So after resting in Youngstown I start the second week in Tasmania. Unfortunately my cold is worse not better and I feel slightly unsteady.
Willow picked me up first this time and we went to collect the others. John Thumb and I are the only people from the tour last week. So we collected Lisa and Tanya, Australians from the gold coast, Auralia (Aka Augi as no one could pronounce his name ) and Laren a young French honeymooning couple from Montpellier. Lisa is a nurse, Tania a sign writer and the French couple are doctor’s.
We head to Blue Tier, an area that was cleared for mining in the early 1900s. The area has what Willow describes as marsupial lawns, much like our close cropped rabbit eaten heath grass. There are strange boulders and I’m struggling to understand the geology, I think this is glacial or the area was exposed a long time ago. We climb up and get spectacular views.
Since I arrived, I’ve been disoriented and its taken me a week to realise how much I orientate myself by the sun. Its funny to think of the North as the hot side.
We eat our lunch up in this strange landscape and then head off in the van to the Bay of Fires.
Wowee! This is spectacular and although the Bay of Fires is not named for the rocks it could be. White sands, turquoise sea and orange rocks! The orange colour is down to lichen on the granite rocks, its stunning.
I really want to swim but my ears and throat are so painful I dare not.
I sit in the shade of the Sheoaks with John because he’s suffering the same cold and we watch the birds.
Here I see Currawongs, silver gulls, (pretty as gulls go), sooty oystercatcher and australasian gannet. I also see a Pelican a bit later which I’m excited about because I remember watching ‘Around the Twist’ with Hazel when she was young and also featured in ‘Finding Nemo’. Willow is astonished that we don’t get pelicans in Britain and that makes me smile.
The Sheoaks are a kind of conifer with whispy needles and funny cones, nothing much grows under them, I find them really beautiful.
Our dinner was at a ‘spit and sawdust’ chippy at Bicheno and a little harbour. I felt rough but, had a children’s meal of fresh caught white fish and chips, it was very tasty.
The Travelling Bee 