The Tasmanian Government offers a website which links together a number of different interchangeable map views that include Google maps but many more. Go to Maps of Tasmania. This site includes a drop down Tools menu with various options for drawing and marking areas on maps.
Other people have sore knees or knees that can’t walk downhill without discomfort or pain. Not me. That is, until a week or two after my walk to Gretna. For the first time in my life, I noticed my knees.
On a couple of occasions since that walk, a shooter of a pain in one of my knees left me staring wide eyed and grunting. During a visit to my GP, she listened to both knees and (they didn’t speak to her but …) she heard them grinding away. Subtle noises, of course. Noises not available to the common ear. Now, after X-rays and ultrasounds, the verdict is clear. I have little to no cartilage left between my knee bones. Yes, you guessed it. Walking is not advisable.
I whined … ‘but the source of the Derwent River is still a long way off.’ My GP looked at me purposefully, ‘it’s going to take you a long long time to finish that walk. You can add ice or heat treatments, compression knee bandages, and walk with two poles to help, but you shouldn’t walk too far, too often or on uneven ground.’ I pursed my lips. I knew cartilage does not regenerate and I realised that a lifetime of walking has gradually taken its toll on my knees. A number of expletive deletives passed through my mind.
Can I let such a ‘little’ thing get me down? What’s my plan for the future?
I have some day walks planned along the upper Derwent with friends who are ferrying me to and collecting me from various locations. I plan to walk those. If my knees fail me then I will crawl or slither back to cars or buses. No probs! But I feel that scenario is unlikely. I suspect I will get through a shortish day walk just fine. Nevertheless the remaining cartilage is a finite quantity and I have to think about how much I want to aggravate the situation.
Many of my blog posts have mentioned my sore feet and how by concentrating on taking one step at a time, I can continue for hours with that focus. Each walk in the future will continue on this basis until my knees indicate it is unwise to go on.
What else can I do to achieve something like the original goal?
Thinking laterally – here’s the first idea which comes to mind and that therefore is not necessarily one to be converted into action: so far I have covered about 90 kms of the 215 km length of the Derwent River. If, during the future planned walks I cover another 20 or 30 kms of the river (which I expect requires lots more actual walking kms to achieve those few), I am now considering the idea that whatever kilometre gap remains, I might swim that length, not in the cold Derwent but in a heated Olympic-sized swimming pool located next to the Derwent. One kilometre at a time. Maybe swimming two or three times a week. One of my original motivations for the Derwent River walk was my need to create a personal physical challenge; the goal of swimming 100 or so kilometres would give me something major to pursue (one armstroke at a time – until the shoulders fail . Hmm perhaps I shouldn’t tempt fate by making such jokes.). Watch this space for the continuation of this idea – or a new one.
I am so excited.
Blog followers know I have been frustrated in my attempt to discover the official length of the Derwent River. Now I have found the answer in Australia’s most reliable source of information. Today I found that the Australian Bureau of Statistics gives the length as 215 km. I feel vindicated. Previously, using an Opisometer on 1:25,000 Tasmanian maps, I had calculated the length of the River at 214 km – all the time knowing that some inaccuracy was possible with this device. You can read my earlier post here. Now all I have to do is to persuade Google to change their information! What chance do I have?
Matt Smith reported (‘Heritage sites get UN check. Team on way to state’, in Sunday Tasmanian 8 Nov 2015) that Tasmanian government agencies and land conservation associations are ‘gearing up for a visit from UNESCO officials who investigate concerns about logging and mining in World Heritage Areas’. Apparently UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has concerns about the current Tasmanian government’s ‘plan to allow logging and mining in the state’s 1.5 million hectares of protected world heritage area. The World Heritage Committee has repeatedly reiterated its position that mineral exploration and exploitation is incompatible with World Heritage status’. Acting Environment, Parks and Heritage Minister Jeremy Rockliff is reported as saying, ‘We recognise the importance and significance of the TWWHA (Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area) and the importance of managing it in a way that is respectful of its natural and cultural values’. I hope to see UNESCO’s decision is accepted.
