Those Roaring Forties - famed in this region

So the morning dawns wet and windy. Roaring forties is isn't but it is more blustery than yesterday. The whitecaps are dancing in the bay in front of our unit. And the exposed front of the motel units are being showered with salt-laden air blown in from the water over the low bushes that have also succumbed to the stiff breeze. Certainly explains the rusting on outdoor furniture and window and door frames.

The motel has a tired, defeated air. Planter boxes outside each room have plants that are clinging stubbornly to life. Just. The rooms are clean, we have met the cleaner both days - she is pleasant and seems efficient, but everything is being done on a tight budget. The motel has a For Sale sign, but any buyer will be knocking down the dollars for sure. The 'accessible' room that we have been allocated is nothing of the sort. There has been a token effort - handrails have been added to the toilet and shower but the facilities themselves are not accessible - it would meet any standard inspection.

It has a comfortable bed, but when you see all the schmick advertising for King Island this is not what you expect.

In fact, King Island has not been anything like what we expected. There is beauty here, a rugged defiant beauty. The land is under considerable strain. When we tell people we are from Queensland, they beg us to send the rain this way. The land is in drought and looks like it has been for some time. Its yellow and dry and the incessant wind is eroding areas where uncounted heads of cattle have walked the same path one after another time after time. There are not a lot of large trees, there are stands of paper-barks and stringy mulga with the odd white gums that shed their shards so that they drape on the bushy undergrowth. When we drive through wooded areas there is enough ti-tree that you can smell it on the air.

Gen goes down to the Bakery to buy Egg and Bacon Rolls for breakfast and adds cheddar to each and avocado to hers. They are delicious. Freshly made on lovely soft long rolls with crusty semolina tops. They are too big for me to finish, but only because of the generosity of the fillings. And the coffee is good. And strong. Mmmm.

We have decided to take a look at the south of the island today. We head out towards Grassy (grassy what, afterall, it is usually an adjective) and take a detour to see the Calcified Forest. Remembering what we were told by the car rental agent, if its on the map, its okay. So we confidently set down the gravel road. Now, the same rental agent also told us that the map is not accurate. As we lose GPS on Gen's phone, we also learnt that this statement is very very true. Distances are approximations only and roads are not marked accurately - like listed once when there are two entrqances, like distances not being anywhere near correct - kind of helps to explain why so many ships hit the rocks - the directions are shite, and have been so for hundreds of years! But the outcome of not being where you think you are is that you are more likely to have an adventure!

We head off on what we think is Seal Rocks Road, and later turned out it was Seal River Road. The road (read bush track) gets sandy. Gen tenses up and I tell her to breathe. Let the car find its own way. We finally end up at a locked gate and the track abruptly stops. So we turn around and go back to the junction, only then realising that we mis-read the sign and have travelled down Seal River Road, not Seal Rocks Road. We continue on what is now the correct road, gravel but much better than the bush track we have just left. We work out that we have been down to the Colliers Swamp Conservation Area, getting as far as Big Lake. Our plan had been to visit the Calcified Forest just near Seal Roacks. Nearing the correct site, we see a new(ish) Parks and Wildlife sign announcing that we have indeed arrived at the Calcified Forest! Well, we have arrived at the carpark.

As I mentioned earlier, the map is at best a mud map, the signs are just as contradictory!  One sign says 630m each way and the other says 1.5 km return. While my maths might have once been questionable, even can calculate that the two figures differ by 240m. Not a big deal normally, but to me it most definitely IS a big deal. I had said to Gen this morning that I would have a go at walking the track - it is graded a 2 - easy, but not wheelchair friendly. Just after leaving the carpark we are met with the first of the uphill sections. Now, remember that the base landform here is one of dunes. And dunes travel (might explain the dicsrepancy in the length) but these are well stabilised dunes with grasses, mulga, ti-tree and the odd gum. Up hill, down hill we walk. And again, and again. In steeper parts, the path has been compacted with light gravel and edging boards, but overall it is very sandy. We have been walking for about 30 minutes with Gen leading the way and pausing every 40 - 50m to turn back and check that I am still following. Its about now that my legs are heading for jelly, as I said, an easy walk compounded by the sand. We see yet another hill so Gen suggests that I wait a minute while she pushes forward to see how much further it is. she is back quickly to announce tht the walk ends just over the next hill BUT it ends at a 100m walk across loose sand before you reach a timber viewing platform. With timber steps that begin with a large step from soft sand. Disappointed was not the word either of us use. There is now way that I can do this safely. So Gen pushes on to climb the platform and get some photos, while I turn to walk slowly back to the car. Now, natue is a strange beast - there is a small swallow on the path ahead of me. We chirp away together as I plod on. About 30m ahead, it hops ahead of me, stopping frequently to make sure I'm still with him. My own light avian guide!

I get to the car about 4 minutes before Gen and am happy to stop, leaning against the dusty car to catch my breath. Too bad I didn't think to get one of the bananas or the water we are carrying from Gen before we parted! She's back before I know it and we both have a well-earned drink, draining the water-bottle dry. Sitting back in the car, we eat our bananas and are set to leave when another car arrives. Out hops a lady who takes a pack out. Booted up, pack on her back, I am sure that she was better suited to take that walk and even if it was a 1.5km return walk, it probably only felt like 1260m to her! Still I'm proud of myself. I would have walked just over a kilometre - the best I've done in a long time and even a low-graded walk, I can't help but think that if an anthropologist were to walk that path today, they would probably scratch their head and at our tracks (how do you explain a perfectly round small indent alongside my footprint?!

