A fair bit of the drive to St Helens from Bicheno is along the coast or at least gives views of the coast so it is a pretty drive. We booked in at the caravan park for a couple of nights and after lunch drove out to the Bay of Fires to have a look at the freecamp area. One of the places listed as a freecamp is now a day-use only. a second had a lot of nice spots with beautiful views of the ocean - all full - and very rough roads that Peter doesn't want to take our caravan on. The third was very crowded and didn't have a lot of spaces with views - most were quite a way further in, and there were heaps of people crowded in there. We're not sure what we'll do yet, we'll make up our minds when we see how things go out at the freecamps after Marilyn and Richard move out on Tuesday.
Monday 31st
Our drive to St Columba Falls took us through both farmland and forest, along the by now familiar type of road: both winding and hilly. The land has greened up a bit after the rain. The road became even more winding and narrow as we entered the State Forest near the falls, the trees meeting overhead in places.
St Columba Falls is considered by some to be Tasmania's most beautiful waterfall, being a 90metre (295 ft) long cascade. To reach it according to the brochure you walk through ancient rainforest 'studded with colossal tree ferns, sassafras, myrtle and beech trees to a swiftly flowing creek with beauty that will take your breath away'. The stream certainly is beautiful, cascading over the rocks but the part that took my breath away was the walk back uphill because Peter had my puffer and he had gone on ahead
J !
From the roadway you could hear the thundering of the falls and in fact could see the top part of it from the parking spaces.
It's not a long walk through the rainforest to get to the falls, though quite steep. The tree ferns were enormous and the ferns and mosses were fresh and vibrant after the recent rain that has fallen over so much of Tassie. So beautiful.
The stream was gurgling along over the rocks and it is a shame that it never looks as good in a photo as it does in real life because it was very pretty indeed.
When we arrived at the falls they were indeed spectacular even though its not winter, when the maximum amount of water passes through them and presumably covers all the rockface instead of passing either side of it.
In that photo above you can just see that the water divides at the top and a second half goes down to the right but it was very difficult to get that part in a photo, it was pretty well hidden by the rocks. I'd love to go back after a good week's worth of rain and see what it is like when it is flowing properly.
As usual it took us a couple of hours to do this 1/2 hour return walk because we took so many photos: the waterfall of course, but also the creek, tree ferns, other ferns, mosses, lichens, fungi, etc. Richard has some super lenses that bring up incredible detail on fungi that were only around a couple of millimetres (an 1/8th of an inch) across. When you see them on the computer screen these tiny things look as though they have been turned out of a fluted jelly mould and have a little blob of jelly on the top - they are exquisite. But my camera and even Peter's camera doesn't catch that much detail, sadly. However I did get some fungi and they will be useful reference material for forest landscaping in miniature scenes.
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| These were tiny, tiny little things that weren't much bigger than little beads |
We had lunch in the cars even though there is a picnic area because the seats and tables were very damp. And we had a long chat with a couple from Florida, US. They live on a 2-masted ketch 33ft and spent five years sailing around Europe and also have a caravan which is huge by Australian standards, I think they said 36feet but we can't remember exactly. They tow it with a Chevrolet 150 truck. And they were asking us about freecamping in Australia.
We then set off to have a look at Ralph Falls. We crossed a bridge over a lovely stream and found that the track further ahead was very narrow. So narrow in fact that if a vehicle was coming the other way there would be no way of passing them.
So it was off back to Pyegana and the Holy Cow Cafe with its cheese tasting and sales. All the cheeses are made there and many have won prestigious prizes. They certainly were delicious and of course we bought several kinds: a mild cheddar, tasty, one with tried tomato and one with herbs added. We also bought some crab apple jelly.
The fields around here are nice and green after the rain and we sat outside the cafe and ate an icecream made from their own milk on the premises. We had double cones: mine was a scoop each of wattleseed and vanilla bean; Peter had pepperberry and wattle seed; Nathan had wattle seed and leatherberry honey; and Marilyn had lemon myrtle. Rick had a milkshake, just to be different. While were sitting there we watched their cows wander in to be milked. They are all computer chipped and just come in whenever they want to and the whole procedure is mechanised and recorded on the computer. Marilyn and Richard and I wandered down and had a talk to a bloke who was working there and asked some questions. There is a brush attached to the wall, it looks like a small version of the brushes you see in car washes and the cows know just how to position themselves to have the desired part of their body given a good scratch with it. Some just go under it and have a quick back scratch, others like their head or faces done. One cow stayed for a good ten minutes going over her back several times, her face, head, and then starting over again. She had a wonderful time. The cows are rewarded for coming in to milk not just by the relief of being milked but also by being fed some grain while they are standing there in the stall. If they want extra grain there are a couple of other stalls where they can go and eat some more without being milked. They are all very happy cows. When they are ready to leave the gate automatically opens to guide them into a different paddock so that the three groups of cows are rotated around paddocks. I had seen stories about similar setups on Landline so was particularly interested in seeing it live. What a difference from the days when I used to help my great grandmother with her dairy farm on the Manning River, Taree! I well remember one Christmas holidays when my brother and I had been given cowboy/cowgirl outfits and I was in the dairy while milking was going on, helping Grandma and one cow lifted her tail and dropped dung right down my brand new cowgirl suit as I passed behind her. I was not amused, to say the least. But needless to say, Grandma was.
