Slim Pickens is the musical alter ego of Chris Ellis, a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has played in Celtic, Bluegrass, folk and country bands, in duos and trios and at several Victorian and Tasmanian folk festivals. Chris bought his first guitar at the age of 15. Mostly self-taught, he had some early musical training…

David Brannigan As a 19-year-old in 1965, David Brannigan discovered Frank Traynor’s Jazz and Folk Club in Melbourne. It changed his life. Frank, a jazz trombonist, had formed his group The Jazz Preachers in 1956, then opened his club in the early 1960s. ‘He was an important figure in the Australian folk revival,’ David says.…

When I visited musicians and historians Steve and Marjorie Gadd’s house in Franklin, I found instruments and sheet music scattered in nearly every room. ‘This looks promising’, I think. ‘Tell me about the Huon Valley’s musical history.’ Steve explains that in the early years in the Huon, there wasn’t much entertainment, so the dances were…

The township of Honeywood, later called Geeveston, began in the 1840s. William Geeves and his family emigrated from England in 1842, met Lady Franklin, the wife of the Lt. Governor, and were persuaded by her to settle on a block of her land at Franklin in the Huon Valley. During Christmas week 1849, William Geeves…

As a secondary student in the US State of Ohio, Yoav Daniel Bar-Ness enjoyed getting outdoors but never imagined there was an opportunity to build a career around it. Yoav studied forestry and wildlife sciences as an undergraduate in Seattle and began specialising as a research tree climber. His first arrival in Tasmania in 2002 was…

Geeveston has its own fairy tale. This small town an hour south of Hobart, sits on the edge of World Heritage Area Wilderness. As Australia’s southern-most administration centre, it’s an unlikely place for a castle. It’s even more unlikely that the next-door neighbours own a horse drawn coach. When Castle Phoenix began to rise from…