We still haven't reached Grassy (grassy what??) so decide to give Surprise Bay where another boat was wrecked. Back to Pearshape - yes, that is the name of a locality here -settlers obviously had a sense of humour - can't believe that they have named an area Snodgrass - a favourite Goon character of Michaels! We get to Grassy - the second largest settlement on the Island and is laid out in a more ordered grid pattern. Still very tired looking, there is evidence of some newer construction. Lord knows what it would cost to build over here- all construction materials would need to be freighted in by barge. But for the most, it is simple weatherboard construction which weathers poorly really - it is whited-out, an outcome of inhospitable weather. The most modern building here apart from one or two swanky new-come homes, is the hospital.

Right along this coast there are countless shipwrecks. And its easy to see why. The Island itself might be sandy, but it is completely enclosed by rocky outcrops and platforms. There is another lighthouse, the main port that had been used until the 1990s to ship scheelite mined just above the port. This is a mineral used in the making of tungestan and the company will have made some tidy $ during its operation, but they have done a very poor effort to rehablilitate the land. At the point beyond the port, which is now used to live-ship beef cattle (We see one laden trailer being shipped to the wharf area) there is a Penguin colony. As it is the middle of the day, we don't bother going all the way down to it as they are nocturnal and so will only be seen at night. We want to visit the Historical Museum at Currie that is only open and manned by volunteers every second day, so today it is. It is open between 2 and 4, and its almost 2pm now.

We follow the main road back and ignore Siri when she wants us to take the scenic route. There are lots of wildlife for us to encounter on the way back, all of which like to use the roads, perhaps because it warms up during the day. We dodge wallabies, pademelons, Cape Barren Geese, domestic turkeys (gone wild) farmed geese and a myriad of birds - turn out that the Island is a bird haven with a number of hides strategically located at various sites across the island - Cecile would love it! We see eagles, hawks, thousands of finces, and of swallows, magpies on steroids, butcher birds and more black birds than there are people on the Island. We even encounter a small herd of Black Angus cattle on the road and patiently need to wait for them to decide which way they will scamper.

Like the rest of Australia, roadworks rule the activity here - there are a number of projects being funded with federal government funding displaying the all familiar signage that I know from work. And with that construction we also see a tree-feling crew - god knows why, the trees are already well back from the narrow roads.  As Gen says, "why are they knocking down our CO2 filters? Lots of newly sealed roads with loose stones. Gen drives like a pro!

We well and truly get our laugh for the day when Gen pulls alongside a gaggle of geese, oh hang on, it was a rafter of turkeys and we spend a few, minutes gobble gobbling back and forward with then. The rooster is becoming quite indignant, probably at our atrocious pronunciation, so we head off laughing before he thinks to attack us!

Finally we arrive back at Currie. We want to have a look at the King Island Museum which is manned by volunteers and only open every other day. Turns out today is the only day it will be open while we are here. It's on the edge of town just below yet another lighthouse. It's only when you get up to lighthouse levels that you can get a true appreciation for the treachery of the rocks. Close to the shore there are a myriad of rock ledges and platforms, and just past them, there are rocky outcrops where the waves break. Makes for testing photos, but I can only imagine how difficult it would be to navigate.

Turns out, the museum is the former Lighthouse Keepers house. At 8 rooms, it was definately the most substantial building in the town. It has been built to weather the weather! The walls are about a foot thick and made of sandstone. The steps up into each room is large and the floorboards are wide original timbers. The museum has one volunteer on duty.  She tells us that she contacted her friend on her way in telling her that town didn't seem busy so there was no need for her to come in as well! Turns out she was wrong and so she was kept very busy - there three other groups there at the same time as us. She was a wealth of local knowledge and passionate about the island and its people. Each room has been develop around a theme. Is it obvious that this museum has had the support of a professional catalogue service. The exhibits are well displayed and relate well to the theme of the room. Gen isn't really a museum kind of person, but here she finds enough to keep her busy while I drink in family histories and even read up a bit on some of the shipwrecks. The volunteer was saying that up until 1976 anyone could salvage from shipwrecks, but that after that it was banned. One of the visitors commented that she saw evidence of someone with a metal detector on one of the beaches this morning.

I was asking the volunteer (Val) whether there had been a resurgence of population in town, based on the ABS statistics that I read this morning. She was delighted to tell me that there had been a number of younger families with ties to the history of the Island returning, bringing much needed children - so much so that an extra teacher has been sent to the school. We have seen much evidence of young ones, but it is still the school term, so I guess they are inside mostly on weekdays.

We have booked accommodation in for dinner tonight at Boomerang By The Sea- the motel where we are staying - by all a counts it is a good restaurant and at the time of booking we see that it is operated by different people. After our visit to the museum we had gone back to our unit and I had had a sleep - that walk had done me in today!

We hear cars arrive and when we open the door just before 7 to walk around to the restaurant, the car park is full.

