So, no sooner has the VS crew got rid of their Christmas visitors than a mob of Americans turns up. Just one day’s respite, that’s all. We are getting too popular; I’m going to have to work harder at being surly.

Here is the team at the Hobart Botanical Gardens in the rain:

Jan Schwab in foreground with her husband Rich hidden behind her, then John & Heather Turgeon.

Logistics were complicated – three groups of two, in three cars, trying to do different things at different speeds (and even the same thing at different speeds which is even worse) but nevertheless keep in contact with each other.

First stop was the pretty ex-military settlement of Ross in central Tasmania, famous for its convict-built bridge. Here is the barracks:

 

The officers’ stables, almost exactly as they left them:

 

And that bridge:

And to prove it’s convict built, here is the broad arrow:

The bridge was designed by the Colonial Architect and built by two convict masons, both of whom were emancipated upon its opening in 1836 (there evidently was some mercy & compassion). It is now the oldest roadbridge in Australia.

Ross was founded by military surveyors working south from the coast. They wanted to put the bridge, for neatness, exactly on the 42nd parallel of latitude but didn’t quite get it right. They thought the earth was spherical whereas we now know that it’s actually an oblate spheroid (spinning on its axis causes the equator to bulge out slightly), and their survey methods were not up to modern GPS standards which enable millimetric accuracy. Ross bridge is currently 3.56km south of the true 42nd parallel – ‘currently’ because the Australian continental plate is moving northwards at 67mm per year, so Ross will be exactly astride the 42nd parallel as intended in about 52 000 years.