Heading over the West Gate Bridge. The ferry is in the background.
It's a ten hour trip across Bass Strait from Melbourne into Devonport so this is our transporter and accomodation for the night.
We didn't book a cabin but opted for an "Ocean View Recliner" which ended up being a very uncomfortable chair looking out the arse end of the boat. We attempted to anaesthetise ourselves with Cascade Draught which didn't work either. On the way back we opted to kip on one of the couches in the lounge bar which was a much better option. At leat we got some sleep. (maybe it was the Bundy)
Had breakfast in Devonport then dropped in to see an old friend, John Henderson, on the way. Hendo used to work with Farnham, LRB and Goanna amongst others and now is doing sound for Lee Kernaghan, who happens to be playing in Geelong this weekend so he's organised for us to go to the soundcheck and show some of our gits to the blokes in the band.
Arrived at the Mother Lode around 11 and got straight into it. First board that Dave lifted had a scorpion under it which tempered our enthusiasm a bit. But we found a few nice Myrtle boards.
This is what Native Olive looks like before it gets milled. From the looks of these there's going to be some nice dark heartwood in this lot.
These Blackwood logs are also waiting to be processed into quartersawn billets. Some nice fiddleback in them.
This has some really nice fine Fiddleback all the way through the board.
It doesn't really show in the pic but these boards are also highly figured and very consistent all the way across and along the billets
More bloody Blackwood.
And more.
Dave ferreting about.
This is a piece of Tiger Myrtle veneer. Would have loved a plank off that tree.
Not more bloody Blackwood.
And this is Chris holding the Native Olive Dread made from wood that he had cut.
Even ran in to a mate of Rick Turner's down there who was buying some timber to take back to the States as a souvenir.
All in all it was a great weekend. Took five guitars with us. Delivered the Mahogany Dread to it's new owner, swapped one guitar for a hand made copy of a 57 Fender Deluxe amp that a bloke I know makes in Devonport and left one with another musician friend to show around in hopes of getting some more orders from Tassie.
He played all of the guitars we had with us and interestingly kept going back to the Blackwood/King Billy O model which was what we left with him. (his usual guitar is a Martin D28)
Thanks for looking.
Bob
