TASMANIA – 27 April 2024
Our second day of “seeing the sights”. We started at 7.30am to go to Burnie for Park Run. This would be my first Park Run (well Park Walk) and I was fairly confident that I’d be able to manage a 5k walk. The drive to Burnie was pretty average, lots of cows, farmland and haybales.
For those who don’t know about Park Run, it’s worldwide, having started in the UK. Rod was doing his 210th (?) run today, it was Jim’s 2nd and my 1st. Burnie sometimes attracts around 300 runners. It’s a 5k course and very well organised. As a walker, I was way at the back and didn’t catch up with anyone for the whole 5k but I did well, finishing the course in 53minutes, I have to admit being tired at the end though (no rests). After the run, we picked up some breakfast and then headed off to see some “sights”.
Our first stop was just outside of Burnie, Guide Falls, a mere 10 minute walk away. The rocks in this area were formed when basaltic lava flow cooled slowly and evenly, allowing the crystals within the molten rock to align perfectly with each other. Vertical shrinkage cracks developed at right angles to the cooling surface to form thousands of uniform pentagonal (five sided) columns. The columns were about 20cm in diametre.
The columns aren’t the best examples of what I’ve seen elsewhere, and they were much smaller. On the rocks where we were walking the tops of the columns were much easier to identify and further downstream we could see where rocks had broken away and the columns were more identifiable. Nice easy 20 minute walk.
Our next stop was Doctors Rocks Conservation Area. Apparently, this was a penguin roosting area and at night you could see them coming ashore, nice beach but no penguins. We did go around the headland though and did a short walk out to the end of the headland, there were about 20 man-made penguin “houses”, a bit like a tortoise shell with a big hole in them that the penguins could crawl into. We did find one that had a penguin in it but could only see its beak.
The next stop was Freestone Cove which was known for the number of fossils in the rocky headlands. I actually didn’t think fossils were like this, I thought the actual shell was dissolved leaving only the shape, but apparently, that is not the case. A part of the headland, about 2m in depth near the shoreline was covered in these small shells.
And at a lower elevation, these rocks were plentiful. So many shells, but when you walked on the beach there were none to be seen. The headland also reportedly had some sea caves, but the tide was in so we couldn’t explore.
Our next stop was Table Cape. This headland stuck out for miles and miles, as the surrounding country was flat as a pancake. We drove right up to the top, there’s a massive tulip farm there and a nice lighthouse.
The interpretive signage explained that Table Cape was the solidified remnant of a lava lake which formed within the crater of a volcano 13.3m years ago, and this basalt core was all that remained when the softer ash and thin basalt layers of the volcano eroded away. Fascinating!
Our next stop was Stanley Nut, a stark 143m high massif, an ancient volcanic plug, which juts out into Bass Strait above the historic town of Stanley. You can access the top of The Nut via a steep foot track from the township of Stanley, or by riding the chairlift which is what we opted for.
Jim getting off the chairlift, so much easier than the big walk up-hill.
On the walk, from one of the lookouts.
The walk continues around the top of the plateau through open heath and patches of woodland. Surprisingly, there were small sections of woodland that we walked through. It was a 1 hour circuit and well worth the trip.
Walking down to the woodlands.
After getting back down on the chairlift, we high-tailed it back to Smithton and packed for the next leg of our journey, back to Deloraine and then to Mole Creek to finish up our caving trip (finally).
Every time I’d passed through Deloraine, I noted the bollards on the sidewalk that had lovely metal sculptures on them, so this time I snapped some photos.
The sculptures are all up and down the street, all depicting facets of the history of the area.
This looks like Ned Kelly, but I didn’t think he was down this way (LOL).
And close to Mole Creek I finally took a shot of the bee hives in a field, I’ve never seen so many colourful ones.
So, back at Mole Creek and our accommodation for the next week. Thanks Rod and Jim for doing all the driving (and navigation). We’re all feeling pretty good by now and ready for some caving, so, on to the next part of our Tassie Trip.