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| Early Morning at the Birdhide |
The day didn’t start off that well. I had bought a token for
the shower. The first shower didn’t work
at all. Knowing that the shower would be short, I soaped myself up in readiness
and tried the second one. The hot water lasted exactly thirty five seconds and
I had to finish with cold water to get all the soap off.
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| The Birdhide is quite impressive |
At least the weather was fine. Now thoroughly awake, I walked to the birdhide. There wasn’t
much going on there but it was a lovely relaxing place and had I the patience
to remain a little longer, I'm sure there would have been more. Fearing a repeat of yesterday’s performance, I drove
the long way round via the B70 to the Holwell Gorge. Unfortunately, the walking
track there has been closed since about 2013 because of a landslip. A pity. I was
in the mood for some waterfalls and the lushness of fern gullies, but maybe
another day. The road into Badger Beach
in the middle of the Park also accessed via Yorktown, was again unsealed but a
vast improvement on the one the day before – wide, smooth and flat and only
about 10 km long. All dirt roads are not
created equal!
As I get out of the van in the little parking area at Badger Beach, I see a
portly man coming out of the water. He does not seem to be suffering from hypothermia. A swim would
make a glorious finale to the day’s walking.
The track starts off with a fairly steep, rough climb and then passes
through a sea of yellow flowers. From there it meanders through different types of
vegetation- first a light eucalypt forest and patches of low tea tree and banksia, then glorious fields of wildflowers, all the
while offering magnificent coastal scenery.
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| Magnificent coastal views begin to unfold |
Embarrassingly, I am lapped twice by the same runner.
However, he is the first person I have seen on either walk in two days. The
whole track to Copper Cove Beach from
this end takes 4.5 hours and here too, it is possible for the excessively
adventurous to return by way of the rocks, provided that the tide is out. Not
being too sure about the state of the tides, I thought it was just another
opportunity to kill myself and decided to give that a miss, though things may
have been different if I had been there with someone else. I don’t think my children would forgive me if I managed to fall off.
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| In one section there is nothing but the skeletal remains of a burnt out banksia forest |
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| But fear not, many Australian native plants need fire to germinate and abundant new growth can be seen starting to fill in the gaps |
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| Baby Banksias with Coastal Wattle |
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| Wildflower meadows - actually coastal heathlands |
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| Leopard Orchid (Thanks Bob and Joy) |
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| Looking down from the top of Badger Head |
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| Close up of some of the wildflowers. There were lots of butterflies too |
It was really hot now
and I was looking forward to that swim. When I got back to Badger Beach, the
tide had gone right out and the attractive sandy beach had turned into a vast
expanse of rocks and green slime. I have
asked Google and others why the tidal
range is so big in these parts (they are very large on the North Coast of the
Mainland as well), but no one seems to have the answer.
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| Where has my lovely beach gone? |
There were some interesting looking cliffs on the headland opposite (top left). I would be looking at those tomorrow. There being no camping allowed in this area, it was time to look for somewhere else, preferably with hot showers and working electricity outlets. As I left, the
most magnificent badger -that’s what the locals call a wombat, wombled across a paddock. Not a bad day after all.
PS12/11/2015 Re: the tides. Here's the
short answer. The long answer is probably
here somewhere, though neither leaves me much the wiser. From what I can gather it is to do with with both the sun and moon exerting magnetic force upon the ocean as they pass over it (strongest at the Equator), and modified by the shape of the ocean i.e. In both the north of Tasmania and the north of Australia, the ocean is funnelled through a narrow gap, Bass Strait and the Arafura Sea, respectively, causing the tidal range to be higher. Winds also play a role.
P.P.S. 21//11/2015 Was at the Seaside Festival in Taroona today and had the opportunity to talk to Geoff, a marine scientist who agrees with most of the above, but added that the depth of the water also plays a role, thus here in the south where the ocean is deep, you do not get such a big tidal range. Geoff also showed me the biggest sea urchin - live, that I have ever seen. It was almost the size of a basket ball if you include its nasty spines and a deep dark red.
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