I took this post’s photo at 9.49 am on 18 March 2025, as we were walking along part of the southern portion of the western shore of Flinders Island.
Flinders is much the largest in the Furneaux Group, which sits at the eastern edge of Bass Strait, off the northeast tip of Tasmania’s “mainland”.
The Furneaux Group has circa 100 members; whatever shorelines you walk on Flinders Island, other islands are always visible.
The pictured “island in the sun” (whilst our vantage point was still cloud-shaded) is variously known as “Mount Chappell Island” or as “Hummocky”.
Hummocky was once “muttonbirding central”, it was overgrazed for rather more than a century, and various feral plants and animals were introduced – variously, accidentally/intentionally.
One encyclopaedia’s description:
a classic example of natural habitat degradation caused by human activities.
Since 2000 it has been an Indigenous Protected Area.
Maybe, ongoing rehabilitation and conservation efforts will eventually see it become a classic example of habitat restoration!
Click here for a brief illustrated overview.
This is the first of three “Hummocky/Mount Chappell Island” chapters; their photos were taken within a “window” of less than 30 minutes.
—-
Musical bonus
Julian Lage in 2021, playing a piece which its author – saxophonist Charles Lloyd – recorded in 1965…22 years before Julian was born:
In recent years Charles Lloyd (born in 1938) and Julian have played and recorded together:
I (Charles Lloyd) first heard young Julian when he was 12, He grew up not far from Healdsburg and was known to be a wunderkind — he had big ears and I heard his potential. Twenty years later I invited him to join me – he’s still a young man and his ears have only grown bigger. So — I keep being blessed by souls who find a way to me, it still inspires me to go out on the high wire and try to fly.
Subscribe