Subject: Swansea and the DevilCat
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 03:08:10 GMT
Hi Everyone,
The town of Swansea is about halfway up the east coast
of Tasmania, across a lovely Oyster Bay from the
Freycinet Peninsula. It is an old town, established
around 1840. We had dinner one night in the Bay View
Hotel which got its license in 1840 and is still
operating. We wanted to stay at Swansea to be near
enough to go to Freycinet National Park which occupies
the lower end of the peninsula. You can't go far into
the park by conventioal car, but there are some
four-wheel drive tracks and Freycinet has some
wonderful walking tracks, among them the walk to
Wineglass Bay Lookout.
Our first day in the park, we went to the Cape
Tournelle Lighthouse. There are some spectacular
views from there and just offshore there are a few
rocky islands which have sea bird colonies on them.
They were a little too far out to be able to identify
all the birds but there were Australasian Gannets and
Black-faced Cormorants along with gulls, terns, and
other birds there. We went back the next morning to do
the walk to the Wineglass Bay Overlook. It was a
pretty steep climb but well worth it. Wineglass Bay
has azure colored water sheltered by wooded hills and
fronted by a white sand beach. The stem of the glass
is the passage through the hills where the water
enters the bay. Then it widens out and forms the cup.
When Queen Elizabeth visited last year, she was taken
to Wineglass Bay and had an Australian "barbie" on the
beach there.
Sid got some great photographs from the lookout.
That afternoon we went to Kate's Berry Farm near
Swansea. She grows raspberries, strawberries,
blackberries, and blueberries and makes great jams and
sauces from them. She even makes a strawberry wine. We
had a large bowl of "mingled" berries and ice cream
and bought a jar of strawberry with Grand Marnier
sauce.
Next we went to see the "Spiky" Bridge. It was built
by a convict work gang in the mid-1800s, one of many
such bridges in Tasmania. When the transported
convicts came to Tasmania, they were first assigned to
work gangs. These gangs worked on constructing roads
and buildings, mining, timbering, etc. After the new
prisoners spent some time there, they were transferred
to work for the local farmers, pastoralists, and
businessmen for the remaining term of their sentences.
Spiky Bridge is constructed of local stone, like many
of the bridges, but its distinguishing feature is that
some of the stones were set upright along the sides of
the bridge so they formed spikes along the top. No
records remain
to explain the reason for this design?????
The new road no longer crosses the bridge, but you can
detour off the main road and drive over it.
>From Swansea, we drove to Launceston but not directly.
We drove the long way around to sea a little more of
the country. We drove north along the coast for a
while then went inland. We drove through Elephant Pass
and
stopped at the Elephant Pancake Barn for lunch. They
serve crepes, not real pancakes, but they have a huge
variety of types. We had chicken and mushroom which
were lovely, but we wished we had room to try some of
the fruit-filled ones, too. We went back to the coast
for a while, through St. Helen's, and then turned
inland. The road wound westward through ferny
temperate rainforest, over mountains, and then down to
Launceston on the Tamar River. We stayed overnight at
Launceston, then drove along the Tamar to Georgetown
where we boarded the DevilCat for the trip back to
Melbourne.
The DevilCat is a large catamaran that usually takes
around 6 hours to make the passage between Tasmania
and Melbourne. It is much faster than the Spirit of
Tasmania, but smaller and more vulnerable to the
weather. It cannot sail if the waves in the Bass
Strait are greater than 4 meters. We left Georgetown
at 2 p.m. and expected to get to Melbourne at 8 p.m.
What we didn't know was that the seas in the strait
were running quite high.
Once we got out of the shelter of the mouth of the
Tamar, we were in pretty heavy seas. We went on deck
to look for seabirds and found the old sailors' rule
of "one hand for the boat and one for yourself" to be
valid.
The weather was clear and sunny much of the time, but
we did run through some rain showers. Still, it was
quite a trick to use binoculars one-handed which the
boat pitched under you. We saw quite a few birds,
mostly Short-tailed Shearwaters. There were hundreds
of them. Most of the others were not close enough or
too small to be identified. Sharon was sure she saw
some kind of prion, but there are about 5 kinds and
she
couldn't see the subtle differences that identify
them.
One bird was large enough and close enough to see
clearly, so Sharon got Shy Albatross as a new life
bird. The other good sighting was of a pod of around
twenty dolphins leaping through the waves alongside
the
ship. They were so powerful and graceful they took
your breath away. The heavy seas delayed our arrival
at
Melbourne, so it was 10:30 p.m. when we arrived. We
drove as far as Frankston and got a motel for the
night, then went on "home" to Hastings the next
morning. We are still in Hastings, trying to sell the
camper and car. We have to leave for Richmond soon to
catch a flight out before our visa expires on March
13th. We are enjoying our "hometown", but getting
anxious to get everything taken care of so we can head
out. We'll let you know where we are going and when as
soon as we find out ourselves. Thank heaven for
e-mail.
To all that have helped us on our way around Australia
and those we have met through Birding-Aus we will be
in touch, and we sincerely thank you all. To Russell
who John G. tells us is responsible for the list our
most sincere thanks for what you do and have done.
We love you Australia. Bless you all.
Hugs,
Sid and Sharon
Sid and Sharon Genaux
only just, on the road down under,
in the Wombat Shelter.
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