20 October 2013 - Port Arthur Holiday Park, Port Arthur, Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania

What a difference good weather makes! This morning campers were outside chatting happily with their fellows, doors and windows thrown open, winter clothes swapped for shorts and singlets, happiness all around. No doubt awnings would be soon erected now that the winds had abated however we were gone before that.

Perhaps I should drop in here, as a passing note, that the All Blacks gave the Wallabies another walloping last night; a fact I did not mention this morning to those happy campers who had probably forgotten the humiliation overnight if they had bothered to watch the game.

Off we went across the Derwent on the Tasman Bridge, and through to Sorell, just twenty five kilometres away, a rural centre established in 1821, catering for the resident population of less than two and a half thousand and all those north, south and east who cannot be bothered to travel the extra distance into the throbbing metropolis of Hobart. We thought we might stop and mozy about however nothing caught our attention except for the Coles we noted for stocking up on our return journey. 

There are numerous roads to Sorell and we would have come to it more than a week ago had we chosen to travel on the main road from Triabunna to Hobart. The lower section of this travelled today crosses Pitt Water via a couple of very long causeways; the Water today was as calm as the river, quite a contrast from yesterday’s wild waves.

A further thirty or so kilometres overland takes one through to Dunally, famous for two things, the first the terrible losses in last January’s bush fires and the second, the manmade canal that offers easy access for boats from Marion Bay to Frederick Henry Bay,  thus avoiding the rough seas off the Tasman Peninsula before entering Storm Bay and the Derwent River, essentially a shortcut to Hobart.

As we travelled over the hills north west of Dunally, we could not help but see the devastation of the forests, the trees in that survival mode of sprouting leaves from whatever part of the tree exposed to air, appearing like green bottle brushes. We noted too, the new houses or those still under construction and then would see others untouched by the disaster; fire destroys randomly and we have heard of this in the current bushfires around Sydney.

Of the canal, we learned that the Denison Canal is the only purpose built sea canal in Australia. The only other canal was the unsuccessful Lauderdale (Ralphs Bay) Canal which failed due to siltation. A proposal for a canal at Eaglehawk Neck was rejected for the same reason. Work on this successful canal began in 1902 and unofficially was in use by 1905. In the month prior to the official opening, one hundred and four vessels passed through.  The dredged approach channel in Norfolk Bay is nearly a kilometre long and the Blackman Bay channel is over half a kilometre. The excavated canal is 895 metres making the whole project a total of 2.424 kilometres; quite impressive.

Another tessellated pavement

Today we were treated to the opening and closing of the bridge, to allow a rather smart yacht pass through unimpeded. We then passed over the bridge ourselves and onto the Forestier Peninsular and travelled along the shore to the lovely seaside settlement of Murdunna where we saw the first of the many shellfish farms we were to pass. Murdenna is in the north of delightfully sheltered Norfolk Bay, but then all bays look delightful when they glisten in the sunlight.

The road rose up through the forest and then descended sharply toward Eaglehawk Neck. We turned off and took a winding narrow road down past a lookout that offered splendid views of the rugged east coast and isthmus below. At sea level we pulled up and walked for a little way to admire the tessellated pavement, mostly submerged under the tide this morning but still beautifully fascinating.

Eaglehawk Neck was the site for guard dogs back in Port Arthur’s convict days; these were chained across the isthmus and no doubt kept on the brink of hunger, enough to be tempted by even the scrawniest of escaped convicts. I had learned of this in the Launceston Museum and also long ago when I read Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life.

Rugged coastline of Tasman Peninsula

After crossing this notorious neck of land and thus arriving on the Tasman Peninsula, we turned off the main road yet again and up to the special features of the high sandstone cliffs; the Tasman Blowhole, Tasman Arch and the Devil’s Kitchen. In each case the ferocity of the sea has cut first caves and then, tunnels inland through the cliffs thus providing formidable scenes for the tourist. Even today with the tide still high and the seas relatively quiet, it was still a sight to behold.

We lunched in the car park, with all our windows thrown open; can’t remember when we did that last. Back on the road, we followed the western shore to Taranna and then crossed the peninsula to Port Arthur where we easily found this caravan park. We booked in, were offered three days for the price of two and may well stay that long. Soon set up on an excellent drive through site with thick and thorny grevillea hedges, we discovered we had our own pet pair of parrots who turned out, after consulting our Field Guide, to be Green Rosellas, peculiar to Tasmania. A currawong, several fairy wrens, a dozen honey-eaters and a blackbird also arrived to introduce themselves and one could not help but feel good about the place even if there is no television reception and the water is the strangest colour of brown.

Green Rosellas

We popped into Port Arthur to check out the Information Centre which is in fact the entry station for the tourist attraction. Busloads of folk filled the entryway. I had tried to check out the situation online but been quite confused. We wanted simply to wander about the site and yet could find no fee listed for this. The truth is that no such simple solution exists like there was when Chris was here last, but then that was forty years or more ago. Now there is Bronze Pass and a Silver Pass and a Ghost Tour and a this and that. Chris demanded the price for a simple entry – no boat cruise, no guided tour, of the poor chap behind the counter who was not thanked for his reply. It seems we will have to take the whole tour or nothing. I thanked the chap sweetly telling him we would be back in the morning, and dragged my grumbling husband away. It is he who is the Whinging-Pom today, not I, the Whinging-Kiwi of yesterday. Actually a Whinging-Kiwi is worse than the other; Poms are renowned for their Whinging, Kiwis are not.

Clouds have come over and it is drizzling, a fact that seems does not bother the wonderful birdlife outside my window a bit. The rosellas love the pink flowers of the grevillea and are also quite partial to the crushed cornflakes I put out for them. We saw two echidnas today; one crossing the road in front of us and the other beside the entrance to the camp; this excitement and my delight at the birdlife unfortunately has no effect on Chris’s disappointment about the lack of television. It is Sunday and he does like the Cycling Central programme on SBS; alas not tonight.