FAIRY TALE FERN GLADE (OR THE PLATYPUS BLOG)



Somerset Caravan Park

 This one is from the heart folks, as the day I write about will forever remain with me. I will keep it tucked in a small corner of my heart, secure there to be brought out and remembered whenever I am in need of a little magic.
First things first however! We finally dragged ourselves away from Stanley and turned back east as far as Somerset – a small suburb of Burnie. This is our ‘jumping off spot’ for Strahan and the centre of the island. The morning we left Stanley, we discovered whilst completing our usual regime of lights and checks that the braking lights on the van were not working correctly. To be fair to Jezabelle (the van) we have had absolutely no problems with her in the past, although once, just around 1 month ago the brake lights did refuse to go on until DD sprayed the appropriate contacts with good old WD40. This time no amount of spraying would fix the problem. The odd thing was the lights would come on some of the time, but very faintly. We tinkered with the problem for some 15 minutes or so until finally we (DD) decided we would just take it very carefully and make maximum use of the indicators etc for the benefit of any following traffic. We were only travelling some 70 odd ks back to Burnie so took off albeit very cautiously.
We arrived at our destination The Somerset Beachside CP without incident. The CP there is well priced and whilst nothing flash, is spacious and the amenities are clean. The manager told us that things are tough in his industry with so many travellers opting for the plethora of free parks available in Tassie. The Burnie council have provided plenty of free parks in their area. The poor bloke had our sympathies – we do try to utilise the CPs as we believe they provide a great service and let’s face it, if everyone insists on free parking, these places will diminish dramatically and then as the councils sell off the land for the free parks when land values increase (as is the want of councils everywhere) where will we caravanners be? The CP used to be a drive in cinema, and has a cafe and nursery at the front. It was all very pleasant and we can vouch for the quality of their coffee.
First order of business was to see to the tail lights on Jezzy. Another oddity now appeared – they would work fine when the headlights were on, but still refused to brighten sufficiently if the headlights were turned off. Nothing DD could do would fix the problem, so off we went to source new ‘bits’. We found an auto shop and DD purchased a new Lead Connector from the car to van and a new Electrical Plug which he duly installed on the car (Zed) – hoping to cover all bases. DD tells me incidentally, that the new Lead Connecter has an LED display showing which leads are active. I am told this is very exciting! Right, all hands on deck and yours truly duly positioned at the rear of the van in order to check the lights once again (yes this was by now a much repeated procedure) – and............................................NUP – NOTHING, still the lights stubbornly refused to perform as required. No change at all in fact. By now girls, you will appreciate that The Bloke had decided The Woman must be getting it wrong – so places were reversed so that he could see the malfunctioning lights for himself as surely The Woman must have it wrong! Guess what? Not bloody working!
OK next step is to talk to another bloke – great, a builder staying at the CP is enlisted and the two blokes spend considerable time going over what DD has already done and the building bloke, himself a sparky, and DD jointly agree that it is a job for an auto electrician. The builder bloke recommended just the man and he was duly contacted and arrived promptly at the CP to check out the problem. Now all the women out there will just soooooooooo appreciate this. DD jumped behind the wheel, the auto electrician took his place at the rear of the van and voila!!!!!!!!!!! Everything worked perfectly. Nothing DD could do would cause any sort of malfunction while that man was there. Don’t you just love it? How many times have we girls taken a vehicle to the repairers only to have the ‘funny noise’ disappear? How many times have we been made to feel like idiots when the ‘imagined’ problem couldn’t be found? Crunch time really came however when the nice auto-electrician asked DD for $45 for the call out. Guess who wasn’t happy. Anyway, long story short, we have decided that we will from now on in, travel at all times with the headlights on – something we really should have been doing anyway in the opinion of The Woman.


