Day 11 - Mount Wellington, a bit of a blow and penguins in the night!
Just want to ask a basic question - the images that I post up have been resized to 800pixels on their long side and file size of 64kb. This means that the images are quick to display on most peoples' internet connection, but means the images can appear a bit blocky. Should I increase the file size, to improve the picture quality, or are people happy with what they see now?
Sorry I haven't updated in a while - had a bit of a writers brick going on........
The sun hadn't quite risen before I got up........
Another beautiful day
A quick look into the motel office(signed as "cafe") before leaving........
The motel is in a state of flux at the moment - the back of the complex is a new two-story concrete and glass building and the old single-story front half is to be demolished and replaced soonish. Pity - I kinda like the look of the old design, but that's progress.....(you can see the new building at the back on the other side of the fence)
Regardless - very friendly and helpful people here(even opening up their laundry after hours so I could do some washing, or maybe I smelt that bad).
The next major bay along the coast is Blackmans Bay - another small beachside town similar to Kingston beach.
I had a quick look at the blowhole, but it wasn't blowing today as the weather was too caln.........
Kingston Beach and Blackmans Bay reminded me of the parts of the Gold and Sunshine Coasts before they got completely overdeveloped and turned into tourist traps.
Big fork at a garden and landscape supplier at Huntingfield
Once again, turn south to head north and take a back road past small farms and acreage towards Mount Wellington.
The Longley Hotel has a Big Axe
It seems they like their woodchopping here. But there are rules
Before heading up to the top of Mount Wellington I decided to fuel up. No servos on the main road before the turnoff, but a little further along is the Skyline Servo......
A lot of memorabilia in here
And a nice attitude to business
(and they were too.....)
Now back to Road up Mount Wellington
After a while the trees and greenery disappears and gives way to a rather bare rocky mountainside.
Finally at the top looking down over Hobart:
The air is much cooler up here - on the way up there are about four places where the road can be closed due to ice and snow. Luckily, while I was up there the weather was fine and clear.
Shameless piccie at one of the lookouts:
And a few panoramas of the views from different places and lookouts:
The tall white thing is a transmission tower. Must have a fair output as there are signs around the place advising how to get into your car if the security system fails and warning not to attempt coasting down the mountain because the engine wouldn't start.
There is a quite popular bicycle tour that comes up here - people arrive on a minibus with a trailerload of bicycles and then coast back down. Luckily they have a regroup and chat at the first pullover area and I was able to pass them- some of them didn't seem all that proficient or confident.......
I decided not to head down to Port Arthur - there's enough stuff of interest to me down there that I could spend several days looking around. Not on this trip.....
Maria Island.
Maria Island was another of the out of the way locations that had a prison for intractable convicts - how many did they need?!?!?
These days Maria Island is also known for it's wildlife and hosts a population of Tasmanian Devils - isolated from the facial tumor disease that threatens to wipe out the mainland population.
I didn't photograph the convict-built wall along the Prosser River near Orford, but I did get Spiky bridge - amazing what you can build if you have a huge supply of convict labour at your disposal.
Nobody is quite sure why the spiky rocks were put there - keep cattle on the path, showing off, or an early version of wire rope barriers?
Detail of the spikes - you can also see remnants of sea shells used to make a basic cement.
This could be interesting
Lots of beautiful coastline along the way and lots of oyster farms along the way....unfortunately when you've already stopped about four times and the day is wearing on you tend to get a bit "viewed out"......you could spend ages just looking at the scenery.....Wineglass Bay beckoned, but I wanted to get just a bit further up the coast - and I know there are penguins in Bicheno!
Shortly after arriving in Bicheno, I took this to be a good sign!
You have to wait your turn with the blowhole - a whole busload of tourists were ahead of me.....
Bicheno Penguin tours runs out of the local surf shop (
http://www.bichenopenguintours.com.au/)- the tours started when local surfers noticed the penguins around the place, they bought a farm on the coast and have put a fair amount of effort into making tours possible without disrupting the penguins too much.
There is a small hill above the town with a lookout on top. Turns out this is part of the story of why Bicheno is here.
This is the view from one of the lookouts over The Gulch - home to the local fishing fleet.
In days gone by, The Gulch used to be home for a number of whale boats - the small islands providing some protection from the open ocean, yet the boats had a quick way out to the ocean. The top of the hill still has a tree with axe-cut steps used by a lookout to gain even more height. When migrating whales were spotted, the lookout would signal the boats in the Gulch and they would give chase.
Dinner was a pretty nice fish and chips that I took back to the blowhole
Of course, you don't get to eat on your own....
....but the meal was that good......
No photos of the penguin tour - part of the conditions of the tour is no torches or cameras. The penguins don't like bright lights and can get scared off, given that they are returning to shore to feed their chicks this could be slightly disastrous. A small mini-bus took us out to a "secret location" (a farm by the beach) where the penguins come ashore at night.
At this time of year there aren't as many penguins as the peak of the season with only about 50 adults trooping up the beach, but a lot of the adults are going into moult. It's a precarious time for the chicks that haven't left yet as their parents will soon go into moult and can't go to sea again until they have finished moulting and their new feathers are watertight.
The penguins either didn't care or were used to these tall, land-based creatures that occasionally wandered through their habitat - more than once we were held up by plump, half-fledged chicks standing in the middle of the path waiting for their parents and making melodious(hah!) calls to let them know where they were.
Amazing night.
Arriving back at the surf shop we were treated to the sight of a helicopter with a searchlight hovering over the town. Something was up so a small group of us wandered off to see what was going on. Eventually we spotted what looked to be a couple of paramedics headed towards The Gulch on foot, a police helicopter abandoned on a sportsfield and more penguin chicks waiting for food in a motel carpark....
Tomorrow I have to be back in Burnie, so off to bed.......