On too many nights last week the sky was dense with a rosy fire haze across my suburb. The smoke slipped through crevices in my house so that, through each evening, I felt like I inhaled a camp fire. Back then I checked the Tas Fire Alert website and learned the closest fire was in Quarry Road less than half a kilometre away. Today I went off to see what the burn looked like.
I chose to walk through the bushland of Waverley Flora Park first and then descend down Quarry Road.
From the top of one of the Park’s walking tracks, I looked through stands of gum trees towards the mouth of the Derwent River.
In the other direction Mount Wellington loomed large over the Hobart CBD and the Derwent Harbour.
I followed in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, ‘father’ of the theory of evolution, who walked around Hobart in 1836. At some time during that visit he crossed to the eastern shore and wandered around the Bellerive suburb and beyond.
I saw unfamiliar medium-sized birds collecting nesting material and insect food morsels (who flitted away far too fast for me to take a photograph): one was dressed in silvery greys with a long strand floating after its tail, and another with a rich olive green coat. None of my bird books help me to identify either of these birds – any locals with bird knowledge?
A profusion of native spring flowers carpeted parts of the Park, or stood as single colourful spikes amidst the dull dry green grasses.
It soon became clear that lots of burned vegetation and scorched earth passages were scattered next to the walking track and beyond.
Later when I walked down Quarry Road with not a burn mark in sight, I realised that for bureaucratic purposes the Tas Fire Alert site had to indicate the best road for fire trucks to follow. It had been parts of the Waverley Flora Park that suffered fire damage.
As I continued downhill, I heard the siren sounds of a fire truck and watched it whip past the intersection below. When I turned the corner, the truck was parked askew with hefty yellow clad guys preparing their gear. The screams of other sirens were closing in. I watched wisps of smoke escaping from all manner of slits and slots and dirty brown smoke puffing from the front door of the house below. I saw an approaching ambulance and guessed this wasn’t someone’s best day.
Recently I posted the story of a man who got lost for two days and then was lucky to get out of the Mt Anne region without a Personal Locator Beacon. Today the news is that a couple of walkers needed to use their Personal Locator Beacon in the same area. This good news can be read here. I am pleased to read that the walkers plan to make a donation because the cost of their rescue would have been thousands of dollars.
Both stories are timely reminders of how difficult the terrain can be in Tasmania. When coupled with the uncertainties of extreme weather, the walking experience can become very dangerous.
You may recall my earlier posts after my walks in the Bushy Park area and its hop fields. You may also recall reading that new paddocks were being set up for growing more hops. Perhaps this article is related. For more information read Tassie hops make their way into US craft brews.
The Derwent Project’s website contains engaging images from cameras located at various points along the edge of the Derwent River.
There is a great deal of viewing to be done across this site including the page with the time-lapse videos.
Because of the imagery on this site, I find it possible to appreciate the environment and weather changes in a simpler way. I feel sure that if you can’t walk or drive along the Derwent River, watching these videos should give some sense of the pleasure that is possible.
No. The historic Shene property is not reflected in the Derwent River. Nevertheless it shines bright in my memory for the number of stunningly well restored and conserved 19th century sandstone buildings.
The Shene Estate, located just north of Pontville, covers many acres only a few kilometres inland from Bridgewater which sits on the Derwent River. A few months ago a brilliant photographer, one of my blog followers, presented a set of images that stopped me in my tracks (pun not intended) – have a look.
When I visited last Friday, one of the owners, Anne Kernke enthralled me with the history of the property. Long term blog readers know that I get excited by many things and where possible I try and make a connection with the Derwent River, simply because I want to write a record. I was on high alert the moment Anne mentioned the Derwent. When she said that one of the key family members died near Pearson’s Point which is the location where I suggest the mouth of the river is located on the western shore, I knew I had reason to create a post.