DD  On The Look Out

Just in case you were wondering, no this is not the magical memory I will tuck away in my heart, but it will continue to bring a smile to the dial for a while. When we took our river cruise on the Arthur River we were told if we were very lucky we might spot a platypus – needless to say that didn’t happen. The skipper’s off-sider, Mouse did however give us a tip about a little place just out of Burnie where we would be almost certain to see platypus, even during the day. Armed with this piece of information we went in search of Fern Glade where the platypuses live. We shall forever be grateful to Mouse for this information as Fern Glade turned out to be a small (and free) paradise along the Emu River just east of Burnie.

Stunning Reflections

We had planned to be at the Nature Reserve early in the morning but didn’t actually manage to get there until sometime around 11am. The morning was delightfully sunny and there was absolutely no breeze. All good! The nature reserve there is just a dream – lush rain-forest hugging the banks of a sleepy little river. Massive tree ferns dip their fronds lazily in the still waters while tall eucalypts reach their slender branches to the sky. Green parrots skimmed the branches and happy little wrens flitted amongst the grasses and fallen branches overhanging the water. The rainforest was greener and more lavishly adorned with mosses and tree ferns than the Tarkine and the overwhelming effect was indeed one of magic and enchantment. We wandered slowly along the banks of the river, watching the birds and scanning every ripple in the water. We saw many water bubbles rising to the limpid surface and wondered at their source. Of course, in these rivers live fresh water cray, eels and other fish as well as our hoped for platypuses; even if we didn’t spot a platypus, we would be happy.

First Sighting

As it turned out, DD was the first to see our elusive creature swimming on the surface of the river and then duck-diving to the bottom in search of water bugs. We held our collective breath and lo and behold, he resurfaced. Now folks, I hope you don’t think too badly of me here, but I have never seen a platypus before, not even in captivity and I was just thrilled. What an amazing little creature! We were spell-bound watching our little friend fish and hunt. Before I could catch up with DD the little platypus clambered onto a piece of log and gave himself a good scratching. I missed this, but DD caught in on his trusty Canon. We must have stayed there watching the magic for quite some time until the peace was shattered by a teacher with a group of noisy adolescent school kids in canoes. I guess for these locals platypus are a little blah, and of course, they are teenagers! Amazingly after this group had passed upstream and back again, our little mate did resurface, but only once before turning in for the day. We were just so happy to have seen him and consider ourselves blessed. We had been told by numerous locals that we had no chance of seeing a platypus in daylight hours!

Up On The Log For A Good Scratch

In The Clear

Incidentally, just before I leave you this time, can I say I have had more than enough ‘DAD Humour’ to last me for quite some time. I suppose most of you are familiar with the Koala/platypus joke – just in case, There was a bloke fronting the magistrate on the charge of eating koala – he pleaded his case with the magistrate, explaining that he had spotted the koala on the side of the road, dead, after it had been hit by a car. He further explained that he had 6 hungry children to feed and didn’t think it would be disrespectful to eat the little beast rather than have it die for nothing. As luck would have it, the magistrate agreed and let him off with a warning. Just as the bloke was about to leave, the magistrate beckoned him to him and asked “Just as a matter of interest, what did the koala taste like?” “Oh not too bad you know” answered the bloke – “not unlike platypus your honour!” Hmmm, no don’t apologise, I don’t think it is funny either – and boy oh boy am I tired of DD and all his hairy mates re-creating this old acorn at every opportunity with questions like, “what did it taste like” and responses like “like koala, but a bit more salty” – enough – yes darling that does mean you and Steve, and Wayne, and Peter, and...........................................!

Magic Circles

Anyway folks, that is just about it for now until next time when I talk to you from Strahan. I really wish I could include more photos as the ones taken on Platypus Day were just amazing. The effects of the reflections, the sun and the ripples around our magical mate were just that, magical. So.....until next time, keep the jokes nice and let a little magic into your lives. Steph.

