9 November 2013 - Stanley Cabin & Tourist Park, Stanley, Tasmania

We were intending to move on yesterday but the weather was just dreadful from one end of the day to the other. Had it improved, we might have driven up to the rhododendron gardens just out of Burnie which are well acclaimed, but wandering through wet grass under dripping shrubs, or whatever one does in such gardens, just did not appeal. So we spent the whole day inside, reading and baking, the latter a novelty for me. I made scones for lunch and a fish pie for dinner, the sort of activities I used to pursue on wet weekends during my working years. We were glad that we were not much further north bracing for the real storm currently devastating the Philippines and heading toward Vietnam; that certainly puts our cool temperatures and rain into perspective.

This morning dawned dry, partly sunny and promising a better day for moving on. Chris was delayed with the packing up; he spent some time chatting to our immediate neighbours with the big rig who were heading out for Cradle Mountain where they intend to park up and use it as a base for a week. Given that they looked too old, fat and unfit for enjoying even the walks we took, I did wonder what they will do there for that long. However, different strokes for different folks, and each to their own. Nor were we any more enamoured with their generous rig and the great “cupboards” their custom built truck had by way of storage; so much for the old adage of travelling light.

It is not much more than sixty kilometres or so from Wynyard through to Stanley, so it did not take us long to drive up, down and along the rolling coastal hills. The first half of the journey passed through rich red fertile lands, not so much the red soils of the mainland, but more like the vegetable growing hills just south of New Zealand’s Auckland. Here to the immediate west of Wynyard, the land supports dairy herds and some of those vegetable crops we had read of when we were up at Table Cape. But after we passed over the hills to the west of Sister Creek, the rugged and uncleared interior was once more evident and there was only a narrow strip populated by fat happy cattle. To the south lies the Tarkine of which I shall write of in the days ahead.

Stanley's Nut

We passed Port Latta and the iron brown buildings where the iron ore slurry piped through from Savage River is turned miraculously into concentrated hematite pellets. A long jetty arrangement extends out into the bay where a loading structure plugs into freighters, such as that waiting for summons out in the bay today.

Turning north off the Bass Highway for the last few kilometres to Stanley, we passed through more extensive grazing land, all very attractive; one could see why the Van Diemen’s Land Company had thought this to be a pioneering paradise in the first instance.

The settlement of Stanley sits at the end of a peninsula which in turn has a distinctive “mountain” at the end; the “Nut”, an old volcanic plug, discovered in 1798 by the exploring duo, Bass and Flinders, who named it Circular Head. It has steep sides and rises to 143 metres with a flat top. The pylons and wires of the chairlift look rather out of place.  

As usual we pulled into the caravan park hoping that they could accommodate us, and were duly rewarded, even more so with a discount for our CMCA membership. The downside of all these discounts is the number of loyalty and membership cards one has to carry to prove any such claim. 

After lunch and having hung a load of washing on the line, we set off on foot along the shore to the port and fishing wharves where there were dozens of crayfish and scallop boats tied up. Whether the idleness was due to it being Saturday, or the weather or it being out of season, I am not sure, however I have to say it was a bonus for us; the line of red boats interspersed with the ragtag of others in various states of repair was quite charming. Curiously I learned later in the day that Stanley is well renowned for its scallops and the fishermen from one of the boats we saw, interviewed for the television programme, are frustrated by the scarcity of these delicacies, diminished by seismic tests of the ocean bed in this part of the sea, or so they say.

Views down toward our camp

We wandered back to the town centre, all very quiet although the empty cafes all had their doors open and the B&B’s had their Vacancy signs out. Stanley is a very small settlement, with a population of just 481 recorded in the last census, little changed from the previous one, and most of them absent today I am sure. 

The town’s history is of particular significance to the free settlement of Tasmania; Stanley was the headquarters for the Van Diemen’s Land Company experiment, when in 1825 it was granted land in this quarter of the country. Many of the buildings are heritage listed and are most picturesque, perched between Nut and sea.

View toward the fishing port

Stanley’s other claims to fame, apart from the Van Diemen’s Land Company link and its scallop seekers, is the fact that in 1936, a submarine telephone cable from Apollo Bay in Victoria to Stanley provided the first telephone to Tasmania from the mainland, the longest of its kind in the world at the time. This cable remained in use until 1966, when radio links took over, transmitted from Victoria to Launceston via Flinders Island.

I suggested to Chris we climb the Nut; Chris was hesitant, so I suggested we check out the chairlift and walkway entrance anyway. One thing followed another and soon we found ourselves climbing up the short 430 metre sealed and very steep zigzag path to the top. Once at the top, we walked the two kilometre circuit around the top of the head, keeping to the path, not much more than a sheep track for most of the way, through knee high stunted bracken, thistles, carrot weed and rushes. Here tucked away in the scrub are the nests of the shearwaters, or at least this is what the signs told us, giving us reason to remain obediently on the marked tracks.

A steep descent

At various points of the track we came to lookouts barricaded for safety, and stood in the blustery winds looking along the coast, over the town, the wharf area, west to Three Hump Island and gazing fruitlessly toward the south coast of the Australian mainland. As we neared the lookouts closest to the top of the track, we encountered a busload of tourists, all of whom had come up on the chairlift, short of time with the cost no doubt included in the price of their tour.

We descended holding the rail; the way was steep and unrestrained descent could well have seen me on my face; not at all elegant.

After such a sedentary day yesterday, it was good to have had some exercise, and so we returned to camp feeling self-righteous and ready for a cup of coffee. Chris turned the television on and I switched this computer on, but the latter interfered with the former; it is strange how this happens sometimes. I retreated to the camp kitchen to play on the computer as I do every day, but found myself distracted by company and spent the next hour chatting with fellow campers. So it was much later in the evening that I find a space to complete and edit my earlier jottings.