Sunshine all day and warm and pleasant temperatures! Alas the lack of rain is not to last long but we are making the most of the situation in the meantime.
It was mid-morning by the time we headed into town to seek the advice of an auto-electrician, who, while very busy, was prepared to spend ten minutes attending to our small request. We left his workshop with a little less cash in our pocket and the odometer functioning once more. Success!
Wynyard has just one of the two major supermarket chains, and it was Woolworths where we spent up large this morning, stocking up on foodstuffs we had allowed to dwindle, in the futile hope that someone would turn up to buy our rig any-day-now, and while we intend to leave all equipment, library, camping gear, and the like with the caravan for the new owner, we would prefer that the foodstuffs be at a minimum. Amongst the many bags of groceries were packets of wholefoods I buy to make up my own muesli; for a sale I would even sacrifice that!
We were appalled to see the price of the food and vegetables here, all supposedly locally grown and yet more expensive than on the mainland. You come to expect that in more remote settlements but Wynyard is not at all so; there is no excuse for this. Other items were on a par with what you would pay in the cities; perhaps the folk here keep their intake of fresh fruit and vegetables to a minimum to balance their budgets? Unfortunately for our own budget, these food stuffs are never stinted on. Back at camp we feasted on fresh bake house goods and planned our afternoon.
Our first destination was yet another vehicle service centre, a general repair garage manned by the most obliging young man who happily lifted our landcruiser onto his aged hoist and diagnosed the rattle. We are missing a small fastener on the exhaust system, nothing serious, only something to create nuisance noise. He was happy to deplete more of the limited cash we carry on our persons and gave us advice where we might have it fixed; an exhaust specialist across in Burnie.
We drove up to the Table Cape Lookout, just five minutes out of town, from where on a clear day one has superb views all the way down to Burnie and back to Mt Valentine which we had seen as we travelled north yesterday. Alas the views were shrouded in haze although to the naked eye not too much of a disappointment, but there was little point in trying to take any photographs.
The Cape was named by Matthew Flinders in 1798 when he and George Bass were sailing around Van Dieman’s land trying to ascertain whether it was an island or just a rather odd protrusion of the mainland.
We walked across to the Lighthouse, a short return walk along the cliff top that is supposed to take three quarters of an hour; we were there and back within half an hour. The twenty five metre high lighthouse was built in 1888, some time after the area was settled and farmed, and to replace or compliment the beacons near the entrance to the Inglis River. There was once quite a settlement around the lighthouse structure, because as with all such structures, the workings required several keepers and hangers-on.
From the lighthouse picnic area, one can look back across the fields at Australia’s largest areas of tulips, although we are too late to see the flowers; they were harvested during the past month and now there is just newly turned and fertile soil to see. The pictures on the posters and pamphlets advertising the Table Cape Tulip Farm are quite lovely; I would expect the operation to be certainly worth a visit if one’s timing was right. We had to use our imaginations instead.
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| The Lighthouse |
As we drove back down from this spectacular flat topped promontory, we could see well inland, across the rolling hills we had passed through yesterday. According to the literature, the area grows crops of carrots, peas, pyrethrum, onions, potatoes, tulips and opium poppies. We saw none of these, but did spot a paddock full of grazing deer with their bowed heads adorned with antlers poking up from the tall flowering and lush plant growth.
We drove back through the busy township of Wynyard where we had enjoyed nothing but excellent friendly service, along the seashore where the gentle waves lapped in along the shallow sands and returned to this excellent camp.
We have paid for a further night and will head off to Burnie tomorrow to
have That Niggling Noise attended to once and for all.
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