Excursions
COCE Excursions: Engaging with Place and Peers
These excursions offer an opportunity to step outside the formal conference setting and engage with others in a different context. Designed to complement the conference theme, they provide a space to discuss ideas in a more open and informal environment while experiencing Tasmania’s landscapes and history firsthand. Beyond conventional sessions, these activities create opportunities for meaningful conversations and professional exchange in a relaxed setting.
Next stop Antarctica
Due to high demand, our reopened spots sold out quickly. Thank you for your enthusiasm!
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
1.00-3.30pm
Departure point: Mawson Replica Hunt, Hobart waterfront
While Hobart plays an important role in current national and international polar research, it also has many historical associations with the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. We will begin our excursion by introducing the 19th century sealing and whaling industries, early voyages of exploration to the south - including those by Sir Douglas Mawson - scientific expeditions and places of contemporary Antarctic tourism and education. Then we will discuss the more immediate and urgent task of how do we, as Environmental and Communications practitioners, promote engagement with Antarctica - a place so alien and distant. Our excursion will continue as we drive to the summit of kunanyi/Mt Wellington*. From the summit we will look both into the SW of Tasmania (and therefore into Tasmania’s glaciated past) and to Storm Bay, the entrance/exit for the Southern Ocean - next stop Antarctica.
*Alteration to itinerary may occur due to weather.
Cost: $20 USD per person
Capacity: 20
Photo credit: Flickr, mundoo
Nature walk with the Tasmanian Land Conservancy
Due to high demand, our reopened spots sold out quickly. Thank you for your enthusiasm!
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
1.00-4.30pm
Departure point: Hedberg (conference venue) in Collins Street
Tinderbox Hills Reserve is one of the Tasmanian Land Conservancy’s most accessible reserves, just south of Hobart on the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. The reserve has strong connections to the community thanks to a walking track that traverses it. Tinderbox Hills also has very high conservation values, located at a high point on the Channel within a complex of conservation properties, ranging from public to private conservation areas/reserves. The reserve is a hotspot for the nationally endangered bird species, the forty-spotted pardalote. Conservation efforts surrounding the bird have led to some wonderful science communication examples. This will be an easy bushwalk of approximately 2 hours, in which you will hear about the TLC’s model for land restoration and reserves on private land, and how they engage with the community. You may also spot one of the elusive, tiny pardalotes, one of Australia’s smallest - but feistiest - birds.
Essentials: binoculars, walking shoes, water bottle and weather appropriate clothes.
Cost: $20 USD per person
Capacity: 20 people
Photo credit: Tasmanian Land Conservancy
Hobart Rivulet Walk
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
1.30-3.30pm
Departure point: Hamlet Café in Molle Street
This free excursion gives you an opportunity to spot a platypus and see and sample the home of Tasmanian beer. This easy walk follows Hobart Rivulet upstream from the city to the foothills of kunanyi / Mount Wellington. Along the way keep your eyes on the water or water’s edge for the platypus that call this rivulet home. There are four large interpretation panels along the way that will take you deep into the life of Hobart’s platypus. They also include helpful tips for spotting these elusive animals. If you would like more information about efforts to protect and conserve Hobart Rivulet Platypus head to: https://hobartrivuletplatypus.org/.
This is also an historically interesting walk. Until the 1860s, Hobart Rivulet was the main source of fresh water for the new settlement and so the colony grew up along its banks. You will pass the World Heritage Listed Female Factory, an institution used to house convict women and their children. Further upstream is the historic Cascade Brewery.
The walk will depart from Hamlet Café in Molle Street, Hobart. At just over five kilometres return/round-trip, we will allow two hours for slow meandering to give us the best chance of spotting a rivulet platypus. When we reach Cascade Brewery, participants can stop to sample a flight of the 200-year-old brewery's beers, and/or then walk/Uber back to the conference.
The Hobart Rivulet Track is level with a slight uphill grade. The main path is wheelchair accessible, but getting closer to the water often requires walking across sloping ground and might be challenging for those with mobility issues.
BYO water and snacks if needed.
Cost: Free
Photo Credit: City of Hobart
Behind the scenes tour of the Hedberg
REGISTER HERE
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
1-2:30pm
This is a free excursion. The Hedberg is one of Tasmania’s most ambitious cultural and arts infrastructure projects - a $110 million building delivered through a collaborative partnership between the University, the Australian and Tasmanian Governments and the Theatre Royal. Co-located with the Theatre Royal, The Hedberg integrates performance hubs and venues, rehearsal spaces, creative workshop ‘laboratories’, front and back of house spaces and adaptive reuse of the heritage-listed Hedberg Garage. The experience will also include the main stage of the historic Theatre Royal (1837), Australia’s oldest working theatre. Take a behind-the-scenes look with the architect Elvio Brianese from LIMINAL Studio.