Up some unfriendly steps into the restaurant which is not quite full, but definitely doing a good trade. We are seated near a large picture window that in the long summer days (and with the added benefit of daylight saving a mere week ago) would have afforded a stunning view. Tonight all we see is black as the sun had set hours ago. The menu is definitely more upmarket than the pub last night but I am disappointed that there is so little seafood on offer. A friend Prue sends a message to make sure we try the King Crab - oh, if only that was a choice.

There is a tour group of 8 people in and they are all served a half crayfish each - it must have been prearranged as it is not on the menu 😳. 

We select a fried Camembert with fig and walnut jam to share as a starter, served with foccacia. Not what we expect, but much lighter and to be honest, nicer. Gen is thrilled that they have a good selection of meat choices and settles for Aged King Island Scotch Fillet, cooked blue and served with confit local potatoes, baby carrots and brocollini. I had the Prawn and Crab Papardelle - hold the chilli. It to was cooked to perfection, although a very big serve with 8 large prawns still succulent and quite a bit of Crab broken through the dish. Our preferred King Island chesse plate was sold out (what the?!) so we chose a creme brulee and a Sundae. Hard to stuff those up. Port arrived, but coffee didn't. Not quite what we expected. We both got the feeling that the main tourism market is the golfer these days - overhearing the partners of the chest-bumping golfers, we get the impression that they feel likewise.

Back to our room, down those steps (our waiter was nice enough to offer a hand) and I begin the blog. Internet coverage drops out well before I am finished so I go to bed frustrated to have lost an hours worth of wit. 😞 😞

King Island - let the food porn commence . . .

We left the Leisure Ville Holiday Centre nice and early to make sure we were at the airport with plenty of time to load the wheelchair and me.

It is quiet as we leave the accommodation and the light still early. Nothing moves quickly here and we follow a car until the town centre turnoff at about 40 kph. But the airport is only 5 minutes from the Park so we have left plenty of time. Still took a wrong turn - its a little frustrating how long it takes the GPS to catch up with your real-time location. Gosh, talk about first world problems!

The airport is fractionally smaller than Hervey Bay. Yet is it welcoming, friendly and efficient. The first real surprise is the cost of parking - first couple of hours free then $2 per hour. For longer periods, the price drops dramatically. 3 days or part thereof is going to cost us the princely sum of $12! The next surprise was that at 8am the coffee shop opened and the regular travellers, complete with business suits and laptops all queue for their regular. 

There are two planes on the tarmac. A Sharp Airlines Metroliner that is our plane for King Island and a Rex Airlines plane. I guess it is heading for either Hobart or perhaps Melbourne. They advise us that they will board us first before other passengers. I took one look at the steps up into the plane - there was no way I could manage them, and there was no guide rail, rather just a rope on either side, We book the wheelchair on as luggage - Sharp have one to take me out to the plane and once there they wheel out a manual lift which I walk on to and they manually crank me up. It feels like I am going to be higher than the plane itself! Once at my regal height, the 'lift' is wheeled the remaining 6 feet to the plane and once the lip is inside the plane, it is lowered so that there is no gap for me to trip on. "Mind your head ma'am" I am advised as a set of hands guides me from behind and another pair welcomes me in to the plane. 

We were surprised to see the plane already half-filled. Wow, this must be the plane from Launceston. It carries a total OF 15 passengers and two pilots. Configuration of seven rows of one seat on either side of the aisle plus one row of three at the very rear, adjacent to the divider from the freight half of the plane. Gen and I have two seats 7B and 7C in that back row. We assume that there is no-one in 7A and have to make a mad scramble when a lady, obviously a regular passenger walks down. She insists that she is fine to sit in the centre seat, but thankfully for us (and her) the co-pilot suggests that we would all be more comfortable if she moved to the other single spare seat on the plane. Without request, he brings a seatbelt extender and says that he didn't want Gen to feel like she was being strangled for the entire flight! 

After a short safety briefing which entailed an explanation on how to fit a life vest, and how to plug in to the oxygen supply if advised - none of this masks dropping from the bulkhead. There are quiet giggles when I ask if the life vests are all new "Never used" was his quick reply! The taxi out to the runway perimeter seems to take forever. Gen is not the best of fliers and this plane will be the smallest either of us have flown in. She tenses, eyes shut and fists tightly clenched as we roar down the runway and lift into the blue yonder. Today however, it is the white yonder, not blue as there is almost 8/8 cloud cover. Disappointing as I was hoping to get some nice photos of the Tasmanian coast as we flew over, and then of King Island on our approach. The cloud is slowly peeling back from the coast as the rest of the area around Wynyard comes to life. They cling on lingering in valleys. 

We reach cruising altitude not too far from Wynyard and from then on, we have a blanket of rolling white below us. The clouds look and behave much like waves with very distinct peaks and troughs. They look snug and cuddly. The light is short - 30 minutes, so its almost a case of as soon as we reach cruising altitude, we are beginning our descent! Gen again gets very tense as we come down through the cloud layer - this is the one bumpy bit on the flight. 

