Endless riches

Since I left you last I have experienced Tasmania in more positive ways than how my my last post left off. This little island has so much to see, so much to do, it's a wonder anyone with any inkling of wanderlust could ever leave. If it's not enough to be chalked full of raw, Jurassic nature Tasmania's food possibilities are endless and gorgeous. The Troll and I have had countless encounters with vistas stretching out across buttongrass -created over 10,000 years of fires burned by Aboriginals (yes, the original humans that roamed this land created their own functional ecosystem)- dotted with nunataks (a word I learned in Alaska that I believe to be of Inuit origin that refers to mountain peaks poking through vast icefields ie. Glaciers) created when Earth was being pulled apart, cracking like dried skin and allowing red hot magma to surface to form what is now known as dolarite. With every corner brings new perspective on how our world formed because the evidence is right before our eyes. One would have to drive around blind folded on this island in order to deny the process of evolution. The hills that everyone warns us "poor, suffering" cyclists bring this perspective ever closer as we sweat and ache our way up feeling with each pedal just how the earth formed beneath us while we see with our naked eyes ancient flora and fauna that are often more closely related to species found in South America and New Zealand than they are to their neighbours. My wonder and awe has peaked on this island. My heart in my throat and tears in my eyes as I've walked through what looks and feels like Jurassic Park as well as when I spot a penguin by the moonlight, not far from my private campsite, waddling up orange-lichen covered rocks making her nightly journey from the crashing waves to feed her fury chick hidden under a mini-rock ledge. Experiences like these are daily. Go to sleep in a rainforest, on a beach, by a river, wake up with stunning views, endemic wildlife and blackberries wild and free for the picking. Blackberries are everywhere on the side of the road and I've been lucky enough to start the cycle tour right when they started ripening. They are invasive, so no guilt in picking them and it is encouraged. I've also encountered wild apples and plums that taste of honey. (Check out fallingfruit.org for a worldwide effort to catalogue available fruit in need of picking on the side of the road, hanging over someone's property or that someone has too many of and wants to share).

After climbing up about 12 or 15% grade on the way to Cradle Mountain NP

Walking along the Jurassic Park-esque landscape

Living evolution -one of two monotremes, an echidna

Cradle Mountain peak emerging from the trail with Barn Bluff in the distance

Cradle's dolarite. Very fun to climb!

More dolarite on the way up to Cradle Summit

Barn Bluff from Cradle summit

Now that we've tackled the west, gone to the north and reached the east we're coasting, cruising even, down flat part of the road system hitting up each beach, brewery and berry along the way. I've never felt so rich on $20 a day....if that.

 

Bay of Fires. Named for Aboriginal fire area. Orange lichen on rocks.

 

Another spectacular view from our private/free campsite and hammock

 

Falmouth, Tasmania

 

A magical private/free campsite with the view in the following photo.

 

 

East coast brings fewer hills and more of this.

 

Posted with Blogsy

The forest that smelted away

I have been in Tasmania for 3 and a half weeks now. Started out working on an organic family farm and have now been on the bike for a week pedalling through the Tassie wilderness with scent of Eucalyptus often pleasuring my nostrils. The rainforests have treated me well with wildlife a plenty. I've been lucky enough to spot a quoll, two echidnas, an endemic dragonfly (the Tasmanian redspot -the only dragonfly in its family), a tiger-snake and countless birds, wallabies and pademelons. The flora has been educational in walking amongst virtual relics with known ancestors from Gondwana, including myrtles and beeches. Each walking track peppered amongst the climbs and descents on the Troll have been informative and phylisophical. 

Tasmanian parks staff have put their heart and souls into signage that digs deep into the geological, ecological, anthropological and cultural history of the respective area. Each sign fills the reading visitor (foreign or otherwise) with wonder, awe, inspiration and a personal connection to the wilderness they are beholding such that I feel personally responsible for the wellbeing of said wilderness.

The wellbeing of the local flora and fauna seems of utmost importance to Tasmanians and this impression is strengthened by the pace at which the weary cycle tourist moves. I spent days in the Tasmanian wilderness (mind you, along major roads for the most part, but within National and State Parks nonetheless) whereas the average local and foreign tourist reading the same signs as I am spend a few hours. Perhaps my perspective is indeed skewed because of this difference in pace and the impact is greater for me than the motorists I share the road with. The heartbreak incurred upon slowly turning a corner after comfortably biking through a gorgeous expansive valley surrounded by picturesque mountains to find defaced mountains, scarred by greed for fool's gold is perhaps heightened for the turtle-paced Troll trekkers compared to the motoring hares. 

A beautiful expansive valley, but turn the corner and...

                                                          ...defaced mountains.

Queenstown is a sad place for Tasmania and I feel for those who wrote the interpretive signs in the Tassie wilderness as they must feel a great deal more heartbroken than I each time they venture to the Great Western Wilderness of Tasmania.

Indeed, western Tasmania has tantalized my visual senses with beautiful mountains and lakes, but it has a dark history of mining. The extent of this history perhaps lessens any negative emotions evoked by Queenstown and surrounding area as these are not fresh wounds. Whatever the current emotions felt by Tasmanians, I thank those involved for the movements in the '80's that opened local and international eyes to the atrocities occurring in the Tasmanian wilderness. These activist movements are the reason whyTasmania has a massive Wilderness World Heritage Site in the middle of the state and why the infamous Franklin River is not damned -both of which are major reasons behind the success in tourism here.

 

Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Site has been devestated by fire this past week. The fires were started by lightening. The increase in lightening is the result of increase in severity and occurrence of storms. The increase in severity and storm occurrence is the result of climate change. Climate change is the result of certain human activities. Does the good fight to protect Tasmania's wilderness, the very passion behind creating Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Site, still exist here? Does it exist elsewhere? Can we fight with as much passion and determination to stop taking from the earth as those who did in the '80s?

 "As you retrace your steps, consider what impressions of this place you'll take with you. Think of the ages of complex processes that have made this place what it is. Think too of the processes -natural or human- that may change a place like this."