Edward Paine/Payne emigrated to Van Diemens Land in 1820 and his eldest daughter married Gamaliel Butler who established the Shene estate. Unfortunately Edward drowned when travelling in a small boat with others because a boatman went “to the mast-head, which a small boat would not bear”. The boat capsized and it seems Edward could not swim. Anne Kernke has provided the following information: “an ill-fated boat trip to North West Bay, where Paine was looking for land to purchase.[1] The Hobart Town Gazette gave a very detailed account of the day’s tragic events:
It falls to our painful lot to record one of the most distressing and melancholy accidents which has ever occurred in this Settlement. On Saturday afternoon last, Mr. Edward Payne (who arrived recently in the ‘Deveron’), Mr Wickham Whitchurch, Mr James Kay, and Mr George Read, Superintendent of Government carpenters, left the port in a boat with three men to go to North-west Bay. On their way, they put into Tinder-box Bay, about 10 o’clock at night; but not finding the landing good, they determined to go on to the Government huts at North West Bay. When the boat had got about 300 yards, from the shore, the halyards being jammed in the mast-head, one of the boatmen went up to clear them, and in an instant the boat overset. With difficulty, and by the assistance of a Government boat which was in the bay, all were saved but Mr. Payne and Mr. Read. There was scarcely any wind or swell at the time; and this unhappy accident was caused solely by the man going to the mast-head, which a small boat would not bear. Mr. Whitchurch is an expert swimmer, and knowing that Mr. Kay could not swim, laid hold of him, and conveyed him within 50 yards of the shore, but from extreme weakness, was compelled to leave him for his own preservation. Mr Kay, although he never swam before, struggled through a thick bed of sea-kelp in deep water, and made the shore. Mr W. in the meantime floated on his back to recover his strength, until the Government boat came to their help.
Late on Sunday evening, accounts of the melancholy event reached Hobart Town; and upon its general circulation on Monday morning, it occasioned a sensation of feeling and regret proportioned to the estimation in which the unfortunate sufferers were held, and the loss inflicted by their sudden and premature fate. The body of Mr. Payne was found on Sunday, near the place where the boat overset. A Coroner’s Inquest on Tuesday gave a verdict of Drowned by Accident.’[2]
1]Journal of Peter Harrison, 1822, Royal Society of Tasmania, p.40 (typed copy)
[2] Hobart Town Gazette, 13 July 1822, p.2
On the following day, the distraught Mrs Paine was visited by the Reverend Robert Knopwood, who spent the evening trying to console her for her loss. Several days later, Knopwood conducted Paine’s burial service at the Hobart Town Cemetery (now St. David’s Park) on the 6th July 1822. The headstone was removed when the old cemetery was converted to the present day park.” St David’s Park is in the Salamanca precinct which sits by the Derwent River at the edge of Hobart’s CBD.
Currently, to help support the expensive and meticulous restoration work across the Shene property, the owners provide guided tours by appointment, keep polo horses and will soon have competitions (the Hobart Polo Club now call Shene home and they use the 1851 stables as their clubhouse), they operate a distillery making a filtered and an unfiltered smooth tasting Gin, and much much more. More information can be read on the Shene website.
With a friend last Thursday and then with another yesterday I returned to Bushy Park, where I introduced them to the hop kilns/Oasthouse precinct that is hidden at the end of 10 Acre Lane, next to the Derwent River. They were amazed and delighted with the discovery.
As it was when I first walked there, no-one else appeared on site. Thanks Alex and Andrew for the revisits. This site proves to be enthralling and special each visit.
Yesterday I realised the vegetation had grown dramatically and lushly in recent weeks so that ‘fences’ of flowering and green leafed Hawthorn blocked some previously easy views. When Alex and I smelt delicate fragrant perfumes floating in the air, our noses were led to a throng of tiny roses clambering over themselves with a very strong but beautiful perfume. Standing beside this tangle was a flowering tree with perfumed drops of flowers somewhat similar to those on a wisteria, although coloured white. We couldn’t identify this tree. In another part of the precinct was a mass of trees with flowers in cone shaped clusters sitting up above their branches. Alex thought they might be chestnut trees.
