My last day before leaving Devonport was a glorious day spent exploring Narawntapu NP. The park is located at Bakers Beach and I arrived to see hundreds of tiny red mud crabs emerging from the sand. Next to the beach is a fertile plain, which has earned the park its nickname of “the Serengeti of Tasmania”. A large variety of wildlife if you are there at the right time of day. I spent the day following the trails and enjoying the scenic beauty of the place.
A day trip to Stanley to see the Nut, a stunning volcanic plug rising around 150 metres from the waters edge. The town of Stanley is nestled behind, full of well preserved colonial buildings and quaint cafes.
As I headed back to Devonport I stopped for a few hours at the neighbouring Rocky Cape National Park.
One of my favourite memories here was watching the big ships arrive and depart. It was fun to skip across the Mersey River in the Spirit of Devonport ferry knowing I would eventually be boarding its big sister the Spirit of Tasmania.
While in Devonport I visited the Bass Strait Maritime museum and the Tasmanian Arboretum and had a couple of interesting day trips out to Stanley and the Narawntapu National Park at Bakers Beach.
A short stop on our way from Cradle Mountain, a woman we’d met in Hobart had recommended we stop in her home town of Sheffield to see the famed murals. They were pretty amazing.
It was a little cool and cloudy, which meant there were no crisp outlines of the distinctive mountain but plenty of fascinating textures in the landscape and vegetation. We spent a couple of hours walking one of the shorter trails. There was much evidence of wildlife along the track, we even caught sight of one or two wombats.
Strahan (pronounced ‘strawn’) on the north-west coast of Tasmania was another big highlight of our trip. We stayed a few days and took in a Gordon River Cruise, a West Coast Wilderness Railway ride, a live performance of The Ship that Never Was, and a walk to Hogarth Falls. It was wet or overcast there a lot of the time but it was a fantastic experience nonetheless.
