Today we did not have anything specific planned, we just needed to get to our lodging near Cradle Mountain. Our first stop was some random beach on the way. The place we stopped at was the rocky part in between two beaches. I was so excited to see the tidal pools. But for some reasons, there were not much vegetation growing in them; hence there were not too many other living things in them either ... I was so disappointed. The rocks were littered with a lot of broken shells - the spiral ones, oysters, snails, clams, and others. We did not find any live ones other than some very small ones. It was interesting to watch the birds dive into the water, but I could not tell if they caught anything. Although we only saw a couple people on the beach, we were surprised to find the large trailer campground behind it was almost full.
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| Spiky Bridge |
Then we went by Spiky Bridge again and stopped to take a few pictures. Nobody know why the bridge was built with the spikes ... to keep out animals or ???
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| pink / red seaweed covered most of the beach |
Next we stopped at a beach at Swansea. From a distance, one could see the water close to the beach was pink and so was part of the beach. When we got down to the beach, we found out the phenomena was a result of the pink sea weeds. They were smelly and not very pleasant. There are a few lots up for sale right next to the beach, I wondered if anyone would buy them.
We stopped at a small town called Sheffield to get some information and also to admire their street murals. The town has a competition every year and the public get to judge. This year's theme is based on a poem and some of the entries are really good. We found a local produce store next to the murals that sells ice creams ... yum! And the produce are all so fresh, we should have skipped the grocery store in Swansea. That's the one thing we noticed in Tasmania - they feature local produce (and they are exceptionally fresh) and they help promote one another. So the guy at the Info Centre told us all the 'attractions' within a 50-km radius of his own town.
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| majestic Mount Roland behind the Silver Ridge Retreat - spectacular view! |
We arrived at the Silver Ridge Retreat before 6. Although it is a 45-minute drive from Cradle Mountain, David picked it because it is quite spacious and is closer to the Launceston Airport. The grounds are quite open compared to the Gumleaves. The owner used to raise cattles, but now he only had 4 left. He said the Bennett wallabies eat up all the grass, and he would have to buy feeds for the cattle if he were to keep them. We were going to drive an hour or so to a nearby park where playtpus frequent; but the owner told us there is a very good chance we would find them on his property. So we decided to stay there to (a) catch the changing colours on Mt Roland as the sun set and (b) look out for platypus. Unfortuntely neither of those two things panned out on the two evenings we were there!
We had an early night to prepare for the hike tomorrow.
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