Having ascended from Mitchell’s Beach a little after 10 am, I turned left and followed the four wheel drive track with Mount Wellington looming in the distance. Swallows swooping ahead of me along the track. An old windblown pine tree stood on the left between me and the Derwent River with thousands of new pine cones in their early growth phase – like small golden brown candles. The Derwent River was almost flat calm.

Then I could hear children. Ah ha! Hmmm. The sounds of their happy voices coming closer. Behind me across the land. Drat! Solitude about to disappear. Maybe.

Walking across the undulating landscape allowed me to be in sight of the tribe of primary school children with their two accompanying teachers and then, alternately, to be on my own as the hill crests obscured my view backwards. It only took me 10 minutes to reach the tower on the open and exposed White Point Rock headland.  The tower, in its caged environment, is an Australian Department of Communications radio and television transmitter which ensures some suburbs across the river receive their needed communications connections.

Apparently the land at White Point Rock dates to the Late Pleistocene – that is, roughly 126,000 ± 5,000 years ago, and University of Tasmania researchers (http://ecite.utas.edu.au/62080) have documented the shell remains of the ancient marine fauna contained in the land there, now 24 metres above the current river level.