I am not sure what I was expecting King Island to look like, but it wasn't this. The land is flatter than I imagine - I mean there are hills, but looking from above, it is clear to me that these are stabilised dunes. There are a million small lakes/ponds/dams. And everything is so dry. The landscape is shades of yellow and light green as opposed to the lush green palette that I had been expecting. Before long, we have touched down and are taxiing to the gate. Gen and I wait on board while all the other passengers alight and then Gen walks ahead of me to the plane door. She alights and I am left at the top of the steps. A lift is being wheeled out - this one motor driven as opposed to the one in Wynyard. Once it is aligned with the door again I step onto it and they lower it ever so gently. I get the feeling that this is not used too often! I am happy to help them all hone their skills 😉. Seeing my wheelchair being unloaded, Gen suggests that we just use ours. Off we head for the terminal, Gen pushing me, me holding the ctutches, Gen also wheeling our carry-on luggage that had been booked as freight and the co-pilot wheeling the lift.

We are back in the land of tourism appreciation. "You are very welcome" is the catchphrase that we are greeted with at every point again. The young lady at the hire car desk at the airport is cheerful and confident. She explains the rules - if the road isn't marked on the map, then the insurance won't cover it. Unsealed roads are fine. so long as it is marked on the map! There is a network of sealed roads and about twice as many unsealed!

King Island is not large at a mere 1,098 sq. kms. But it is the largest island in the New Year Group and the second largest in Bass Strait, between northern Tasmania and southern Victoria. There are three main towns - centrally located Currie (the largest and centre of the Island's administration), Grassy in the south and Pegarah on the east coastline. Once we have the car organised, we decide to drive into Currie, 9kms from the airport to have some brunch. The King Island Bakehouse is renowned, so its here we head.

Gen is ecstatic. Our hire care is a Nissan X-Trail. She sits higher than in the Lancer. While the inside capacity is the same, just the fact that it has a bit more 'grunt' makes her happy. I'm pleased for her! King Island has more than its per sq. km allocation of things to see and do. And that first stop for us is the Bakehouse. They are known throughout Tasmania  for their pies. We are standing looking at their menu board when the attendant asks what we want. "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo" was my first reply that got a giggle. I really want to try their crayfish pie before we leave here, but fear that it will be too rich at this time of the day. So we settle for plain beef pies, a mini pecan tart and a slice of (sublime) honey cinnamon roulade. Plus a coffee each. we sit inside, out of the wind and slowly savour those morsels of local goodness.

Hunger dealt with we decide to drive north toward Cape Wickham. We start out on the sealed road, but its not too long before "Ooh, that sounds interesting" gets the better of me and we head onto gravel roads. We head for Quarantine Bay where there are the wrecks of four ships in the area. We travel through rolling dunes, miles and miles and miles of them. We see large herds of hereford and black angus bulls. Hundreds to the hectare, literally. I can't believe the load per hectare. It is maybe 100% more than I have ever seen before. The birdlife is amazing. There are flocks of paired Cape Barron Geese, more blackbirds than anywhere else - and they are HUGE. Then there are the domesticated geese being farmed, pheasants that take flight as we pass them. Millions of tiny wrens and swallows flock together in murmurations sweeping through the sky all around us. We saw a solitary eagle soaring on the thermals before diving to some prey we could not see. There was a peacock and two peahens dashing into the briar, turkeys being fatted and the ever-present seagulls - the common white ones as well as the brown Pacific gulls. Yes, King Island is a bird haven. There are a number of hides across the island and April is devoted to a birdwatching and monitoring program.

Moving on we are still driving north - its not far, but the roads need to be driven carefully and slowly. We pass the King Island Dairy, home to the wonderful King Island Cheeses, and we vow to have lunch here on our return trip. Finally we reach Cape Wickham and the Cape Wickham Lighthouse, home to Australia's tallest lighthouse, built in 1861 and then automated in the 1920s. It sends its light far out into the inky depths to the west of Tasmania and was built in response to the numerous ships that had crashed into the rocks of King Island. Initially it caused further sinkings when captains mistook the lighthouse for one on the southern point of Victoria and then turning south and sailing straight into treacherous rocks. Gen takes a walk along the beach and we sit for half an hour, just taking it all in.

Our hunger gets the better of us and we turn south back to the King Island Dairy. The cheese tasting and history building is quiet with only one other couple there. We opt for the cheese tasting - a sample of six of their cheeses: Three Rivers Triple Cream Brie, Victoria Cove Smoked Camembert,  Lighthouse Blue Brie, Endeavour Gorgonzola Style Blue, Surprise Bay Cheddar and Stokes Point Smoked Cheddar. I discovered that I do like (good) blue cheese and Gen is finally developing a palate for cheese (yay!). We also had a Baked Brie with walnuts, thyme and local (manuka) honey. Oh it was so good. we bought some souvenirs and have sent some cheese home. We will host a cheese tasting when we get home - better let us know if you want an invitation! In order to get them home, we rush back to Currie so that we can make the post. Our parcel will be kept refrigerated until it leaves the Island! Guess we aren't the first to do this.

The afternoon is drawing to a close, so we head to check in to our accommodation. Boomerang By the Sea. Set on the edge of a cliff with views out over a rocky cove we hold high hopes. Not fully dashed, but this property is very quiet and looks very tired. There are three rooms being checked in today - we know this because there is a sign on the reception door with our names and room numbers, and the advice that keys are in the doors! Talk about trusting! However, we know that there is at least one policeman on the Island because he was eating his morning snack at the same time as us in the bakery this morning - and its not easy to flee the island!! Still, the room is clean and the bathroom is accessible. Turns out Monday night is everyone's night off with the exception of Wild Harvest - the paddock to plate restaurant in Grassy. We phone expectantly, but they are booked out all month. So we head down to the King Island Hotel for dinner tonight. Very pub food, my Schnitzel was tasty with herbs and cheese in the crumb and Gen's Eye Fillet was cooked to perfection - blue but not leaking blood! She was happy. She was going to have vegetables instead of the house salad but at an extra $6 she decided no. Its easy to understand, we saw potatoes at $5.8/kg, mandarins at $15/kg and capsicum was $16.6/kg. Turns out, vegetables are at a premium here!

