Triabunna to Port Arthur via Hobart
Distance Travelled - 243.7 km
Raucous! That is one of the few words I can think of that adequately describes the sound that woke me at 4.50 am. Someone forgot to tell the plethora of roosters in the near vicinity that they actually have to wait for just a tiny sliver of light to appear on the horizon before they start their melodic announcement of mornings arrival. Whilst it is still totally dark they should remain silent. I don't know for sure how many but I would guess at least 6 different roosters let rip this morning waking me from my slumber. Whilst I tried my best I was not able to get back to sleep again and finally succumbed to frustration and got out of bed at 6.30 am.
Grabbed my camera and went for a walk but failed to see anything worth photographing. After about half an hour walking around the town and along the marina I ended up back at the campsite. I had breakfast and then packed away what I could. When I entered my tent last night at about 9 pm I ran my had gently over the fly and could already feel a build up of dew and started mentally preparing for a late start. It had been a windy night which worked in my favour as the fly was completely dry in the morning so I only had to wait for the stretcher to dry out a bit. Whilst I was waiting for that I went across the road and sat outside the info centre to access their wi-fi and sent the lighthouse property owners an email with some pictures as they had requested.
Coming back from my correspondence duties I read for a little while before finishing the packing and heading off at about 8.30 am. The drive through to Hobart was not particularly inspiring but not too horrible. Hobart, like Launceston, has too many one way streets and has ridiculously limited parking near important places like the information centre. Found my way to the main administration building of Tasmania Fire and spoke to a guy there for a while who answered my questions. Leaving there I crossed the road to Maccas and posted my blog. After finishing the email this morning the computer battery was too low to do anything else so I charged it on the drive through and had enough to do a few bits by the time I arrived.
Leaving Maccas I headed out to Kingston and the Australian Antarctic Division headquarters. I had a look around their display and spoke to guy at reception who was quite curt and relatively unhelpful. His solution / answer to most of my queries was "Put it in an email to me and I will pass it on to the appropriate division". Funny, I could have done that from Perth!
I decided after that to head out towards Port Arthur and find somewhere close by to camp for the night before visiting the place tomorrow. The plan in my head at the time was go through Port Arthur Friday, visit Bruny Island Saturday and then go back to Hobart Sunday to visit a few places like museums etc before heading out towards Mt Field National Park.
The drive was pleasant enough and I decided to stay at the Fortescue Bay in the Tasman National Park at one of their campsites. Whilst here I did a bit of photography of plants and animals. After roaming for a while I decided to sit and read for a bit. After that I went for a walk and then came back having decided to just sit in one spot and wait with my camera. In this case patience paid off and I was rewarded about an hour later with a kangaroo coming quite close. Sitting still looking, I noticed a rather swollen pouch at the front and sure enough a few minutes later out popped the head of a small joey. Unfortunately the light was fading and the joey did not stay still for very long at all making my longer exposure shots to blurry in the low light. I switched to flash and whilst the composition looks ok on the camera screen it also has a lot of red eye that I am not sure will disappear. Oh well, it was fun trying anyway.
After the kangaroo had spent enough time with the paparazzi it hopped off and I retired to the car to hide from the invading mossies and listen to some tunes. After tea it was time to listen to more music and then write the blog and sort photos before getting ready for bed. As I write this rain is starting to fall and I hear it tapping on the roof. Hard to imagine they had a total fire ban today here with Hobart registering it's hottest October day since 1968 at least with a temperature of 31.
I will wait a while and see if it looks like the rain will ease up or travel through before deciding whether to set up the tent for tonight or sleep in the car. Tomorrow I will join the throngs of other tourists and experience Port Arthur before heading off towards Kettering where I can catch the ferry to Bruny Island on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment