Tag Archives: Bruny Island

Help is on its way

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Tasmania is fortunate to have excellent emergency services so that when you need help, ambulances, fire trucks, police, and special emergency services (SES) come to your aid.  Sometimes this involves boats and sometimes this involves helicopters. In a local newspaper article earlier this week, the Westpac Rescue helicopter collected people from five locations. Two of these are connected with the Derwent River.

One person fell down a cliff at Pearsons Point, the location which,in my estimation represents the western mouth of the Derwent.  Long term readers of this blog may recall my photographs from this location – high up and looking out and across to Bruny Island. When I walked there, I remember making the decision not to try and clamber down the cliff.  Reading this news story now makes me glad that I resisted the opportunity to get closer to the water.

The article reported another person was rescued from somewhere near Lake St Clair, and the source of the Derwent River is that Lake.

It does not matter where you are, if you can signal for help (don’t forget your Personal Locator Beacon) then Tasmania’s rescue services will reach you.

Finally I reached the mouth of the Derwent River on the western shore at Pearsons Point

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The goal of walking along the western shore of the Derwent River was to reach the mouth and during Stage 13 I reached this destination marked by Pearsons Point.

Before then at 10.44am I walked past a turn off: Mt Louis Road. There was a lump up in the sky on my right.  Maybe another time it might be pleasant to see what is up there and to look at the view – which is probably a spectacular 360 degree outlook along the Derwent River, the D’entrecasteaux Channel and Bruny Island.

As I panted up the final hill, I heard the thwack of balls and realised the fencing I could see in the distance amounted to a tennis court.  A tennis court!  Ye gods! Out here in the bush and miles from anywhere?  Yes it was.  Two women were slamming the balls up and down the court.  Their two cars were the only vehicles in sight.

10.52am: I reached the Pearsons Point Reserve and was feeling rather chuffed.

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I wandered around the site which included a disused gun emplacement and a couple of large historic cannons.  Guess Pearsons Point would have been the first line of defence against any Russian threat (which seemed to be the main thought through the 19th century).

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Note: the bump behind the gun emplacement and tennis court is Mt Louis. A large white edifice on the end of the Point (on the other side of the cannon) appeared to be a marine navigation beacon.

In front of me to the right hand side of the Point, the D’entrecasteaux Channel separated the mainland of Tasmania from Bruny Island (famous for its fresh produce such as cheeses, smoked fish and meats, berries, premium wines, and local oysters).

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I was very surprised how close Bruny Island (Dennes Point) was to this part of Tasmania’s mainland.  So close.  So accessible.  And its green hills and the white sandy Jetty Beach were most attractive.

On the other side of Pearsons Point to my left, the Derwent River flowed out to Storm Bay and then onto the ocean. I could see the Iron Pot and Cape Direction at the southern tip of the South Arm peninsula on the eastern shore of the River.

I found a pleasant picnic table and at 11am ate half my lunch under a small cluster of gum trees hoping no branches would be shed on my head.  Feeling on top of the world. The sun was out and the tiniest of breezes moved through the area.  Past the trees I could see motoring boats leaving white streams behind them as they sliced through the River. I looked back northwards to the Alum Cliffs between Taroona and Kingston.

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With a little sadness I left Pearsons Point at 11.25am.

By 12.40pm I was passing the Hidden Cove turnoff, at 1.05pm I reached the Fossil Cove Drive junction, at 1.25pm I walked across the intersection with Treatment Plant Road, and at 1.30 I stopped for a moment at Suncoast Drive.  I looked at the one bus stop (there wasn’t a pair one either side of the road) and it did not have a timetable attached to the post, so I continued walking to Wells Parade.  I had been told this was a long road, and now I know it is.

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I stopped and waited for a bus which didn’t come (the first in my entire travels) and left and walked up and down and up and downhill until eventually I was back parallel to the Blackmans Bay Beach.  I sat for a while at the beach soaking in the atmosphere, smelling the salt, and relishing the fact my feet were having a rest.  When the time came (according to my bus timetable), I walked to the bus stop where I had alighted hours earlier in the morning, and before long Metro bus number 85 arrived.  After passing via the Suncoast Drive bus stop that I had looked at earlier in the afternoon on arrival back in Blackmans Bay, Maranoa Heights, other suburbs, and Kingston, I was back in Hobart city by 4pm feeling elated.  Stage 13 was over.

A new milestone marking the 13th stage of my walk along the Derwent River: I reached the mouth on the western shore. Whoppee Doo!!

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Yesterday, I completed the first part of my walk along the Derwent River: an exciting achievement.

Last August I started walking from the mouth of the River at Cape Direction on the tip of the South Arm peninsula and now, at the end of February, I have completed the distance from that mouth to the Bridgewater Bridge and back on the western shore to Pearson’s Point near the settlement of Tinderbox.

On the 8th stage mid-November, I had the first major milestone when I finished the walk from Cape Direction to the Bridgewater Bridge. This 13th stage was the culmination of walks from the Bridge back to the mouth on the western side of the River.

