Over the coming weeks I want to blog about my home state Tasmania.
I've been thinking about doing this for sometime. I'm always astonished at how little people from overseas know about Tasmania.
Some people don't even know of Tasmania's existence and if they do, what they do know is usually incorrect or sketchy on detail.
I'm passionate about this beautiful Island and after traveling extensively overseas, I truly believe Tasmania is God's Paradise on earth.
A few years ago I took a group of students on an excursion to the Styx Valley for a Geography Fieldtrip as part of our study on 'Forestry'.
To this day, this field trip remains one of the highlights of my teaching career. It is no exaggeration to say that our trip to the Styx Valley was both a deeply spiritual and bonding experience for my students and me.
Standing in the middle of this beautiful valley was akin to standing inside some of Europes most famous cathedrals and basilicas.
The Styx Valley lies northwest of the Capital City of Hobart and is home to the famous 'Andromeda Stand' - Australia's largest group of the tallest and some of the oldest hardwood trees in the world. The Styx is (about 90 kilometres by road) and is on the edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area — one of the great temperate wilderness areas on Earth.
It is a small miracle that these trees are still here - if the logging companies had their way, these trees would have disappeared many years ago.
The 'Andromeda Stand' is the biggest stand of the tallest flowering plants on Earth with more than a dozen specimens over 90 metres tall.
On the day our little group visited the 'Styx Valley' a gentle rain was cascading down through the canopy. My usually boisterous group of students were so blown away by this experience, they were rendered silent! (as a teacher, this in itself had to be an 'act of God'!).
For more information see: www.wilderness.org.au and www.giantstable.com.au
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