Farewell To The Ferny Fairy Glade And The Magic Reflections

SPARKLING STANLEY

Stanley Lazing in the Sun at the Base of the Nut



The Nut Transformed by the Setting Sun


Yes, well good intentions, we all know where they go! I am once again in catch up mode and whilst I would like to say I will keep this brief, we both know that is unlikely. From Devonport we headed west to the pretty little town of Stanley up on the western end of the north coast. Stanley is pretty much the last stop on the north coast.

Whilst Stanley is sparkling, clean, pretty and historically relevant, we did feel that it was very much also a ‘tourist trap’. We don’t have a problem with that, just as well too, as we suspect much of Tasmania will be this way. Tiny little towns, no longer making a go of it fishing, logging, or whatever their historical purpose was, but now hunting the tourist dollar; so long as they don’t ‘rip us off’ in the process, it’s all good.

The Nut, Stanley and the ZigZag Walk to the Top

Stanley was primarily a fishing village and some fishing is still done from there, but the whole town has been beautifully restored and comprises of steep streets of quaint little houses all clustered around the base of The Nut. Most of the shops are specifically tourist and will ‘rip you off’ if you are not careful. Food prices were fairly steep, but we are learning that Tassie food is priced similarly to West Australian food, in a word, ‘expensive’ – particularly if you wish to eat out. Just to make the point, we decided to partake of a scallop pie for lunch, as that is one of the things Tassie is known for. Very few places in town to choose from, but one little shop/cafe proudly displayed a sign indicating bakery, cafe & home- made scallop pies. Yumm!! Well, the pies were delicious, but I felt that $28 for two pies and two savoury scones was just a bit over the top. Ah well, they were good – the shop also sold home- made chocolate and fudge – did we go there? Of course – just 2 chocolates each tho’ and they were also delicious and surprisingly nowhere as expensive as the pies and scones!


Forgotten Times


The little town of Stanley clings tenaciously to the base of an extinct volcano – just the core actually – and this ‘core’ is called The Nut. The Nut can be seen for quite a while as you travel westwards towards Stanley and is a major landmark. There is a good walking track to the top of The Nut, but there is, for those not quite so ambitious, a chair lift. Guess who took the chair-lift? The trip to the top of The Nut, is well worth it as the views from the peak are amazing. Even when you catch the chair lift to the top, there is still good walking to be done along the various tracks leading to well placed viewing platforms.



Pinacle of Farming Land From the Top of The Nut




Amazing Views From the Top of the Nut



Looking towards the town from the CP

While we were in Stanley our good friends Steve & Sylvia caught up with us and we spent a couple of very pleasant days in their company, driving along the western coast and visiting Arthur River and other little seaside fishing hamlets. I can’t say we spent lovely nights with them as the sods took away our hard earned cash, beating us soundly at Poker. We have played cards with these two for quite a few years now and generally we come out pretty even – we are looking forward to our next encounter when we can even the score again!

It is likely to happen soon as our mates are almost the complete opposite to us in their travel mode. They are in Tassie for 1 month and have already completed most of their tour in just 2 weeks. We expect to catch up with them more or less on their way back. Steve has heard the mackerel are running at home and he is missing his boat and his fishing. Poor Sylvia will be hard put to keep him on the Apple Isle we think.

Weather – well, what a mixture! We had heard that Stanley was super windy and when we arrived it met all expectations in that regard. The wind was absolutely screaming around the camp. We are told that the norm there is a couple of lovely days, followed by a couple of super windy days. The wind comes from all angles as it bounces off and twists around The Nut. We were not game to put the awning up for the first couple of days. The up-side was that while the wind was there so was the sun and the place literally sparkled. We had that for the first two days, then the clouds came in and literally ‘sat’ right on us, no, not over us, but on us! It was eerily beautiful, The Nut looming over us in the perpetual mist and everything softened by the moist vapour. Oddly it wasn’t cold, even with the cloud hovering. The cloud came and went over the rest of our visit to Stanley, alternating glistening sunny days with moody grey ones.

