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Published: December 10th 2019
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'So where are you off to?' Asks George, or is it Dave From George and Dave's cafe in Shearwater?
We had just driven straight from Devonport after our overnight crossing from Melbourne. I had been in fear and trepidation of sea sickness but slept like a baby lightly rocked in the cabin. Or of course it could have been the sea sickness pill I took which just knocked me out!
So, where were we going? I couldn't blame jetlag but I was stumbling on the pronunciation of Narawntapu.
'I don't know how to pronounce it...the one that used to be called Asbestos Ranges.'
'Ah, Narawntapu,' he grins.
I try again.
'It's easy,' says Dave or George,'you just say Now-I-want-a-poo and sort of run it all together.'
We both try with limited success but enough to make ourselves understood.
After our big breakfasts we drive to a beachside camp at Bakers Point 4 km down a dirt road away from the start of the park walks. Great to be here off season. We have the place to ourselves as we set out in the canoe down the inlet, eat a muesli bar on a
tussocky hillock but a low marshy tide sets us skedaddling back. We watch squabbling Pacific gulls on the beach, male pied oystercatchers trying their luck and pademelons looking at us with patient eyes sure that we would offer them a biscuit. Naked joeys peered out in wonder.
During a walk to Griffiths Point we experience a Tasmanian squall. The temperature drops, rain drives into our faces, so good to be alive, and we are blown back to our safe haven with its Australian vista over the water and its English weather! This is not the last time I hear this complaint during the holiday.
During dinner wallabies, pademelons, green parrots, 'turbo' hens and even a possum sidling through pretending to be a pademelon visit us in the firelight. He climbs up and sits on the counter, in the dusk his tail is a Rapunzel's plait hanging down behind him. At night the possum made up for our inattention by running across the tent top and sliding down the canvas closest to my head. Not once, not twice but three times. He obviously thought it was great fun. In the morning we were greeted with possum
poo deposited on every surface he could climb onto.
A fabulous walk up to Archers Knob and then onto Copper Cove the next day displayed small mountains of wombat poo left on every available rock or piece of high ground. After a wild swim in the chilling Bass Strait we marvelled at the sheer tenacity of bracken fronds pushing up through the compacted earth of the track. A positive fairy glen of a moss-lined path led up to the bird hide where we spent a few minutes identifying birds from the posters tacked to the walls. Sauntering back over Springlawn where an enterprising farmer had once grown potatoes we were observed by forester kangaroos and circling plovers kept a close eye on our progress. A few steps to the left and we nearly step on a plover nest made out of kangaroo poo! How inventive.
As we make our tired way, it was about a 16km walk after all, to the shower block, an insouciant Eastern quoll lollops across our path and nonchalantly disappears into the bush. Having never seen a quoll in the wild before it takes us some googling to determine.
At the fire that
night a small pademelon curls quietly, copper coloured and soft, until giving up on any possibility of a feed she bounds off. The blue wren has retired after knocking itself nearly senseless on our car mirror, I place a cloth onto it so it won't be offended in the morning by another wren invading its territory!
Quiet at last, we take a last look at the magnificent full moon, pack up the kitchen to frustrate the possum and retire.
In the morning the possum, not to be outdone, had left us presents on the fuelstove, the table and the floor covering. Take that! This was certainly a National Park dominated by 'poo'.
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Welcome to Tassie
What a beautiful intro you had to this beautiful State. The pademelons are normally so shy, I'm amazed they came up to beg for food. Were you blessed with possum wee on everything too? One of our dogs used to chase possums up the apple trees and then sit guard for hours on end... the possums would relentlessly wee on his head, and it was seriously foul!