Tassie Trip 3/4/18 Hobart to Wielangta Forest (Sandspit Picnic Area) - 152km

The Easter Carnival is over and we have had one extra night to clean off the last of the competitive sweatiness, and have a good sleep. Now we are heading slowly towards the Bay of Fires, where the next events start on Thursday. 

First plan was a visit to Mt Wellington. It was extremely windy at the top, with the freezing wind almost blowing some people off of their feet. The views were still good though, and we had fun remembering the time we came up here and hung the TT banner from the top and threw snowballs at each other.  That must have been 2005.  Today we took shelter in the viewing area and read the info, before braving the viewing platforms briefly and taking refuge in the car. 

  The Fern Tree tavern, part way down the hill, were just starting to serve Devonshire tea, so we made the most of that and enjoyed their warm dining area as we chatted with the young publican about his plans for refurbishment, and spread our map out to plan the day's travel.

We also filled up with fuel (80 litres at 144.9/litre =$116.19 ODO:189418) before leaving Hobart.

We crossed over the Derwent via the big bridge and turned right just after Sorell, heading towards the little holiday villages on the coast there, where we hadn’t been before.  This is the 4^th time we have been to Tassie together so it is becoming harder to find places we don’t remember, or haven’t ever been to. We stopped in at Park Beach and watched the surfers for a while. 

Passing through Dodges Ferry we headed into the seaside reserve area, and found ourselves a geocache there, before heading on to see the jetty and breakwater at Primrose Sands. 

There are a lot of these flowers at the moment in Tassie

Lovely little harbour at Primrose Sands

Boats up high seemed to be a theme for the day. 

We stopped just before the town of Dunalley to make some lunch, looking out over the brown, rocky beach, before driving in to town and discovering some interesting things. 

map showing the canal

the workings of the bridge opening

Dunalley is home to the only ocean canal in Australia (between Norfolk Bay and Blackman Bay) and a swing-opening bridge over the canal.  The canal allows a great saving in time as boats do not need to go all the way around the Tasman Peninsula.

We were able to walk over the bridge and down under it to see the workings of the swing. The surface is made of grid where it opens, and the sound of traffic going over is a little like a bullroarer. There is a little bridgemaster's hut like the ones you see along the locks on the Murray river.

Turning off of the main road (A9)  to the C337 toward Marion Bay we took a few local roads near Bream Creek, and with the help of the Garmin, and eventually the confirmation of a local we continued on the forest drive and eventually found the Sandspit Picnic area, where we were planning to stay for the night.  

There was a walk leaving from our campspot.

This area has a couple of stone shelters, a number of picnic tables, and small tank and also two toilets  (foot flushing) . Wood had been left by previous users, and we augmented this will small  twigs found in the area (left over from previous chopping?) and the old newspaper from the car.  We set up the swags on the flattest areas we could find, enjoyed our quiet dinner in the bush, had a small fire for an hour or so, and settled in to our cosy beds.  It was a very quiet night, with virtually no bird or animal sounds, and a lovely clear starry night to welcome us back to our swags.