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The Tasman Arch is what is left of a tunnel and cave after
the cave roof collapsed from erosion of the rock below it.
The trail through this area goes over the arch. Timing is
everything and we didn't feel in danger, but the thought did
cross our minds as we cross the arch...... |
From the sea, the arch is perhaps not as dramatic, but the
beauty of the rock layers, the table of rock in front where
water flows uniformly off the surface and the kelp clinging to
the rock have made this a view I am glad we did not miss. |
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Devil's Kitchen displays the effect of erosion of the rock along
a fault perpendicular to the coast and as seen in this photo,
now along a fault perpendicular to the original fault.
This rock face is several hundred feet high!
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From the
sea we were able to see a cave forming at the end of Devils
Kitchen which we couldn't appreciate from above. The
crystal, blue water doesn't detract from this view either.
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The view from Devil's Kitchen down the coast is a preview
of what we were to see on our boat trip.
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The rock face has a number of waterfalls. This one did not
have much water in it as it had not rained a lot of late.
Our boat captain told us that after a recent downpour this
waterfall bounced horizontally several meters into the ocean.
This area is known as Waterfall Bay strangely enough. |
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At one point in the trip our boat pulled up to these cliffs
made of columnar dolerite. The top of this cliff is 1000
feet above us according to our guide! |
The large
spire in the front is The Candlestick. Its north face is
shown in the top left corner on this page. The tree that
can be seen in the top photo on top of the spire is about 25
feet tall. The dark crack near the left side of the spire
is climbed fairly regularly. Climbers must offload their
gear at the small ledge in the foreground during lulls in the
swells. The smaller spire is known as Totem Pole. Note
the fresh break on the face of the Candlestick at the base.
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Tasman
Island at the southern tip of the Tasman Peninsula
is the site
of a lighthouse, now automated, and home to hundreds of
Australian Fur Seals. They swam around our boat while we
lingered off the rocks on the north side of
the island. Until
eight years ago, the lighthouse was
manned and the keeper, his
family and supplies had to
be transferred to and from shore via
a cable and then a trolley. Think boatswain's chair! |
In a good example of our changing weather, here is Marion Bay an
hour or so before we had the sunny views you see on this page
and on the Port Arthur pages. 130 pilot whales beached
themselves on this beach a couple of days before we were there.
All traces had been removed by the time we arrived.
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Just north
of Pirates Bay where we began our coastal tour
is an area called
Tessellated Pavement. It began as a depression that filled
with sediment eons ago. Stress cracks
in the earth's
surface made the rock crack at right angles and salt and sea
formed the patterns you see in the other pictures.
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The cracks
are mostly at right angles to each other, but another set of
cracks developed at an odd angle. This is one of the most
man-made looking geological formations we have ever seen.
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