Around Launceston

There are two roads from Scottsdale to Launceston. “Don't take the first one” we had been advised. According to the Hillcrest campground manager in St Helens that road was narrow, winding and full of logging trucks. Another informant reckoned that was an exaggeration, but the alternative road via Lilydale is highlighted on our tourist map as the North East Trail, which is presumably a recommendation to us tourists. Mind you, the difficult Elephant Pass Road is highlighted as part of the East Coast Escape. What does the highlighting actually mean?

We took the Lilydale road and it was very comfortable driving through pleasant scenery.

The satnav was programmed to take us to Cataract Gorge, quite close to the city centre. Happily the city driving was not too bad, and there is a good sized car park at the First Basin where the walks begin. We drew up in what looked like a special area for long vehicles and exited the camper van. A lady passing by warned us that we had occupied a bus parking space and could be fined $180. “Thank you.” We moved to a less expensive spot.

The basin is a nice lake between two stretches of the South Esk River. There is a large, grassed area between the car park and the lake with an unheated swimming pool. Swimming in the pool, the lake and the river is free but likely to be cold. There are currents in the river and the lake but some hardy souls braved them.

The car park is uphill from the basin. The climb isn't daunting for most folk, but if you want to ease the effort there is the Inclinator. This is a mini cable car, resting on twin rails set into the ground. The compartment transports visitors from the top entrance (level with the car park) to the cafe and lawn area below and is free of charge. 

The top 'station', photographed from across the basin.

For those that enjoy that sort of thing there is a chairlift across the river. It is the longest single-span chairlift in the world, with the longest span being 308 m. Neither of us likes to be dangled high in the air, so we didn't take a ride.

There are some made trails, and we ambled along the easy ones across the Alexandra suspension bridge at the upstream end of the lake and downstream from the lake towards Kings Bridge, where a main road crosses the river just before it enters the much larger Tamar River.

The Alexandra suspension bridge.

A section of the trail.

A Little Pied Cormorant, confident of finding fish in the South Esk River.

An interesting rock formation in the gorge.

And another one.

Where the river flows out of the basin, under a simple, unnamed bridge.

Kings Bridge marks the end of the gorge.

There are cafes on both sides of the river. The one on the northern side, named the Cliff Grounds, has avian scavengers after your crumbs. But they're not sparrows, they are peafowl. When one is eyeing the scone on your plate with its feet still on the ground you really appreciate how big those birds are.

The same applies to the peahens.

An optimistic peahen.  But we didn't share our tea.

Driving on, we went across Kings Bridge and the non-driver could see the gorge from the other end.

The big Launceston attraction for Bill is the Tamar Island Wetland, North of the city. We identified a convenient camping spot further down the Tamar valley at Paper Beach. It's available to visitors from 5pm to 9am. If we drove straight there we would be too early so we paused along the way – at the Tamar Island Wetland.

The tide was very low and the birds in the most accessible areas were a long way away. 

A Great Egret on the mud.

There was an information centre. We read about the wildlife we might see and talked to a guy with a sheet of paper to which he had attached, in neat columns, numerous small, dead fish. He is studying the invasive Mosquito Fish (Gambusia), which has been introduced into many environments around the world. The intention presumably was to keep down the number of mosquitoes, and if Mosquito Fish ate nothing else that might have been OK. But in fact they eat all sorts of things, like the eggs and young of native fish, with the result that they out-compete the native fish and can drive them to extinction. His studies will hopefully lead to containing the numbers of Mosquito Fish until someone comes up with a strategy for eliminating them entirely.

We walked into the reserve as far as the hide. Maybe the birds could not see us, but they were still a long way off. A few Tasmanian Native Hens were close enough to photograph, but they were in deep shade and preferred to look the other way and present their rears to the camera.

The Wetlands are right beside the main road. To get to Paper Beach we had to head back towards Launceston and do a U-turn. Happily there is a well-constructed opportunity to do this only 500 metres away.

As we neared Paper Beach we spotted a macropod beside the road. The biggest and best known macropods are the kangaroos. Next in size are the wallabies; then the pademelons. Then there is the 4^th size division. Bettongs and potoroos are smaller than pademelons. We saw one of these, but it hopped into someone's driveway and sped off before a camera could be brought to bear. It was light brown with a pointed snout, but there are brown varieties of both species so we don't know what it was.

