Photo album: "200th anniversary"

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We are back in Hobart in the evening on Thursday, March 8th 1973. The last night and the last day of travel were very agitated with a force 10 storm. To walk in the corridors, we didn't know any longer if we had to step on the floor or on the walls. Once disembarked I felt as if everything were still moving and I was nearly sicker on the ground than in the ship. On Friday, Jacques Bitterly and I go to Qantas agency to have our return tickets made. In the evening we attend the traditional reception of the "Alliance Française". On Saturday, March 10th, we go to Bruny island where the ceremony to feast the 200th anniversary of England taking possession of Tasmania is to take place. Our journey will begin the next day.

The ship Thala Dan moored at a wharf in the port of Hobart. She will resume soon her voyage through the Pacific ocean towards the canal of Panama and then, through the Atlantic ocean, she will get to Le Havre where all the material embarked at Dumont d'Urville will be unloaded. She will get back, finally into her home port in Denmark. From there she will leave for other journeys in the Arctic during the northern hemisphere estate. Since she arrived in Australia passing through the canal of Suez and the Indian ocean, she will have done her complete trip around the world as every other years.

We leave Hobart on Sunday, March 11th to Melbourne in a DC9 of TAA. On March 12th, we take off, around 7:30 am, in a Boeing 707 of Qantas. After a stop in Sydney we arrive at Nouméa around 14 o'clock. We leave new Caledonia on March 22nd aboard a DC8 of UTA and we land, around 9:30 pm, at Nadi. We leave Fiji islands at 4:30 pm, on March 23rd with a Boeing 707 of Qantas. We land at Papeete, around 11 pm, on March 22nd and we take off once more around midnight on March 22nd. As a matter of fact, we set our clocks 24 hour back when we crossed the international date line. It is the first time, and the only one, I have the opportunity to live twice through the same day! After a stop at Acapulco, we arrive on Friday, March 23rd, around 1:30 pm, at Mexico City. During our stay in Mexico we make a round trip to Mérida with Boeing 707 of Mexicana. We leave Mexico, on March 30th, around 1 pm on a DC8 of Aeroméxico and after two stops, at Miami and at Madrid, we arrive at Paris, around 11 am, on Saturday, March 31st.

This Saturday, March 10th 1973 is a day of feast in Tasmania: It is the 200th anniversary of England taking possession of Tasmania. We are on the ferry that transports us to Bruny island where the ceremony will take place. Tasmania owes its name to the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman who discovered it in 1642. Later a Frenchman, Marion Dufresne, visited the region in 1772. The English arrived in 1773, only.

This island is named after the French explorer Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux who, while looking for traces of the lost expedition of La Pérouse, surveyed and mapped the fine navigable channel which separates the isle from the mainland. The channel was named channel d'Entrecasteaux and the isle got the name of Bruni, whose spelling was modified in Bruny, in 1918. This channel is normally followed by Thala Dan when she leaves the harbour, whilst, when she arrives to Hobart, she usually crosses Storm Bay.

It is with the sound of bagpipes music that we are travelling.

Some of the bagpipers are rather young, some of them are girls.

Always preceded by the bagpipers, we disembarked on Bruny island, we crossed the northern part and the isthmus that ties it to the southern part to arrive at Adventure Bay, named after the ship "Adventure" of its discoverer, Captain Furneaux. It's there that the ceremony is going to take place.

On this stele is carved:  To honour Capt Tobias Furneaux discoverer of this bay March 9th 1773 and Capt James Cook who landed here Jan 26th 1777. 26 1 1961

Children will represent aborigines who were living in Tasmania.

Representation of the landing of Captain Furneaux. He carries the British flag and is accompanied by two sailors.

One of the sailors carries a wooden chest which probably contents shoddy goods to be used as exchange currency with the Aborigines.

The British flag has just been set up in the ground to indicate the taking of possession. The aborigines are watching this symbolic act that announces their future disappearance. The last of the pure blood Tasmanian aborigines, a woman, died in the beginning of the 20th century. The only Tasmanian aborigine descendants existing nowadays are born from crossbreeding with the earlier European settlers arrived in Tasmania.

After the official speeches studded with a few typical British humour pieces, these very official people are accomplishing a symbolic and commemorative reforesting operation.

During the crossing of the isthmus that connects the northern part to the southern part of Bruny island, we can watch the smaller among the penguins species which nest there. They are the Fairy (or Little Blue) Penguins. They are at the most 25 cm high and they weigh less than 1 kg.

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