Leaving Cradle Mountain, it was a slow, but lovely drive down the steeply descending and windy roads, back to the North coast of Tasmania. Our new destination, The Nut, in Stanley.
Now, for those unfamiliar with The Nut, as we were until recently, “The Nut” in Stanley Tasmania, is a 143m tall, basanite ‘plug’ for a volcano that existed here, some 25 to 70 million years ago – yep, it’s old, large and hard. Excusing the phallic symbolism for a second, The Nut, is a large, obvious and beautiful outcrop of (very) hard rock that sits atop a peninsula in the North West of Tasmania, with the town Stanley, sitting below it.
Once we’d left the highlands of central Tas, the terroir reveals itself as cleared farmland that you might find anywhere in Australia, excepting that the dirt is a rich, orange/brown clay based dirt – very different from the sandy loam we’re used to in metro WA.
Pulling into Stanley, The Nut almost feels like a mini Uluru (Ayers Rock), in that it dominates the landscape in its scale and grandeur.
The small township of Stanley is simply lovely. Beautifully restored and architecturally compliant weatherboard houses, most of which, from what we observed anyway, seem to be lovingly converted into AirBnB or apartment accommodation.
As we’d opted to spend 5 nights in Stanley, sufficient time to explore the area, we booked into the Discovery Parks, Stanley, Caravan Park so that we had easy access to showers, power and water.
The weather on our first day in Stanley was pretty miserable with a steady ‘mizzle’ falling all day. However, this worked out well as I needed to spend a day doing some work from the caravan, and it allowed Jules to catch up on van duties, i.e. clothes washing and van cleaning. Dodging the showers later in the day we walked the 50’odd metres to the beach from our van at sunset to observe the Little (or Fairy) Penguins arriving from their days fishing out at sea. Penguin photo’s were difficult due to the poor light and inability to blind the poor little buggers with torches or flashes, but it was nice to see the Penguins co-existing with the throngs of people from the town and tourists who wanted to observe them.
It’s now something o’clock past midnight and the bloody penguins are shitting us to tears. Despite seeming timid whilst exiting the water, they now seem to be playing a large group game of penguin Marco-Polo, where one penguin ‘shrilly screams’ a couple of times, following which its mates then all do a hybrid ‘zombie duck and rubber chicken sounding quacking’ to assure him that they’re still playing the game. Starting off, this Marco-Polo game wasn’t an issue, as the little dudes were well away from the van, but then the little shits decide to wander through the caravan park, passing right under our van, still shouting their Marco-Polo game for everyone to hear. As our mate Bushy would say, they defo put on a CM, and they’re right little CAs (in joke).
Tuesday the 17th March, the weather is finer today so we opted to explore the town of Stanley. Our initial idea was to break out the e-bikes for the first time this trip and cycle around town, however, after a quick recce tour on the way in, we determined Stanley was pretty small and only a very short distance walk from our caravan, so we decided to leg it (aka walk).
As mentioned above, most of the shop fronts in the small main drag of Stanley are all nicely renovated and compliant with the overall heritage feel of the town. As well as the dominant short-stay accommodation, there’s a lovely Providore, a pub (inn), a couple of coffee shops and some arty stores. Our first stop however, was the chairlift up the Nut, followed by a Mornay Scallop Pie and coffees in the cafe at the lower lift.
Upon arriving atop the Nut, there’s a 2km walk around the top with some nice, though I didn’t think spectacular, views out to the ocean and back across the town and farmland beyond. I took a few pics but didn’t think any of them worthy of posting in the blog and instead my fav pic atop the Nut was this one, of a little Butterfly near a red berry bearing shrub. The other pic was taken from the fisherman wharf and provides a sense of scale with Sir Gwavin, our car, sitting below the Nut.
Dinner tonight was at Hursey’s Seafood restaurant, which was nice, but not as good as we expected and hoped – but it was definitely filling and we had to beg a couple of doggy containers to carry our excess food home for another night.
Wednesday, 18th and our plan was to explore the mountainous and rainforest side of the Tarkine, Australia’s largest temperate rainforest, and the 2nd largest temperate rainforest in the world. Again, taking the very circuitous route through the back roads and farmland, our first stop was the Trowutta Arch, an amazing collapsed sinkhole that’s resulted in an archway into a water filled sinkhole.