The Nut  (sea-side) Earily Looming From the Mist

Stanley is quite beautiful, almost completely surrounded by water. We were a bit ‘turned around’ tho’ as we were right on the water’s edge and the water was between us and the mainland of Tasmania! The Nut and the town are pretty much on a little finger of land shaped much like a back to front comma and we were just underneath the top blob of that comma. Due probably to the fact our waterfront was pretty much a huge bay there were no big waves, just a myriad of busy little wavelets which cast strand upon strand of sparkling crystals against the tawny sand.

Busy Little Waveletts (land-side)

The surrounding land is, you guessed it, dairy and cattle farming. The rolling hills, currently adorned in gold were picturesque to say the least, decorated with dark Cyprus and contented black and white cows. Horses seem to be popular in the area too, and it was quite common to see riders wandering along the roads and tracks or meandering along the seaside. All in all, the combination of the quaint houses, the rural atmosphere, historic ruins and sparkling seas all safely under the watch of the towering Nut conspired to make Stanley a very pleasant stay indeed. Despite the touristy feel to the place, I at least, could have happily spent more time there. Until next time, stay well, be nutty but don’t ‘do your nut’! – Steph (well, what did you expect?)

Goodbye to The Nut

ARBOREAL ARTHUR RIVER

The Edge of the World

Where to start? Well, bad news first I suppose, yes, despite all my good intentions and precautions I managed to pick up a very good (or bad) dose of DD’s ‘bug’ – and it is a little ripper. I am hopefully thru’ the worst of it now and have just resorted to barking like the proverbial (don’t go there guys!). I have to say The Bloke was a true ‘champeen’ this time around and really did soldier on wonderfully well – not taking any days off nor even Complaining Loudly. I on the other hand seem to have done nothing but whine and whinge since the first sniff. Of course, my dose must have been worse than his, that’s the answer!! Hmmm.

Anyway, we have been staying in Sparkling Stanley (another blog to come) and whilst there took a trip down to Arthur River on the North West Coast. Once there we scratched one of our usual itches and took a river cruise and it was brilliant. We certainly recommend the cruise. One of our objectives is to take as many of these boat cruises as we can – we find that they are not only beautiful and enjoyable in their own right, but we tend to learn quite a bit from the tour operators, who in this case at least, were absolute characters.

The road from Stanley to Arthur River is OK, but we are quite pleased not to have taken the van down there – the CP looked pretty ordinary and realistically once there, there is not a great deal more to do than check out the local coastline (gravel roads) and take one of the cruises on offer. We did take a drive down along some of these coastal roads and checked out a couple of tiny fishing spots right off the beaten track. They call the coast along that way The Edge of The World and I have to say it is well named.

That remote part of the coast is battered by the wild Southern Ocean and next land-fall is some 15000 kilometres away in South America. During the winter months the Roaring 40s pelt the coast with huge swells sometimes up to 25 metres high. It seems that only a very few very hardy or foolish souls hang around there from July through to October.

The river-mouth is testament to both the ferocity of the winter river and the stormy sea – with hundreds of old trees and logs littering the shoreline like just so many giant toothpicks. My firewood hunting Bloke was salivating thinking of all that firewood. It seems tho’ that the sheer hardness of the local timbers leaves most chain saws spitting out teeth, so perhaps not so desirable after all.

Logs piled up like Matchsticks

Being cognisant of the variable weather in this part of the world, we chose our day carefully, taking into consideration all the weather forecasts, and blissfully we chose well and the day in question dawned clear and sunny. We had to depart from Stanley by 8am in order to board the boat at Arthur River by 9.45. The drive there was just delightful – we meandered through undulating golden fields dotted with myriad placid milking cows. Boy – cows!!!! I don’t think I have ever seen so many cows. All different breeds, but mostly big beautiful black and white beasts, calmly chewing their cud or lining up to go into the milking sheds. We saw capering calves, mooing mums and bawling bulls – Tassie so far seems pretty much like one big humungous farm. The early morning sun played across tree lined paddocks throwing black lace shadows on the golden fields.