Day 1 of 3 done, we are tired and heading for bed. Tomorrow we will head to the south to Grassy and a Calcified Forest. Sleep well.

The story of The Nut

Following our disappointing night last night, we returned to our little cabin to continue our search for accommodation when we arrive back on the 'big' island on Wednesday night. We had booked a unit at a motel between Wynyard and Burnie, but after driving passed it the other day, we cancelled it. They are at the back of a pub that is in the middle of nowhere (figurtaively speaking of course) that is surrounded by industrial units. And on our way back last night, it is lit up with neon signs highlighting Gaming and Licensed. Yep, very glad we cancelled it.

This has always been the way that I have travelled, with a start point and a finish point/date and little else planned. That flexibility has afforded me some wonderful opportunities that would have been missed if I had already locked in other plans.
Covid however, has put a big damper on this style of travel. Without the opportunity to travel internationally, everyone craving an 'overseas' trip is presently travelling in Tasmania. I kid you not! And so, we are struggling to find accommodation at short notice.  So today we abandoned plans to come back to Burnie and will travel a little further east to stay for the night we arrive back in Tassie at Penguin. Then we are moving on directly to Launceston for 4-5 days and will do day trips in the region. Staying in Penguin will also provide opportunity to have a morning catching up with Bruce in Ulverstone - its been many many years!

Travelling for over a month necessitates that some of the boring 'normal' daily activities to be done. While I don't scrimp on holidays, I refuse to spend much of our budget on continually buying new clothes! Ergo, washing is a must. Staying in self-catering accommodation provides opportunity to make our own breakfasts (and other meals if preferred) and provides options for laundry. Once we have had our breakfast of crumpets with honey and some of the fabulous cheese we have been lucky enough to purchase, Gen takes herself off to the laundry which is conveniently opposite our cabin. 

Washing on average once a week has worked well. But you are never in the right place at the right time - one place requires $1 coins for washing machine and/or dryers, other require $2 coins. And it is almost always the ones we don't have - oh, for some consistency!! The actual cost of a load of laundry is $4 per load, plus an additional $4 if you want to put it all through the dryer. We prefer to not use dryers and were thrilled that there was a clothes line outside the back of our cabin WITH some pegs! We travel with a small twist line that doesn't require pegs, but haven't had to resort to it yet. 

The day is beeyootiful! We are headed for a top of 21, there is. little cloud cover and only a gentle breeze blowing. The washing is gently dancing on the line as we head west towards Stanley. It takes us a bit to get going this morning, and we blame the ennui of our slack day yesterday!

Stanley is a 66 km drive that will take us about 50 minutes snaking our way west along the coast. Its a drive through beautiful countryside, rolling hills and far off mountain ranges to our left, with coastal beaches and rocky headlands to our right. There are dancing lights across the waters as clouds move in and out of view - its truly looks like diamonds sparkling. 

Gen has been telling me all along of her first visit to Stanley and how proud she was that she had walked the path up The Nut rather than take the chairlift. She did that because she has a fear or heights. We come around a bend and there it is - The Nut. We are 38 kms away, and it fills the centre of my vision. It is enormous! As we draw nearer, you can see the path zig-zagging up The Nut - it stands out clearly and the people 'walking' up the path look like ants! We have also been told that Hurseys is a really good seafood restaurant. 

Daylight saving ended in Tasmania in the wee hours of this morning. When we arrived in Stanley it had just gone 12 noon. We see the big Crayfish that signifies Hurseys, and given our light breakfast, decide that we should have lunch first given that they are only open for lunch between 12 and 2 pm. Lunch will also fuel our trek on The Nut. We enter the premises through the takeaway shop. There is a lift to the first floor restaurant. As the lift doors open you are greeted with magnificent views across the small port to the sheltered bay. The restaurant is spotless, well laid out and we are met promptly by a young waitress dressed in a simple, smart black uniform with the company logo embroidered in red.

She asked if we had a reservation, and as I looked around the restaurant, there was only two other tables seated, I answered no. We were shown to a window-side table and left with menus to contemplate our hunger and how best to satisfy it!! There were Specials Boards around the room. Now, their speciality is Crayfish, or as we better know them - LOBSTER! And as the saying goes, "when in Rome . . ."

In the end, we order a Cold Seafood Platter that included a half medium lobster (1.1kg whole), prawns, pickled octopus, smoked salmon, salad and sauces; and another half medium lobster that was served with chips and salad. OMG - there was so much lobster crayfish. It was so white, so succulent, so moist, so delicious. Gen tackled (some of) the prawns, octopus and salmon and I think perhaps a mouthful or two of the salad. The rest of the salad and the chips went to waste. Honestly, we should have thought to tell them not to serve the 'sides'. It was quite wasteful, but if I had tried to eat anything other than the crayfish, then I am quite sure that I would have been sick. The service was impeccable and the meal delicious. Great value for money too.