We arrived at the campground a tiny bit early, at five to five. It was almost full! But there was space for us, and it was a pleasant spot, adjacent to a pebbly beach and with public toilets and a BBQ. In the gloom of the evening Eve saw another macropod in the shadows. She thinks is was a wallaby.

We duly left Paper Beach before 9am. We calculated that the tide at the wetlands would be higher in the morning and the birds closer. Well, the tide was indeed a bit higher but the birds nearest the road had not read the script. The first photograph of the day was a White-faced Heron on the roof of the information centre.

The same species is common in the Motueka area.

Beyond the hide is about 2km of easy walking, with many pools and channels well populated with birds. Towards the end of the walk there is a picnic area and a toilet block. Very civilised.

Black Swan

Australian Wood Duck

Black Swans landing

Chestnut Teal

Eurasian Coot and Grey Teal

A Grey Teal in flight.

Grey Teal snoozing.

An immature Silver Gull in flight.

Masked Lapwings roosting.

A Pacific Black Duck.

The Purple Swamphen is almost identical to NZ's Pukeko.

Great Cormorant

Wetland habitat: A little dry ground and great tracts of reeds.

An oak tree bearing acorns on a 'dry land' bit.

Not just water birds.  The picnic area was inhabited by Superb Fairy-wrens.

Eve was sitting at the picnic area while Bill reconnoitred the last bit of track.  So she missed seeing this Wedge-tailed Eagle swooping by.

This snake was relaxing beside the trail.  It didn't seem bothered by people walking by, and didn't make any aggressive moves.  A lady who came up the trail behind us identified it as a Tiger Snake.  Not the most deadly of the three snake species found in Tasmania, but we gave it a wide berth anyway.  The lady in the information centre looked at our photos and disagreed.  "That's a Copperhead."  Which is the most venomous snake in Tasmania.

We noticed what looked like tunnels in the reeds. They weren't made by ducks. Wombats maybe? “No”, said the lady in the information centre. There are no wombats in the wetland. We have since read that pademelons sometimes live in marshes, but we didn't see any mammals. The swans, perhaps?

Bay of Fires and Inland

We woke up in the Freycinet Golf Club campground to a frost. Not a major one, but a surprise after a week of pleasant, warm weather. The fine coating of ice on the windscreen quickly evaporated and coffee restored us to a comfortable temperature.

We set off to the North in our almost-new rented camper. Hardly more than 40,000km on the odometer. It was keyless ignition and a digital dashboard (“dashscreen”?). Very modern. This morning it demonstrated another feature – a warning sound. The first few times we saw nothing on the dashscreen to enlighten us. Then there was a flicker from the driving data to something else, but it was too quick to see what it was. The sounds became more frequent and finally the signal lasted long enough to see that the flicker was to illustrate that the side door was open. Only it clearly wasn't. As we drove through Bicheno the sounds became a regular torrent and the dashscreen constantly showed the vehicle outline with the side door lit up bright red in the open position.

The local petrol station came into view, where we planned to stop for fuel anyway. Bill pulled in and, his mind dulled by the beeping, pulled up by the pumps. We had to 'phone the rental company help number and might be some time. The man at the cash register was helpfulness itself. He had a parking space that we could occupy “for as long as it takes”. In the event, it was quite a short telephone call. If we shut the door really firmly the sensor would be satisfied. So for the rest of the trip we had to slam that door as hard as we could to be able to travel in peace.

Tasmanian pronunciation. Did you, in your head, pronounce Bicheno with a “ch” sound? So did we at first. The correct way to say it is Bish-a-no. And the island's 2^nd city, Launceston is pronounced Lon-sess-ton. It helps to get these things right.

Pleasantly surprised by the fuel economy of our chariot we continued North. A road sign showed our destination, Saint Helens, straight ahead. Saint Marys (the apostrophe abuse is copied from the towns' names) to the left. We opted to have a look at St. Marys. After all, we are tourists.

This was our first experience of what Tasmania can provide by way of narrow, winding roads when it puts its mind to it. Elephant Pass Road is an 'A' road – the A4 – and sealed for all 17km, but with scores of yellow diamond-shaped signs recommending very slow speeds for the forthcoming bend(s). Some of them particularly warn long vehicles. So it was with great care that Bill steered round hairpin bend after hairpin bend. Happily, we didn't meet any long vehicles coming the other way. By the time we got to St. Marys a coffee was sorely needed.

Saint Marys is a small town, but it has a bakery. A deservedly popular spot serving excellent coffee and very toothsome snacks. Compensation for the tiring drive to get there.

