Tarkine and The Nut

By the time we left the relative isolation of Strahan we were pretty confident that while feeling ordinary, we were over the worst of the Covid stuff. It was a decent drive from the west to the North West where we had planned to turn up at Black River and try our luck at the almost free campground there ($50 for a week). As with all the places we’ve just lobbed up at, we need not have worried as there was space aplenty.

This particular campground is enormous, even with half of it closed off at the moment, so we had no trouble finding a really nice sheltered spot well away from anyone else. Finally (finally) the weather turned good too so we could enjoy some sunshine, not just for a bit, but for days on end!  What a difference it makes.

Because we’re all still not better, our stamina for outdoor activities is pretty low. Not to worry – The Nut in Stanley (a big hill on the peninsula which reminds me a lot of Mt Maunganui for those who know it) has a chairlift! Good thing too because there’s no way any of us had the lung capacity to walk up it. So we took the chairlift up and did the 2km walk around the top, then caught the chairlift down again. After that we wandered through the lovely town which has some nice old buildings from the mid-1800’s including the cottage that former PM Joe Lyons was born in.

After lunch (picnic in the park) Hamish fell off the tiredness cliff so we had to bail and go back to camp for a quiet afternoon of sitting around doing nothing, waiting to get better.

The next day we went to do the Tarkine drive which covers an extraordinarily diverse area in the north west corner of the state. We drove to Arthur River (“The Edge of the World”) to look at the wild west coast seas, as illustrated by the massive tree trunks that were piled up on the coastline as if they were toothpicks. We then continued on stopping at points of interest along the way to look, or do little walks, through rainforest, gum tree forests, vast grassy plains and lovely little rivers. We kept the walks to the ones under half an hour (that’s about all we can manage at the moment) but in one spot we had to walk up about 30 steps and all four of us were doubled over at the top trying to catch our breath! This covid stuff really does sap you of your energy!

Anyway, it was a lovely, if big day out and it was really interesting to see the variety of landscapes around.

We hadn’t planned too much for the rest of our stay at Black River to give us as much time as possible to relax, get better and catch up on some work and schooling. We also made some attempts at getting the back window of the car canopy fixed (thwarted both times, but we can’t fault the Tasmanians and their helpfulness). Plus our gas stove hose has now split as well so we tried to get that fixed – a bit of a challenge when neither the hose or cooker isn’t standard so we (as yet) haven’t been able to find a replacement for either that suits our needs. So for a couple of days we did all our cooking and heating water on the fire which was fun, and luckily we had an almost endless supply of fuel lying around under the trees near us.

We’ve now moved on to our last camping spot which is Mole Creek, near Deloraine. It’s a bit higher up (altitude-wise) so is a bit colder but is a lovely little spot where we are camped on the creek itself. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain otherwise we’ll have a Ross evacuation scenario all over again…The kids are happy because there are other kids here so they’ve had some playmates (other than each other) and health-wise I think we’ve all come good, just in time too, as I’d like to make it to Cradle Mountain to do some walks before we head back to “the big island” next week.

So we’ve had a fair bit of drama of late with the breakages and Covid stuff, but it’s all fixable one way or another and most importantly the sun is shining!