Lunch done, we headed the couple of streets to The Nut chairlift building. There is a cafe at the base, but we decide that we need to walk off our lunch before we have a Valhalla Ice Cream. Gen looks up the path and is amazed that five years before she had actually climbed the path. It is very very steep. There is no way that I could have walked any of it. It was enough of challenge to walk the incline to the chairlift office! Gen has gone very quiet. Knowing that I can't walk the path, and wanting to make sure that I saw the stunning views from The Nut. She also understands that I am going to need assistance in getting on and off the chairlift with my crutches. So, facing her fears, she came along with me on the chairlift. The young man at the base station explained that he could not stop the chair, but could slow it down. He was calm, which was important in reassuring Gen, and we managed to take our seats without incidence. He radioed ahead to the top station to advise that we would need assistance. She went quiet, very quiet. I tried to reassure her, encouraged her not to look up or down, but the look around at the level where we were. It was not a long ride - there are four numbered pylons only.

We arrived shortly at the top without incident and alighted without problem. At the top of The Nut, there are a number of walks that can be taken. I want to try to get to the closest lookout which is a 250m walk. I managed to get about 200m along the undulating path before we are met with a flight of stony steps without any handrails. I don't dare to try to go further. Gen is disppointed, me not so much - it is what it is, and I was pleased to be able to do at lest part of it. But I don't want to let my lack of ability to hinder Gen revisiting the walk she had previously done. So I returned to the chairlift station and waited at a picnic table. Gen intrepidly set off on the circular path around the top of The Nut that is 2.2km in length.

I watch people come and go, those who have come up on the chairlift like us, and others who arrive red-faced with the exertion of the steep walk up the path. There were older groups, quite a few mature ladies travelling together, a surprising number of families with young or teenage children and lots of Asians travelling this part of Tasmania.

There is surprisingly little wind - just the occasional eddy. Its surreal because even when there was a wisp of wind, there was no sound. The tussocks of grass sway gently and silently. The only sound you can hear was the intermittent chatter of excited children "I'm on the top of the volcano!" "No, not quite yet, but nearly," was the patient reply. Adults speak in hushed tones, as if so not to break the spell of this place. And from way below us in the town there is the sound of a vexed dog, barking constantly at something that was irritating him.    

I do not really enjoy the downward trip, that feeling of leaving your stomach behind has never thrilled me, but I try to remain very calm so that Gen did not pick up on my jitters. Just look at the horizon I tell her, following my own advice - don't look down. The view is absolutely amazing - it truly is. You can see bay after bay after inlet and in the distance, cows grazing in fields and further away, mountain range after mountain range. 

We arrive safely back down at the base and settle in for a coffee and a Valhalla Ice Cream. Delicious as always. Gen drove around the outside coves and past the convict remains of The Highfields. At this time on a Sunday, they are now closed so we head for our home base in Wynyard. En-route we take the coastal route off the Bass Highway to come back into Wynyard and make a quick detour to have a look at the Table Cape Lighthouse from the lookout on the next point. From this point you look across almost 100 klms of coastline from beyond Ulverstone in the east to Wynyard below us. Its is amazing. And all the rocky outcrops in the sea are good evidence of the importance of this lighthouse.

Back at the Leisure Ville Holiday Park Gen collects the now dry washing.  We spend a bit of time rearranging our luggage to take what we want to King Island tomorrow. As night falls, we head back in to Burnie to fuel the car, and to try to find the little penguins. The main season is from September to March during which time a volunteer organisation takes free guided walks to the nesting dunes. We follow Google Maps to where the centre is, are briefly mistaken for someone else as we slow down and wind the window down to ask directions (Oh, you are not who I was expecting. Do either of you smoke?  No mate) - we hurry off before we are implicated in anything less than savory! (wink wink)

Finally we read between the map lines and find ourselves down at the shelter used by the guides. Locked up as tight as a barrel, deserted for the season. We do get out, we hear what we think are the penguins and our patience and persistence is paid off. We spend the better part of an hour taking night photos, trying not to fall over in the dark - thankfully the path is very even and flat. We watch and make noises with about 2 dozen little penguins - how very special!

The night sky is very dark tonight, showing lots of stars, but there is too much ambient light to get good photos - perhaps we will be luckier on King Island. We phone Antony to wish them a good holiday. They leave for Chinchilla at 5 am tomorrow morning for a week and are taking all 5 of their telescopes as well as their astronomical cameras with them. They will get great photos I know - they gifted me a print from their last trip there, for Christmas.

Off to King Island at 8am tomorrow - watch out for the food porn.  Can't wait! 

A Wynyard with no trains in sight.

Its the weekend, and we all deserve a sleep in sometime, so today was our chosen day. The morning dawns clear - we have been so lucky with the weather in this trip down south. BOM is predicting 21 degrees today, so off comes the jumper and the spencer and out comes a short sleeved top. It makes a nice change from feeling like the Muffin Man! lol.

Turns out that wall has not yet moved. We decide that a rest day is in order. The Leisure Ville Park is pleasant, sitting in the sun and sheltered from any wind. It's quiet too. I'm sitting in the sun squinting as I go through about a week's worth of emails. Gen is catching up on sleep and intermittently waking and browsing on the net. 

Wynyard is a quiet beach-side town with surprisingly little traffic. Likes it namesake in Sydney, there is a rail line and therefore presumably station here. But unlike Sydney, the trains have long since stopped running. Pity, kit would have made for a very picturesque trip from Burnie through to Stanley hugging the littoral dune, mere metres from the beach sands. The waves barely ripple this evening. Even a nipper would not be challenged. The tide is out and the rock shelves are all exposed, as are break-walls a little way off the beach and any number of rocky outrops. Yet the water is quite high on the beach. It will be interesting to see the tidal change.

There are heaps of posts on the Travelling Tasmania Facebook pages with stunning photos of Aurora Australis sightings from the north west region of Tasmania. OMG that is where we are! The only challenge is that it is only visible in the wee hours of the morning. Is that something that we might like to try? Bloody oath it is. That means that we will need to get some rest today. That is also doable! So we will go into Burnie this afternoon and treat ourselves to a movie. It's the beginning of the school holidays so the pickings are a little lean, but Gen is wanting to see Morbius, and without anything jumping out for me, that is what we opt to see. The afternoon showing will be in time to allow us an early dinner before a few hours shut-eye if we want to venture out for some night viewing. 

Well, that was the plan. Turns out that our restaurant of choice didn't have any sittings until 8 pm so we decide to see a later showing before dinner. Gen was disappointed that Morbius was not dark enough whilst I was pleased that there was a half plausible story line and not too much blood and gore. The theatre did have Valhalla Ice Cream so that was another bonus. Weren't too many others in the theatre, just a group of teenage boys, with all the chest-thumping of such once the movie was over.  Felt like standing up and telling them to watch out, I was the one with the crutches - don't worry you'll get it if you go and see the movie! 😄

We have booked in to have dinner at Bayviews. The menu on their website holds much promise. Put on the glad-rags and all. The first hint that we might be disappointed is the volume of noise on arrival. Making our way to the beachfront entry, we pass the bistro and takeaway downstairs. Arriving at the restaurant upstairs (there is a lift thankfully) the noise is coming from here - the 'background' music is way too loud and this is matched by the noise of dining patrons. Our tables weren't quite ready so we ordered a cocktail and sat while the server cleaned a bar booth table for us to sit at - but not the filthy floor under it. The restaurant is packed - so much so that our waiter had to ask one lady to stand, and she moved her chair to enable me to pass with the crutches to our large window side table. Covid, what on earth is that? Despite all the signage at the restaurant entrance, there is no way a 1.5m rule could be applied anywhere here.

We had like the look of the Chef's Tasting Menu at $120 per head (6 courses) but this is only available before 7:30pm. A little disappointed we chose a variety of entrees, mains, a dessert tasting plate and a 3-cheese plate. A glass of wine each and a coffee. An expensive evening wasn't totally wasted, the entree tasting plate was nice, and Gen said her lamb was really delicious, but we found the other menu choices were somewhat mis-matched. I am disappointed enough to provide some constructive criticism, but will do it directly to the management, not here.

We have realised that there is too much ambient light here to hope to see any Aurora, but hope that King Island will afford us a better choice.

Trying to decide where to book accommodation for our last couple of weeks. It's definitely more appealing to stay for more days in one spot and do day trips than it is to change accommodation daily.

Monday morning nice and early we fly from Wynyard to King Island, returning late on Wednesday. We will book another couple of nights is Burnie and I hope to catch up with a friend from my teenage years - Bruce Harpley. He and his family live in Ulverstone, a short drive from Burnie. He is a glass artist in his spare time and I have previously bought Izabella a hand-made Tardis Clock for christmas a few years back from him.

Tomorrow we are heading to Stanley and The Nut. More stories after then.

We move to Wynyard in the North

A late night following the trip to Strahan for the day has well and truly taken its toll today and this afternoon I hit the wall big time. I've just re-surfaced after a couple of hours sleeping to have dinner. We are presently watching Magical Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald while sitting under a blanket at the foot of the air-conditioner draught. You forget how cold it can be on the Coast and what a different cold it is to the cold of the mountains. It is a little 'damper' As though the cold air is carried on the droplets of the air.

Snippets of the show 'The Ship That Never Was" last night come back unbidden. I swear I will never look at a vegetable steamer the same way again - it became a jellyfish flittering open and closed and when directed to sit, the audience cast member with the steamer became a box jellyfish. Get it? Sit. On a box. Box Jellyfish!

This play at one glance is full of fun and nonsense, but in reality, it is so much more. There is so much wit, social comment and references to current and past opinions, stances and stories that you really need to hold Richard Davey (the writer) and his actor daughter, Kiah is quite some esteem. I would have loved to spend some time with her after the play, but the light was fading fast and Gen wanted to be closer to our accommodation in Queenstown 45 minutes away before dark hit. It still feels a little strange that at after 7pm it is still light - daylight saving finishes here on Sunday, so we can take advantage of that extra hour for more sleep!

Our stay at the Gold Rush Inn has been unexpectedly comfortable. At the time of booking, we were having so much trouble finding accommodation that we took their last room, which just happened to be the Executive Suite. To be honest, it was a little more expensive than what we were hoping to pay, but believe me, it was worth every penny. We get the feeling that it must have, at one time, been the manager's residence. It is adjacent to the Reception and is the only room with undercover parking. There was a king-sized bed, a full lounge with a smart TV (and streaming service access!!) plus a full-sized kitchen with full-sized fridge, microwave, stove (not that we needed it) and a pod coffee machine! The table and chairs comfortably sat 4mpeople. We have had the space to bring e v e r y t h i n g out of the car to try to sort out what is being posted home, and what we will continue to carry, knowing full well that we will probably buy more souvenirs!

