Tassie Tales: Dr Margo Adler
New York-born scientist and keen ocean swimmer Dr Margo Adler is the founder of Beaker Street Festival, a two-week-long celebration of science and art held in Nipaluna/Hobart, and at locations around the state, each August. She shares her favourite places in lutruwita/Tasmania, in and out of the water.
I was in Sydney doing my PhD in evolutionary biology at the University of New South Wales when I met my partner, who is a Tasmanian. We came down quite a few times to visit, and I just knew it was the right place to start Beaker Street. I was the one who had to drag him back!
I have lived in so many different places around the world, and Tasmania was the first place I could see being my home. I love that even though there’s a small population, there is so much creativity and talent here, and it’s really easy to get connected to the right people. You can go from idea to execution really quicky – things feel possible here in a way that I don’t feel anywhere else.
Over the 10 years of Beaker Street, we’ve run “field trips” all over the state, though I am definitely not the best person to ask for directions. One year I got extremely lost on Cradle Mountain with Dr Karl [Kruszelnicki, of the ABC] after we left the group to head back early. We were actually just a few minutes from the track, but for a few hours we thought we might have to spend the night up there. Somehow, we made our way back, and then got lost again trying to drive out of the parking lot!
I remember the first time I drove around Tasmania I kept calling it a country, because it seems so diverse and varied. At Sisters Beach [on the northwest coast] there are big flat slate rocks you can draw on with other rocks, like a chalkboard; at Fossil Bluff in Wynyard, there are million-year-old fossils that you can just find on the beach.
Why not take a scientist with you? Going out with a scientist who really knows the plants, the geography and the history really changes the way you see things. For the first time, Beaker Street Festival will offer geology tours this year. There’s one which explores our ancient connections to Antarctica. Most people don’t know that Tasmania and Antarctica used to be part of the same landmass, and we drifted away about many millions of years ago. You can find rocks in Tasmania that that are over a billion years old that match those found in Antarctica.
If I had one day to impress a visiting New Yorker, and it didn’t need to make geographic sense, of course, we’d have to start at Mona, because it’s absolutely not what they would expect to find here. Afterwards, we’d head off to lunch at Frogmore Creek, and I’d show them the Mount Pleasant Radio Telescope Observatory, just up the road, afterwards. It’s a huge telescope that’s owned and run by UTAS. It’s like stepping back in time – there’s this old control room that’s like something out of the 1980s and they still use floppy disks.
We absolutely have to go swimming, of course. There are places all over the East Coast that I love. Spiky Beach is a good one, and there’s really something about the Gorge in Launceston. Not the pool – why swim in a pool when you can swim in the Gorge?! It’s freshwater, which is different to swimming at the beach. For an easy way into the water, go past the pool and up the hill and there’s a big, flat rock that you can lower yourself in from. You can swim right out to the bridge and look up at people walking over you. I find it quite refreshing.
As much as I wish I was one of those people who is out running up mountains every weekend, we’re slightly lazier in our family. Bicheno is our most regular escape. A few times a year we rent a little house by the beach at Waubs Beach. There’s a new bar too, Le Gulch, which is a great place for oysters and wine.
One of my favourite locally sourced foods is sea urchin. Long-spined sea urchin is an incredibly damaging invasive species that has decimated marine ecosystems all around Tassie, particularly the East Coast. It’s also incredibly delicious – if we can eat the problem, why shouldn’t we? You can buy them down at the fish punts in Hobart; Mures usually has them, as does The Dock. If you’re not sure if the sea urchin is long-spined or the native short spine, don’t worry too much. Even though short-spined sea urchins aren’t invasive they can still be destructive. Sadly, they’re not in season in August, or we’d have a lot more sea urchins at Beaker Street.
Margo Adler’s Quick Tassie Top 10
1. Favourite coffee spot: Bear With Me, South Hobart
2. Favourite bakery: Summer Kitchen, Ranelagh
3. Favourite restaurant: Bar Wa Izakaya, Hobart
4. Favourite cinema or concert venue: The Odeon, Hobart
5. Favourite shop: Goulds Natural Medicine, Hobart
6. Favourite wine bar: South, South Hobart
7. Favourite market: Farm Gate Market, Hobart
8. Favourite local walk: Hobart Rivulet Walk
9. Favourite view: The orange and turquoise of the East Coast shoreline
10. Favourite rainy-day activity: Reading a book in bed, with my phone safely lost in another room.