SATURDAY 18TH - HEADING SOUTH

Travelling and domestic day today. We left Arthur River and headed south on a very picturesque dirt road to Corinna.

At the commencement of the road there is a sign which says that, to cross the ferry over the Pieman River at Corinna, the total length of the vehicle/s from front axle to rear axle must not exceed nine metres. I paced out our total length to be almost exactly nine metres and I was right. We fitted.

 

Corunna is Huon Pine country but there are no mature trees to be seen. They take thousands of years to grow so the next generation of large trees will be a long time coming.

From there, we came further south to Zeehan where we are in the caravan park. It was time to do the washing and a general tidy up. Zeehan is a town with a very significant mining history but it is looking pretty sad now. We checked out the only two sites of note being the Heritage Centre and Spray Tunnel.

 

As you would expect, the Heritage Centre focusses on the extensive mining and timber history. Zeehan was the third biggest town in Tasmania in its day.

 

The Spray Tunnel is where two tin mines and associated infrastructure were located in the early 1900's. The forest has reclaimed most of it but a tunnel through which a train servicing the mines used to run remains as an item of interest.

Strahan historic railway tomorrow. Have you noticed that I have stopped mentioning the weather. It got up to 12 degrees today with intermittent showers. That seems to be a pretty consistent pattern in this part of the world. Perhaps we are getting used to it.

 

FRIDAY 17TH - ARTHUR RIVER CRUISE

Having done the Franklin River cruise many years ago when we last visited Strahan, we tried the Arthur River cruise this time. The Arthur River is the only river in Tasmania which has not been dammed, logged, mined or farmed so it is said that it is very much as nature has designed it to be over many thousands of years. The only events which have had an impact are fire and flood.

 

There was one artificial aspect to the cruise in that they feed a couple of fish to the sea eagles to get them to perform, which they did as the photo shows.

Our guides said that some of the ferns could be up to 500 years old. Who are we to argue? The existence of the ferns is the signature of a temperature rain forest and there was no shortage of them as we have seen on each of our forest expeditions.

After returning from the cruise, we explored some more of the rugged coast and even managed to see the wind farm in the distant north, presumably Woolnorth. There is certainly no shortage of wind in this part of the world.

This is not an ad for Land Rover, justan example of the rugged tracks we explored, but it could well be. Tomorrow we head further south to Zeehan and then on to Strahan.

THURSDAY 16TH - TARKINE DRIVE

Today was a big driving day although, as the crow flies, we only covered about 70 klms. We did the much acclaimed (at least in this part of the world) Tarkine Drive which is basically a circular route through the Tarkine Wilderness – very impressive.

The drive consists of two quite distinct segments, being the rugged coastal area and the temperate rain forest area.

The noteworthy sights in the coastal section were the numerous shacks and the cray fishing boats.

The boat skippers must know what they are doing to get their large boats in and out of the water and to negotiate the very rocky coastline to get safely offshore.

 

The rain forest is as spectacular as any we have seen. The locations we visited included Sumac Lookout, Julius River, Lake Chisholm(one of three sinkholes we visited) and Trowutta Arch.

A feature of the sinkholes full of water were the reflections.

 

The areas we visited had plenty of very large mature trees and not many tree stumps so hopefully not too much logging has occurred in the featured areas. Having said that, we saw plenty of plantation forests which have presumably been planted where the original growth has been removed.

Did I mention that our campsite has an ensuite? Very flash.

 

WEDNESDAY 15TH - HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAYLEY

It's Hayley's fourth birthday today. Happy Birthday Hayley. Sorry that we are not there to help you blow out the candles on the cake.

Today we made the transition from the north coast to the west coast. It was our intention to spend another night in the north and visit Woolnorth, a privately owned pastoral property and wind farm in the north west corner but you can only visit as part of a tour and the tour is fully booked until Saturday. We have to come back to Devonport to get on the boat to go home so, if we run out of things to do, we might be able to do the tour then.

So, we are now at Arthur River in another delightful Conservation Area campground with our little corner of it to ourselves. We will be here for three nights in that we are doing the Tarkine Drive tomorrow and have a day cruise of the Arthur River booked for Friday. The boat operator we spoke to about the cruise said that the Arthur is the most pristine river in Tasmania but relatively unknown.

