Day 9 - A Dismal Swamp, Hell Yeah! Gorge and Rosebery
The guide map for the area says that mobile phones stop working about 10 kilometers outside Smithton, but there is a relatively new mobile phone tower just outside the township of Arthur River and I enjoyed full 3G reception as I watched the front roll over Tasmania on the Bureau of Meteorology website.
By the morning the front shows as a solid line, already halfway across Tasmania - I should be well clear of it now, the sun is shining and the sky is clear.
The weather recently has been atypical - about 5 days of 30C+ temperatures, so the cold showers were actually appreciably warm rather than chilled.
Another sign of the times is a wombat crossing the road - according to one of the park rangers, they don't normally do that, but the wildlife would be more active now as the overnight rain would have softened the greenery after the hot spell.
I managed to get a hurried photo of the wombat running behind a caravan before he hurtled into the bushes.
Close.
People have wondered if I was heading for the Western Explorer next. The Western Explorer is a road running most of the length of Tasmanias' west coast between Arthur River and Strahan, through some of the wildest and most scenic countryside that Tasmania has on offer. Unfortunately, the Explorer is also known to be a bit of a wild and rugged experience itself and on this trip we have an overloaded road bike, with road tyres, suspension and a wuss of a rider.
The short section of road out to Edge of the World is composed of the same gravel as the Explorer and gave me enough of a taste to confirm my feelings that I wasn't properly prepared for a couple of hundred kilometers of the same in the time I had available.
A view of the mouth of the Arthur River - lots of timber washed up everywhere.
The permanent population at Arthur River is quite low - a lot of the houses here seem to be small weekenders or beach houses used for the occasional fishing trip.
Gate post:
(the other side was Tassie Devils)
The plan now is to backtrack towards Burnie then turn south through Hellyer Gorge, with the idea of reaching the Strahan/Zeehan area.
Halfway to Smithton, in the middle of the forest, I decided to stop for a coffee at the charmingly named Dismal Swamp.
Dismal Swamp is the only Blackwood sinkhole in the world and one of the largest sinkholes in Australia. Blackwood has been logged in the area as the timber is able to be bent and was quite often used for barrel staves. There's a lot of natural history here, covering wildlife, the unique swamp environment and the small crayfish that make it "work" and fossils that have been found. Blackwood seeds can stay viable in the ground for over 100 years.....
Fascinating - but I really wanted a coffee from their cafe.
Forest to the side of the carpark:
The visitors centre is a unique building........
Looking at it side-on you can see that it is perched over the sinkhole:
So far it's the regular eco-inspired building, look at the trees, naturalist-type experience. On the other side of the violding is a cantilever over the sinkhole so you can look across the sinkhole...
...and down into the forest beneath.
Attached to the side of the cantilever is the slippery slide that drops you 110m(360 feet) into the bottom of the sinkhole at speeds up to 45kph(about 28mph)
OK, maybe not so boring.
The boardwalk at the bottom also has a number of quirky art installations scattered amongst the forest. The whole package is pretty highly recommended.
The giftshop walls are a good illustration of the bending properties of Blackwood:
The corridor to the toilets
(easier to see the timber without the glare from the lights and stuff stacked against the wall).
Next stop was completely unplanned - Irishtown.
Just turned down the road for a short detour on a whim - it's not a large place, and unsurprisingly it got it's name due to the original settlers of this area.
I had another coffee at the general store/cafe/post office, bought some postcards and was asked if I was "one of those guys doing a motorcycle ride to all these places around Australia" - I'd stumbled across one of the FarRiders FarChallenge locations without realising!
Irishtown rural fire station
Back on the road and turn south through Yolla.
Yolla School hedge - someone aspires to topiary.....
Yolla store - Cafe, general store, servo and post office, all under one roof
Now the real meat in the sandwich - Hellyer Gorge and the Murchison Highway.
The drop into Hellyer Gorge is a nice tight, windy road that I found to be an absolute pleasure just slot into a "happy gear" and cruise through the forest towards the river using engine braking. Of course - the road seemed well shaded in places and I've heard the moss and frost can be a bit of a challenge in winter - I don't doubt it!
The the bottom it was time for a bit of a break(all those coffees!) and a bit of a walk along the river.....
Even the grass seems to be a wierd mix of normal grass and moss
Quite quickly the forest closes in around the path
The giant "man ferns" become more numerous
...and start blocking out the sun.....
The river is quite pretty, and seems hardly responsible for carving out somethig the size of the gorge.....
Someone got a bit creative in the riverbed......
The walk is really only a small loop, so once I saw th end of it, I just turned around and walked back the way I came.
The road out of gorge is similar to the way in, twisty on a slope - once up to the top this is followed by a more open, higher-speed road. Great to cruise along, but enough tight corners here and there to keep you honest.
Of course, I had to stop to say "Hi!" to this little fellow:
Decided to stop in Rosebery as the day was wearing on - well, not really, daylight saving is doing my head in. Due to the latitude it's light until about 7:30pm, which means it feels like a waste when I try to arrange somewhere to stay before 6pm, when various businesses shut. The interrupted sleep from the wind last night is also starting to wear on me....
Just outside Rosebery I decided to make one last detour to Murchison Dam, only about 10km off the highway.
The road winds around the sides of the steep craggy hills, rock on one side and tall pines on the other preclude any real views of the dam or the river, but the forest shrouded peaks on the other side of the valley and further ahead make up for it.
The dam wall itself is a less photogenic utilitarian rock and concrete construction, but still fairly sizeable - 95metres high and 228 metres long.
Looking over the lake:
One of the access portals used to dig a water transfer tunnel from the Murchison dam to the Mackintosh river and dam - essentially combining the water catchment of the two rivers before the water is used for power generation.
Rosebery is a mining town and very quiet. The caravan park was a bit full of university students on a field trip(junior rockbashers) and a penchant for returning late from the pub, so I ended up staying at the pub(didn't hear the students though)......
The meals at the pub restaurant are miner-sized:
Have a bit of a look around the town in the morning......