The ducks ran out of the Junior Angling Pool hoping for a feed.
Idyllic.
Revisiting the hop kilns was my reward after walking a little more of the edge of the Derwent River. But more about that in later posts.
My sunhat has seen better days but it has a long way to go yet.
Yesterday a friend An drove me up along the Derwent River where we stopped off at a few dams, power stations and lakes. I was studying the terrain at ground level (our most recent Service Tasmania maps are aged and Google Earth photos are not current either), seeing where forestry and hydro tracks existed and determining where I will need to make my way through bush ‘with walls’. I can see a line of fiction here – turning an almost impassable density of bush into a character (an evil character – even though the bush is sublimely beautiful and bountiful) that has to be overcome. My strategy will be as always, one slow step at a time and then the bush won’t even know I have come and gone (although my muscles will).
I walked some small sections yesterday, but I won’t write them up until I have walked in the areas westwards from Gretna to those sections. I know now that it is difficult for some local readers to understand where I have been and therefore, if I change the blog posts from being a chronological record, it may be even more unclear. Besides, by writing the stories in order and finishing with the last walk to the source it will be clear I have walked the Derwent.
Yesterday explorations and walks were as uplifting as the previous day’s flight; it was as equally wonderful, just different. I feel gushy with delight when I am in the bush on a blue sky day, with no wind, and with a temp that rises sufficiently but not so that I boil. Once I am sitting on rocks in the river bed with my lunch, listening to the birds, and sensing the spirit of the place, my life feels so right. This is the place for me.
Then, despite the day’s experiences already being a treat, life added a new wonderful surprise. Recently one of my blog followers, Justy, alerted me to the fact she and her partner were engaged in creating a new work of art for GASP beside the Derwent River at Glenorchy, a city in the Greater Hobart Area. As part of their project, they had already walked along the Derwent River in Cumbria, England and now were planning to walk from the sea to the source of the Derwent early next year. I hadn’t met them and only communicated a few times by email. But yesterday, as An drove me towards Cluny Dam, I saw two women step from their car. I waved and smiled as you do on a country road. As we drove on, I said to An “I bet they’re the two women who are engaged in the GASP project, out conducting a reconnaissance trip”. There was no reason to believe this except I felt I knew it to be the truth (the bush works its miracles). Nevertheless we continued on and had parked near the northern end of Cluny Lagoon when the two women drove past us. Again we waved. On a later road we found ourselves coming towards each other from opposite directions, so An waved them to a stop. The women looked at us queryingly. “Are either of you Justy or Margaret? we asked.” “Yes”, they responded. Instantly I called out, “I’m Helen”. Their nod of acknowledgement followed. And then we all poured out of our cars, and hugged and had a lively chat standing on a dusty road in strong Spring sunlight. It was a brilliant unexpected meeting and capped off what had been a day of immense discovery and pleasure.
Best wishes for your project Justy and Margaret!
The potential of the volume of water passing down the Derwent River for hydro-electricity generation was seen over a century ago. While a few power stations were built in the early decades of the 20th century, with an influx of migrants from war ravaged Europe in the 1940s-50s, the numbers of dams and power stations increased quickly. Overall, many dams and approximately 30 power stations have been built across central Tasmania.
On my way to Lake St Clair, I will reach and walk past each of the following 7 markers along the River:
One of the Hydro websites provides detailed information about these and others which feed into the Derwent River catchment. In addition, the site includes the diagram below.
Recently the Master Builders of Tasmania Association announced Housing and Construction Excellence Award winners. Here are a selection.
Thankyou blog follower Ju. Recently Ju connected me with a woman with a husband who has a Private Pilot’s Licence. Once I made contact, Michelle and Dave were delighted to fly me in their four seater plane, a Cirrus SR20 which Michelle referred to as the BMW of the skies.
Today we flew. Not a cloud in the sky. Clean blue sky. Hardly a breeze. The landscape rich and varied. The Derwent River sparkled from start to finish.