We came here via Stanley and Smithton and, at Stanley, we did the obligatory ride up the chair lift to do the two kilometre circuit walk at the top of The Nut. Stanley really is a lovely little town.

 

At the mouth of the Arthur River, there is an area known as the Edge of The World. History doesn't relate why it is called that but it is certainly uninviting as scenic spots go.

Fortunately we have strong phone signal at the Edge of the World.

TUESDAY 14TH - ST VALENTINES DAY AND BARB'S BIRTHDAY

This morning seemed a bit cool and it was. When I checked the car at 8:00am, it was 5 degrees but the good news is that the wind has dropped and the temperature reached 22 degrees during the day.

 

En route to Burnie this morning, we visited the Guide Falls. Very pleasant and only a short walk. After topping up the fuel and water tanks and swapping the two empty gas bottles we somehow found ourselves with, we visited the very well set up visitors centre in Burnie. After lunch, we headed west to where we are now camped at the Black River Campground in one of its many isolated sites. The Black River is just a short stroll through the scrub away and we have a view of the Stanley Nut across the water.

 

Not far east of here is the Rocky Cape National Park – very scenic and rugged coastline. Note how calm the water is, very different to the last few days. Fortunately the good weather is predicted to continue as we head for the north western tip of the State and the rugged western coast.

 

Happy Birthday Barb.

MONDAY 13TH - LEVEN CANYON

The weather has slightly improved in that we haven't had any rain today but it is still very windy and overcast. There are gale warnings for coastal waters and Cradle Mountain. The weather has been described as unseasonably cool. We agree.

 

 

As we spent most of the day deep in the rainforest, the weather hasn't effected us much. The forecast temperature for tomorrow is 21 by comparison with today's 15 so perhaps that means that the strong westerly winds bringing the cold air are going to abate.

We are camped beside an idyllic section of the Leven River but we saw a completely different Leven River in the Leven Canyon, upstream from here. There are two separate walks – one at the top of the gorge and the other in the base of the canyon. We did them both including a track only recommended for “experienced bushwalkers”.

The upper walk goes to the Cruickshank Lookout, then down the 650 Forest Steps to the Edge Cliff Lookout and then 500 metres back up the hill to the car park. A great circuit and a good workout.

This is a photo of the upper lookout taken from the lower lookout, still a long way above the river.

 

The lower walk is described on the sign at its entrance as moderately difficult but somebody has put a line through that and written “very steep” It's a lovely walk down and well worth it to get up close and personal with the river raging through the base of the canyon. We went along a short portion of the Penguin to Cradle Mountain track to visit Devil's Elbow, a more isolated bend in the river – very rugged. The long distance bush walkers are welcome to it.

Tomorrow we head back up to the coast and further west. Hopefully the weather improves.

 And, as we were driving out of the Leven Canyon car park, we saw a quoll cross the road in front of us! Trish was very excited. Unfortunately he ran off into the bush before I could get a photo.

 

SUNDAY 12TH - THE REAL HOLIDAY STARTS

It was really nice this morning to wake up knowing that we had nowhere to go and all day to get there. As you would expect, it was a leisurely start to the day.

We eventually got to do the shopping and, before leaving Devonport, we spent some time at the Bass Strait Maritime Centre. Before the days of modern transport, all people and goods travelling between the mainland and Tasmania had to travel by ship. That generated a rich and interesting maritime history.

Having travelled about 50 klms from Devonport, we are now camped in the unpowered section of the Wings Wildlife Park campground. The unpowered section consists of a large paddock bordered by the Leven River and we are the only ones here. If it wasn't blowing a gale and if we had fewer showers and if the temperature could get higher than 17 degrees, it would be idyllic, but it is still pretty special. Unfortunately there is no phone reception which I suspect will be the case in a lot of rural hilly Tasmania so the posting of the blog will be intermittent.

 

This afternoon, we checked out the nearby Preston Falls and did a tour of the Gunns Plains Caves. As you would expect the falls are in a lovely forest setting. The cave was as good as any we have seen. All the usual stalagmites, stalactites, shawls, flowstone etc. Our seniors cards are getting us concessional entry to the attractions we visit. There are some advantages to getting old.

 

The river beside our camp looks perfect for platypus and, sure enough, they turned up late in the afternoon. They appear to be bigger than those we have previously seen in North Queensland.

 

Tomorrow we intend to explore the Leven Canyon. There appear to be a number of interesting walks there.