During yesterday’s walk, I covered about 5km of the length of the Derwent River.  By my reckoning, the total distance of the Derwent River on the western shore from the Bridgewater Bridge to the mouth is 38 3/4 km.

For Stage 13 yesterday, I needed to walk to Pearson’s Point from the bus stop where I finished on Stage 12 and then, on reaching my goal, I needed to retrace my steps back to Blackmans Bay to connect with a bus that could return me to Hobart.  This distance was approximately 17 kms. I have now walked at least 171km not counting getting to and from buses.  But when the walks are staggered over time, this number does not mean much.

The highlights of the walk to Pearson’s Point were mostly small and natural: rosehips, green rosellas, hum of bees, resting sheep, and the taste of delicious ripe blackberries along the way.

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I was surprised how close the northern part of Bruny Island was to the mainland of Tasmania (almost felt like I could swim across the D’entrecasteaux Channel) and I felt overwhelmed by the staggeringly expansive and grand views across and up and down the Derwent River.

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The fun part was singing (including mixing up the words in my excitement) Handel’s Hallelujah chorus (from The Messiah) at the top of my voice when I passed a large sign with the words SING. You can listen to a superb version performed in 2012 by the Royal Choral Society at the Royal Albert Hall in London England at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZEtVbJT5c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZEtVbJT5c

Over the next few days I will write up the journey and the discoveries of Stage 13’s walk.  Then I will be looking towards a long main road walk from the Bridgewater Bridge at Granton to New Norfolk which I expect to undertake in the next couple of weeks.  Once I have reached New Norfolk I will be on the way to Lake St Clair, the source of the Derwent River.

Around the corner from the mouth of the Derwent River, at Clifton Beach

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Yesterday, the temperature at my home was in the high 30 degrees but today the temperature was much more pleasant and only rose to a little over the mid 20s. In the spirit of getting back out into the environment and not worrying about heat exhaustion, this afternoon Je and I headed off to have a look at Clifton Beach. This is not a place easily accessible by public transport unless you have time to take a long walk of many kilometres from a distant bus stop. So this Beach was accessed today by starting with a private car trip.

Neither of us had visited Clifton Beach or the adjacent Clifton Beach Conservation Area nature reserve for many years yet it’s a stunningly beautiful location only 25km from the centre of Hobart. The sky was cloudless, and the onshore breeze kept us comfortably relaxed.

This beachside suburb to the north of the South Arm peninsula and therefore north of the mouth of the Derwent River on the eastern shore, is part of the City of Clarence in which I live, and part of the Greater Hobart Area.

Clifton Beach is a 2.1km long wide sandy beach backed by deep revegetated 20 metre high sandy dunes. The beach is bordered by 54m high Cape Deslacs in the east and 50m high rocky cliffs in the west that run south for 3.5 km rising to 100m high at Cape Contrariety. At the southern end of the beach, a Surf Club is central to the protection of swimmers. However out on the waves, and typically clad in black wet suits, were sun-bleached surfers. Have a look at http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Clifton-Beach which has a changing selection of photographs showcasing this amazing beach – plus you can check out the forecast if you want to go for a surf. One of the photos looks towards the southern end, another looks across Storm Bay to the Tasman Peninsula, and the other is a huge wave the like of which we did not see today.

The photo on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Beach,_Tasmania shows the cliffs at the northern end marking Cape Deslacs. When we followed a track out from a carpark, we found ourselves about half way along the long beach so we turned north and walked to the cliffs in the photo, passing a few happy walkers and joggers.  A multitude of empty shells and dying/dead jellyfish lined the high tide mark. Dominican and Silver Gulls hovered. The crumbly sandstone strata in the cliffs were majestic. The rocks at the water edge were covered in baby black mussels. Under the waves crashing onto the rocks were thick unforgiving ribbons of kelp – the sort that could strangle and drown you if you were foolish enough to swim here without care.

Our view across the white capped waters of Storm Bay included a glimpse of Bruny Island to the south west on our right, and the western side of the Tasman Peninsula on our left.

We paddled in the breaking waves of cold water then trailed wet trousers across the hot sand.  We longed to swim, but this is a very dangerous beach for undertows, powerful currents/rips and back surges, and unexpected changing sand bottom levels. People have died here from time to time after being seduced by the jade coloured waters, the clarity and cleanness of the water, and the seeming safety of it all.  But the message ‘to swim between the flags’ indicating you should not swim unless there are life guards present and when they have put up flags indicating the safest stretch to swim between, needs to be adhered to at Clifton Beach.  Today Je and I could see some of the turmoil beneath the waves, and the contrary action of waters moving in and out seemingly simultaneously.  The clear glassiness of the water was so very enticing and, when licking my lips I tasted salt, I had a difficult time resisting going into the water.  But the sand was soft and warm so a great lingering stroll was the wonderful substitute.