The experience was stunningly magnificent. I love words but I find it difficult to express my excitement, my pleasure, and the sheer joy of the flight in the depth which I felt. There below me was the river I have come to love and know a little more. There below me were the tracks, paths, roads and landscape over which I have walked – and I laughed occasionally remembering certain experiences during my walks. There below me were logging tracks, dam roads, and fading vehicular pathways. And then we were flying over impenetrable sections which may not be walkable.
We left Hobart airport and flew to Storm Bay by rounding the Iron Pot, then we followed the river upstream to the source. Dave flew on until we reached the northern most point of Lake St Clair. The return journey was equally as beautiful and engaging. The light had changed presenting us with a ‘new’ landscape.
Of the hundreds of photos taken by Michelle, friend Chantale and myself, I include a tiny selection here.
The photo above taken by Michelle caught me totally preoccupied by the view.
MIchelle’s photo above shows the Derwent River snaking around the Claremont Golf course with Cadbury’s Chocolate Manufacturing buildings in white to the left.
The photo above shows a straight section of the Derwent River before the township of New Norfolk on the upper left.
The photo above shows the Derwent River circling part of Reid’s cherry orchards.
Chantale’s photo of the Pumphouse Point accommodation projecting into Lake St Clair, also shows the dam across the Derwent Basin where the water enters St Clair Lagoon. The source of the Derwent River starts to the right of the photo.
Michelle’s photo above shows part of sprawling Hobart set against the Derwent Harbour.
Those photos taken while flying over the river westwards of Gretna will be incorporated into the stories of my walks from Gretna onwards, in future posts. From now on, you can expect both ground-based and aerial photos to enrich the stories.
I feel like the luckiest person in the world for the opportunity to travel in a smooth flying small plane, to see the Derwent River winding through the landscape in glorious blueness, and to be reminded Tasmania is a superb place. A truly wonderful and memorable day. Thankyou to all concerned.
I introduced Simon Armitage and his record of walking the Pennine Way delivering poetry readings each night to locals, in his book Walking Home, in an earlier posting Walking Home-the Pennine Way. Walking is so interesting but then so is reading. So now that I have finished reading Armitage’s book, I want to share a couple of pieces of information previously unknown to me:
“Wordsworth was the poet-walker par excellence. “Writing about Wordsworth’s legs, his friend Thomas de Quincy once remarked ‘undoubtedly they had been serviceable legs beyond the average standard of human requisition; for I calculate, upon good data, that with these identical legs Wordsworth must have traversed a distance of 175 to 185,000 English miles.’… Even in later life. A five-mile round trip to the hardware store or a twenty-mile perambulation was hardly a rare occurrence, but these distances should be viewed as a gradual slowing down considering the marathons of his youth, most notably in 1790 when instead of revising for his exams at Cambridge he went walkabout in the French Alps with his friend Robert Jones. They covered three hundred miles in two weeks …”
Armitage also refers to Richard Holmes who as an eighteen year old produced a new form of travel writing. Apparently he donned a felt hat and walked in “the footsteps and hoofprints of Robert Louis Stevenson and his troublesome donkey from Le Monastier to St Jean-du-Gard in 1878, a walk of 220 kilometres through the ‘French Highlands’, which Stevenson completed in under a fortnight.”
Visiting Turkey, Italy, Morocco and Hungary
Hotels in Launceston to 1900
The ribbon that separates the eastern and western shores of Hobart, Tasmania's capital city
The ribbon that separates the eastern and western shores of Hobart, Tasmania's capital city
Beautiful wilderness locations and more
Keeping track of our adventures.
Travel and Photography
The ribbon that separates the eastern and western shores of Hobart, Tasmania's capital city
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Ariadne's Clew - the Ship's bLog: sailing Tasmania with the Stoneman family
My life's aspirations, inspirations and a little bit about running :)
We are about to embark on great change, we are moving to Tasmania.
Our everyday adventures
Walking the Derwent River 