Tarkine Drive

Penguin spotting requires patience - lots of it. And quiet! The penguin parade in Victoria is big business but in Stanley it is a local delight shared freely. Viewing platforms have been erected below the Nut lit only by penguin friendly red lights. Torches, flash and phone light are out unless masked by red cellophane. Anticipation is palpable but silent. Only when it is completely dark do these tiny creatures emerge from the surf and waddle over the rocks and sand to the burrows hidden on the hillside where their noisy off-spring wait. Eyes slowly become accustomed to the dark searching for movement. And suddenly there they are! White tummies are the give away - moving , pausing and finally hurrying under the board walk to the nest. The first sight takes your breath away - it is quite magical.

Each year the males come ashore to refurbish the burrows- a big task for a little fellow so some nesting boxes or hollow tunes are available. The parent birds are easily deterred and will quickly abandon the nest if disturbed so the babies starve.

This photo was taken from the info board! Last night no one disturbed the parade and all the mums and dads reached the nests.

Today was a walking day! I cobbled together several short walks on the Tarkine Drive into 8k.  The landscape is full of wet rainforest and sink holes. It is lush, full of tall eucalypt, myrtle beech, tree ferns, fallen trees, mosses and lichans. It is also very dry at the moment because the annual rainfall has been deficient. 

Walking to the Trowutta Arch took me deep into the rainforest on an excellent track before descending steeply to the actual arch and my first sink hole or cenote,  filled with waterI. It is over 20 metres deep surrounded by its collapsed cave.

Driving on I visited Milkshake Hills and wandered through rainforest burned by wild fire in 2016. There is substantial recovery in the understory and ground levels but the white skeletons rising about the track is testimony to the destruction of fire. Myrtle beech does recover eventually. 

Another drive took me to a  less attractive sinkhole and gave me a few moment excitement as I managed to back off the road into a hole! Fortunately I was able to get out - but I was more careful backing up!

My last walk was to Lake Chisholm -  a huge sinkhole filled with water. The ferns here were quite different and the roots of trees made for many trip hazards but it is worth the effort.

This Tarkine Drive loop meanders through harvested and revegetatjng forest managed by Tasmanian Timber - and is obviously still an emotive and contentious issue for many people. 

Many of the trees in the rainforest are huge both in height and girth. They tower over the landscape. It seems that they are safe from felling perhaps because of their value for tourism.

At one stage the loop crosses the wild Arthur River - still flowing well although the unusual dry seasons have impacted the water going down.

A lovely day - chatted to a variety of travellers both local and interstate - we kept meeting up at each new site!

Tomorrow I leave for Cradle Mountain. Weather here has been good - 20 - 22 degrees and mostly dry. But oh so windy! 

I have decided not to take the bush highway because it involves 80k of unmade road and the time frame suggests a 3 hour drive. Quite a number of distances here are measured in time taken rather than distance!