From Trowutta Arch, we then explored the remainder of the Tarkine stops prior to descending to the coastal West Coast Tarkine drive (which is tomorrow’s trip).
After wishing our good friend, Plodney, a ‘happy birthday’, we finished today’s shenanigans, with a walk up to the Stanley Inn, aka the Pub, for a couple of stouts in the warm afternoon sun. The stouts were made all the more enjoyable from listening, and then chatting to a trio of older motorcycling gentleman that were enjoying their annual ‘motorbike trip somewhere’ and many bottles of wine at the pub – i.e. they were pretty pissed, but good fun to chat to.
Today’s adventure was exploring the Tarkine’s coastal route, along Tasmania’s north west coastline. Setting out from Stanley we found a few lovely pics and locations before even arriving at our first Tarkine gazetted spot.
We then drove down the coast, stopping in at the various Tarkine locations. However, the highlight of the morning was seeing a Spotted Tail Quoll on the track in to West Point State Reserve! On the track in, I spotted what I thought might be an Eastern Quoll disappearing into the bush aside the gravel track, but I didn’t get a good enough look to confirm it. On the way out, I was watching for them and at the same spot, I saw the larger Spotted Tail Quoll aside the road, before it, too, disappeared into the scrub. Jules was spewing as she’d missed both of them. I stopped on the track hoping to walk back and get another sighting, and possibly a pic, when the Spotted Tail Quoll casually strolled out, across the road about 20m in front of us, stopped, proceeded to take a dump on the road, and then trotted the rest of the way across the road and into the scrub on the far side. Jules and I were too dumbfounded to take any pics, and just watched him.
We stopped for a quick coffee in Arthur River, at the only tiny general store in town, and then completed our Tarkine coastal loop, returning to Stanley via Irishtown, in time to get showered and cleaned up for our impending visit tonight to the Stanley Wine Bar.
After a long day exploring you need something to help you unwind and the Stanley Wine Bar was just what the doctor ordered. Arriving a few mins prior to 5pm, we had to loiter in front of the pub for a couple of minutes, waiting for the wine bar to open. Our rationale for entering on the dot of opening was we wanted to secure the lovely little table in front of the open window with a view out, over the bay.
Table and prime position secured, we then reviewed and marvelled at our surroundings which was an eclectic mix of vintage and funky. Vintage dressed mannequins were spread throughout, with Jules sitting under a lady, and Captain Biggles facing us. The place was chock full of interesting and quirky stuff and the owners and hosts matched the vibe. With a perfectly styled moustache, our bartender wore a linen suit, with a waistcoat and derby hat. On his recommendation, Jules tied a Tassie Pinot Gris and I went for a Riesling, both of which were lovely and suited our expansive charcuterie board.
After finishing both the whites and board, we then moved onto a Pinot and pizza. All in all, it was a cool place, with great food and fantastic Tassie wine, a nice way to finish off the day.
Our final full day in the Stanley region was spent exploring east, back along the coast to Burnie. But first, after PetrolSpy’ing we determined that Stanley had some of the cheapest diesel around, at $2.77/l so it was an obvious choice for a top-up as we’re heading into the more remote mid-west of Tassie tomorrow.
Briefly stopping in at Brickmakers Bay, we then enjoyed the Tollymore Lookout and Lighthouse and lookouts on Table Cape. From there, we meandered down into Wynyard, opting to grab some lunch at a cafe and do a quick walk-around explored.
Then it was off to Burnie, which didn’t have the same vibe as Wynyard so we simply drove around the streets a bit, but chose not to stop and instead headed out to Hellyers Road Distillery for a whisky tasting paddle. I’m not a whisky drinker, and Jules detests the stuff, but all three were pretty good, the last one causing me to cough due to the increased alcohol content. We’d planned to then visit the Alchymia Distillery on the way home but, alas, that was closed. Instead, we dropped into the Highfield Historic Site and enjoyed learning about the building and region’s history through the lovingly restored building and gardens.
To finish out Stanley and North West experience, tonight we’re dining on Cape Grimm, just up the road, Scotch Fillet Steaks with veg – yum.
That wraps up this post and we’ll be back on air some time soon, from Strahan, our next destination.