecessors which both were lost to bushfires) was built on top of the obsolete fort. This third house dates to 1979. Esmond Dorney was an eminent architect, and he built the house for his own family. His son Paddy, also an architect, was there yesterday speaking about the house and answering questions.

Paddy said that the original fort had 6" guns, while the Dreadnought-class battleships which were the norm in all major navies by the time the fort was completed had 9" or 10" guns. One of those ships could moor out of range of the fort and bombard Hobart in perfect safety; so the fort was obsolete from the outset.

The river view sweeps from Bruny Island all the way around to the city of Hobart, about 200°, then across mostly vacant bush from there back around to Bruny.

That's Michael 3rd from right

Photo: Campbell Ship, borrowed from here

A wander around Rosny Point

I went for a paddle here this morning - Kangaroo Bay. There is a wonderful collection of mid century weatherboards around this area. Once back on land I went for a drive around Rosny Point. Below are some Streetview screen grabs.