Doting Mother

We passed a deer farm on the way, steep grassed paddocks dotted with pretty little deer – yes I do know what they are used for, but as I don’t personally eat Bambi I can live with it if I don’t think about it too much. I know that feral they are a pest too – but you can’t deny they are a pretty little beast.

Pretty Creatures Grazing in the Early Morning Light

On the way we also drove along some steep and winding roads that passed through part of the Tarkine – thickly wooded areas lush with tree ferns lapping the sides of the road. Sadly these roads were well decorated with the corpses of wallabies and their little cousins the pademelons. Certainly there must be an abundance of these little marsupials here as we must have by now seen at least 100 ‘sleeping’ by the roadsides.

We arrived at the boat early, only to find that others were even earlier and all the choice spots on the front of the boat had been taken. We opted to stand outdoors on the very small shelf running along the sides and the rear of the boat. I knew I would pay dearly later for standing bracing my knees all day and I am, but it was really worth the pain.

Wave Back to DD at the Rear of the Boat

The boat was ably manned/womaned by a crew of 4, all of whom seemed to have nick-names. The skipper, a fairly wily old hound was KG or Cagey depending I think on your outlook. His offsider and I think spouse, was Mouse and we also had Greg the professional talker and another lovely young lady whose name sadly has left the building. Sorry! When I say professional talker, I should probably elaborate a little, Greg had a couple of natural science degrees and was the bloke with the ‘book knowledge’ – he came originally from Sydney, but had pretty well morphed into a pony-tailed, ridgey-didge bushy. The skipper was dyed in the wool original to his back teeth Nor-west Taswegian.

Now you may be surprised to know that not all Taswegians are born equal. No indeed not! The folk in the north west corner deem themselves to be far superior to those down in lowly Hobart and the ones generally in the north are better than the ones in the south, the west better than the east and so it goes. Who would have thought that a state which could be fit easily inside our South West corner could be so, so, .....so well, internally parochial! You wouldn’t catch any self respecting Sandgroper behaving in this manner, not unless they come from South of the River of course.

Anyway, I digress – we took off at 10am sharp as promised and the George Robinson (the red boat) with Cagey at the helm and Greg at the mike proceeded to show us a ‘real good time’. We learnt many interesting things from Greg. The Arthur River is considered to be among the top rivers for reflections. This is due largely to the very high amount of tannin in the river water. Much of this tannin is caused by a small native grass called, I think, Button Grass. This grass, along with other plants stains the water a deep blackish brown. The dark colour complemented by the stillness of the morning did indeed live up to its image of magic.

Stunning Tree Ferns Reflected in the Tannin Laden Waters

I cannot remember just how long the river is but I think he said something like 180 ks. What he did say is that the river can be legitimately considered ‘wild’ as it does not at any point adjoin any farm, cleared or tamed land; the banks of the river, throughout its entire length are uncultivated. Much of the river wanders through the area now known as The Tarkine. This is the largest tract of temperate rain forest in Australia. We learned that Tarkine is a relatively new term given to this vast area of rainforest. The concept is that people will come to recognise the term Tarkine in connection with the conservation push in this region.

I must say, we gained an interesting perspective with regards to the push to make this a conservation area. Currently the area is logging land and the logging we are told, is managed very carefully and in small segments. The area is also available for locals to fish and hunt within legal precepts. If it was to be made a conservation area this would all stop, thus bringing a much needed industry to its knees and ousting families whose ancestors came out with early convict ships. I have to admit to being one who had previously believed in the conservation push, but now can see that perhaps somewhere ‘in the middle’ would be good.

The Tarkine (whose boundaries have never been set) is absolutely amazing. The cruise allowed us to view that wilderness as you never could from a fast moving car. Tall stringy bark eucalypt reach for the sky while wattles, myrtles and leatherwood cluster around the tall thin trunks. Lush tree ferns brush the forest floor and fan the blue spaces between trees. Little Kangaroo ferns decorate any available trunk giving a green aspect to even the brown branches.

