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We started our day Saturday with a walk on Sisters Beach near
Boat Harbour where we spent the night after driving up from
Hobart on Friday. |
Just west of Sisters Beach is Rocky Cape National Park.
Looking east from the park we could see 190 meter tall Table
Cape, an ancient lava lake. |
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Looking west from the cape we could see across the water to
Stanley and the Nut, a large lava plug that rises 152 meters
above the water and sets a dramatic backdrop for the town. |
The beach at Rocky Cape......
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From Rocky Cape, we drove south towards Waratah, site of the
richest tin mine in the world for many years. The land is
very rugged and you can start to see why it wasn't easy to
explore. |
We stopped
at Hellyer Gorge for a short walk through the rainforest.
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Water from
Lake Waratah flows over Waratah Falls and into the gorge then on
into the Arthur River. This was right in front of our
hotel in Waratah, the Mt. Bischoff Hotel.
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We drove
west from Waratah to Corinna (Aboriginal for Tasmanian devil)
and took a trip on the Arcadia II, a Huon pine, luxury cruise
boat that was taken over by the Australian Navy in WW II, used
as a gun boat for many years and eventually ended up as a tour
boat on the Pieman River. |
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The Pieman
runs through rainforest on its right bank and eucalypt on its
left. There are still a few, ancient Huon pines on its
banks, twisted trees the piners didn't want for shipbuilding.
The light green tree in the foreground is a young Huon pine.
Another 1000 years and it might be a decent specimen!
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The beach
at the heads of the Pieman River is strewn with logs that have
floated down. In the winter, ten meter waves here remove
all the sand and all that's left is a huge stack of timber! |
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A stack like this in a nearby stream, but higher... |
I was
offered a chance to skipper the Arcadia II for a while and
couldn't resist. |
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From
Corinna we worked our way north to Marawah and visited
Preminghana, an Aboriginal area. This is the beach there
with Mt. Cameron West in the background, a mountain sacred to
the Aboriginals. |
The rocks
that interrupt the beach were spectacular in their color
variations from blue green to maroon to purple. |
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On the beach we found tracks of Bennett's Wallabies, many
different shore birds and here, the Tasmanian Devil! Try
this to hear the sounds they make and the reason they were so
named...
Devil Sounds - Tasmanian Devil |
We also found ancient stone carvings that date back at least
10,000 years and perhaps much longer. Many of the carvings
have just been covered with sand because of recent vandalism. |
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Just north of the Aboriginal area is Woolnorth where there is a
wind farm. You can just make out the wind generators on
top of the cape. The roaring 40's provides a reliable
source of wind for the power generation there. |
This
beach, like most we've found, was completely deserted. |
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Marawah, we entered the Tarkine Wilderness and got some fine
views of the Arthur River gorge. |
A sink hole in the Lake Chisholm Forest Reserve, one of only two
in Tasmania that have filled with water. |
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The forest around Lake Chisholm is wet, wet, wet... |
And the trees are tall! |
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Finally, we ran out of time and headed back towards Hobart.
At one point along the Midlands Highway, I just had to stop and
take a picture of the evening sun and the Tasmanian landscape.
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We arrived
home tired, but feeling pretty good about our adventures in the
Northwest and also very happy to be where we are where the
sunsets from our verandah can be unbelievable. |