After checking out we head into town to have a look around Queenstown. The Mining Museum is very comprehensive. Its like the Military Museum back home, while the title refers predominantly to the mining activity and history, the Museum also has an amazing collection of the social past of Queenstown. There are surely a number of people here who have collected every little item that relates to the living of lives in Queenstown - there are rooms and rooms and rooms devoted to it!

Some displays are indeed very unique - there is a whole room dedicated to the Mining Disaster of 1912 where a fire broke out, killing 42 men. Amongst all the memorabilia was a list of the miners, their personal status (single, married, family man etc) and what compensation was paid. While the average appeared to be around 200 pound, some were as low as 10 pound and the largest was 700 pound. It seems that where a bereaved widow with children to support negotiated, she was taken advantage of, whilst the lawyer father of another single miner negotiated that highest figure. Seems that enterprise has changed little over the years, with the powerful taking advantage of those with less or no power.

We walked through the 7 rooms on the ground floor and there are another 16 floors on the two stories above us. There is no lift, and when I asked Gen if she wanted to go and take a look, she said no, that museums are not really her 'thing'. "Why then did we come here?," I asked to which she said, "I know you  like them!" Ain't that love!! She did however, find some of their geology collection of crystal specimens quite interesting.

From here we drive into the Town Centre sand walk the couple of blocks. Oh good, there is the Post Office - we buy post bags and boxes to pack for home. And although is cost a tidy sum, it is still cheaper than excess baggage fees will be! And it gives us a chance to take a photo of the orange shop. It is not open, and with black plastic dropsheets hiding everything behind the window display, we will never know if in fact it every traded. It is bizarre and quaint and unusual and quirky all at once.

We are headed back over the mountain ranges through to the north coast. In readiness for our side trip to King Island on Monday, we have decided to stay in Wynyard for the next couple of days, and do a few day trips from here. We have a cabin at the LeisureVille Caravan Park, on the Old Bass Highway here in Wynyard, right across the from Freestone Cove looking out across the bay and the mouth of the Inglis River to Table Cape - an imposing plateau jutting into the waters of the Tasman Strait. It is nice to have beach views again after all those majestic mountains.

The drive over began in the mountains and I think that Gen is well and truly over the hairpins and ups and downs for the minute. One minute we are looking skywards at the dominant Dolerite Crags, the next we are travelling though dark tree'd tunnels through the rainforests. As I peer deep into the blackness, there are occasional shafts of light piercing the dense foliage and illuminating a single tree or fern, or at best, a glade. The closer we get to the coast, the thinner the trees become. No longer are they the lush growth of the ages, but are now the ordered, geometric, linear plantings of hardwood forests. No matter how clever man might be in growing timber for use, we can never match the beauty and mighty strength of mother nature with her trees of immense girth and ageless wisdom. 

We take a side detour to visit Zeehan - how many towns in Australia can claim to begin with a 'Z'? Dr Google (using the Austpost site) tells me there are 11! There are a number of small disparate museums here, and we again run into the hot rod cars towing vintage caravans that we saw at The Wall the other day. However, you could only buy a combined ticket at $25 per person - that explains why people were looking over the colourbond fence at the Railway museum. They would do better to offer a ticket to a single museum and discount tickets to multiple museums, so they did not lose all funds. I mean $50 for two of us to see the one museum we wanted to visi?! Nope. Not wanting to leave without spending any money, we stopped at the coffee cart outside the museum and bought coffees and pies - they are really good here.  

Back to the main road, we pass through Rosebery where there is supposed to be a good bakery - well, there might have been one. Not any more, it is closed and the shop marked For Sale in the window. There is an IGA with a post office franchise. Every other shop in the town is closed. This is an area in serious economic decline. I guess that even mining has an end-date.

So we push on. Closer to the coast, we now return to those idyllic pastoral scenes - cattle being fatted in green fields, hay stock-piled for the winter, wrapped tightly in green or lilac wrappings. And the roadwork. Yep, kilometres and kilometres at 40 kph. we pass over newly laid bitumen and the smell takes me back to memories of my father-in-law who carried bitupave for the last of his working years. High above Burnie, we again see the sea as diamonds sparkling in the afternoon sun. Its a sight for tired eyes.

In recognition of our return to the coast, we decide on Fish 'n' Chips for dinner. Needing milk, once we check in we head into the town centre, passing a seafood outlet - right on the beach! Gen will come back later for our order. Turns out seafood is expensive all over the country - they have Trevalla for $50/kg fresh and as a meal combo, it is $23 per serve which turns out to be battered. However, that batter was so light - think tempura batter - and the fish so fresh, so white. It is a truly delicious dinner.

A quiet night in watching some telly (supposed we really should go out late to try to see the Aurora Australis, but seriously we are too tired). Night all. we plan a sleep in tomorrow before a trip over to Stanley 45 minutes away so Gen can show me The Nut! Hope the chairlift is working - that'll be the only way I will be going up it!!

Hope you are all well. Avagoodweekend as the saying goes.