We learned that there are two types of tree-ferns in the forest. One which hangs on to its dead fronds, and keeps them in untidy bunches around its feet – the other is a tall beauty which has a slender and shapely trunk as it sheds all its dead fronds and keeps itself beautiful and neat. Unsurprisingly the first are called ‘man’-ferns’ and the latter ‘lady-ferns’. Just as we women were all smirking and congratulating ourselves, we were also told that the slender neat ones were often very prickly to the touch. Oh well!

We learned many interesting things that day – I suspect some, like the lady/man ferns may be more local lore than fact, but all were interesting and entertaining. Of course, for a great big trivia sponge like yours truly, little known facts like Bass Straight once being a swamp were eagerly swallowed. One of the truisms was that many of the plants in the forest are of absolutely ancient origin and predate most if not all of our native animals. We share some of this ancient fauna with other parts of Gondwanaland like South America. We also learnt that Tasmanian Oak is actually Stringy Bark gum.

Thickly Wooded Right Down to the Water's Edge

One last little bit of trivia for you – I mentioned the high levels of tannin in the river – it seems that in the heavy winter months when the Roaring 40s are hammering the coast there, the combination of high swells and a raging tannin laden river meeting creates enormous quantities of foam. They say that entire oxen teams were known to disappear and perish in this foam and that every year people lose their beloved four footed mates in this perilous stuff. We were also told that the gravitational pull of the moon there is very, very slight – now that give me pause to think!!

Anyway back to our cruise – our able bodied crew took us quite some distance upstream. On the way we fed a pair of sea-eagles and their off-spring – delightful to see them in the wild. Mind you, almost every similar cruise we have been on in other parts of the country, has fed the sea-eagles. These birds do alright!

The weather was perfect – in the morning we had practically no breeze and so were able to see the reflective river at its best. I almost wore out the camera snapping shots of tree ferns, and reflections. Some of the best shots we both took were of the contorted reflections from the back of the boat (sorry to be so non-nautical folks – but if I try to get all nautical I’m sure I’ll just end up stern over bow so to speak).

We stopped after a couple of hours and went ashore. Here we were handed a large plastic cup full of wine or cool drink and taken for a short walk into the forest. Peter, behave!! Greg gave us an informative talk throughout our brief saunter until we smelled the unmistakable aroma of barbequed snags wafting through the greenery. We duly meandered back to the clearing and were served a basic but more than ample BBQ lunch along with more vino if we chose. Oh, we were also given cuppas and home-made biscuits on the way there. So, another cuppa for those who needed one and back on board for the trip back.

Little Pademelon in for his Daily Salad Treat

Just before we all left the camp area, a little brown pademelon came hopping in looking for his hand out of salad, and not far behind him a stunning spotted quoll wandered in for his snagger. I missed the quoll but our intrepid photographer DD lingered long enough to get some really good shots of the beautiful creature.

A Stunningly Marked Quoll Looking for his Snagger

The trip back was a little cooler with a brisk breeze blowing and we were treated to a Didgeridoo lesson by Greg who proved to be somewhat of an expert with this iconic aboriginal instrument. We were kept entertained most of the time by Cagey who regaled us with tales, tall and true of the region and its colourful history. It was fantastic to have such a colourful character narrating with very little posturing given to any political correctness. How bloody refreshing. Isn’t it interesting, when people are not constrained by political correctness, we find that hey, we as free people, are free to agree or disagree with their perspectives. Well bugger me!!

Anyway, the only other thing I should tell you is that if you come to this amazing part of the world and are in a quandary as to which boat cruise to take (there are two), we took the old red boat in preference to the new white one and we are very glad we did.

Contorted Reflections in the Wake of the Boat

Until next time, keep an open mind –Steph