The way on towards St. Helens, the Esk Highway, is kinder to the driver's blood pressure, but not by any means a straight and level road. From signs we saw we suspect that it is the other side of Elephant Mountain, but our maps do not name the geological features of the area.

St. Helens is a base for exploring the Bay of Fires. The bay was given its name in 1773 by Captain Tobias Furneaux, who saw the fires of Aboriginal people on the beaches. The Bay is a region of white beaches, blue water and orange-hued granite (the colour of which is actually produced by a lichen). Much of it was out of reach to us, since the rental company restricts the use of unsealed roads.

It was only a short drive to Binalong Bay, where there is a gorgeous beach.

Very pleasing to the eye, don't you think?

Plenty of space for everyone.

Lovely!

Compare the colour of the sand to a white bird (a Silver Gull).

Some of the orange rocks.

Some more.

And even a rock pool.  The complete beach!

A stranded jellyfish on the sand.  There was one swimmer enjoying the water and he was too far out to tell him of our find.  He returned to shore unscathed.  Maybe we stumbled on a vagrant, solo cnidarian.

This osteospermum made a nice subject for a photo.

Time for lunch.

Back in the town we shopped for supplies. The prices in the Bottle-O liquor store caused great dismay until we discovered that many of them were for 2 or even 3 bottles. The store manager helped us with inexpensive wine and valuable local information. The most important was that our map was out of date in respect of the road to The Gardens. The road is now sealed and we can freely drive our vehicle along it.

So next morning we enjoyed a 2^nd instalment of the Bay of Fires.

The road to The Gardens is always close to the sea, without offering particularly good views. There are stopping places, but they looked rather sandy and not perhaps spots to park a large, heavy camper van. At least there was grass to park on at The Gardens, while we admired the area.

That just-above-the-water reef in the background must be a menace to boaties.

More rocks than sand here.

A nice view.

And another.

Beautiful scenery is never boring

An immature Silver Gull foraging at the water's edge.

To avoid the forbidden unsealed roads we had to drive all the way back to St. Helens before heading inland to Pyengana. Sorry, we don't know how to pronounce it. We got there at lunch time and happily there was a cafe. And there was a Scarlet Robin, but it flew away before we could pick up a camera.

The cafe was attached to a small cheese making business, so we not only had nice lunches but we also tasted and purchased some very nice cheese.

From Pyengana we headed to St. Columba Falls. We went past, but did not stop at, the Pub in the Paddock. It really is in a paddock and offers lunches, dinners most evenings and bed & breakfast. As well as being unattached to a town or village, which is rare for a pub, it offers the unusual entertainment of a beer-drinking pig. 

An information board at the Falls tells, “Mrs Terry, the valley midwife in the late 1800s, led by example and had 15 children of her own. Her six sons were more interested in drinking beer than farming, so they simply licensed their homestead! And so, in 1900 the Columba Falls Hotel, now known as The Pub in the Paddock, was born. The Terrys seem to have taken care of the social life in the valley. They not only converted their house into a hotel, but also their barn into a dance hall and picture theatre for Saturday nights. The venue must have had an interesting smell as the Terrys' pigs slept under the barn's floorboards and had to be chased out before dances could commence.”

The track to the Falls was only about 10 minutes and Eve managed it without much protest from her hip. The Falls are billed as the highest in Tasmania, but if you are looking for a mini-Niagara you will be disappointed. However, the track through the bush is most enjoyable.

The track to the Falls.

A stream beside the track.

Tree ferns are sometimes called man ferns in Tasmania.

St Columba Falls

Waterfall spray.

Our destination for the night was Northeast Park in Scottsdale. It's actually Southeast of the town centre but it is not named for geography. It's named after a Mr Northeast, who gave the land. The description we had was of a pleasant campground with toilets, adjacent to water where platypus may be found. No fee, but donations are solicited.

It's a popular site, of course, but we got there in time to select an easy place to park, and to help latecomers to identify vacant spots that would not annoy established campers. Bill took a camera to the adjacent water and was soon in conversation with other bird photographers. There were plenty of ducks, none of whom looked quite like the birds in the field guide. Bill's theory is that they are hybrids between mallards and domestic ducks, which after a few generations can look like pretty much anything.

Mixed ducks.

A duck with Muscovy in its ancestry?

Nothing like a good wing-stretch.

There was an information board to inspire hope that platypuses might reside in the area. 

After sunset we both went to look for one, but without success.