Whyte River Track
Posted: Fri 25 Feb, 2011 11:11 pmOkay, I know this probably wouldn't even be worthy of most of you even bothering to walk it but, though only just under two hours, I have to say I enjoyed it.
I've included all my email that I sent back to those mainland types. If you have nothing to do for five minutes there's some interesting tit-bits in there I think.
Cheers all
"But we were heading ever further west, through the dramatic ranges of the south west whose peaks continually break through the horizon and jut skywards in their magnificence until we eventually reached Corinna via Queenstown and Strachan.
What used to be a five house backwater was taken over around 5 years ago by a group of five Sydney families called Corinna Wilderness Experience and turned into a complex with 16 cabins for rent, a large new building that houses a restaurant and reception centre, around 20 kayaks and canoes for hire, solar power (the old generator used to go off at 10 o’clock and there were no lights whatsoever after that) and most of the road in from Zeehan and Strahan has been sealed. Luckily, the old Huon pine launch (1939) is still running for the tours. Reportedly it’s the largest Huon pine vessel still afloat.
She has a leisurely cruising speed of 9 knots. Originally a luxury pleasure craft based in Hobart, it was requisitioned to serve in the Second World War in New Guinea as a supply ship. After some seasons as a scallop fishing boat on the East coast working from the Coles Bay area, the Arcadia was commissioned as a cruise boat on Macquarie Harbour and the Gordon River in 1961. In 1970 she moved to Pieman River where she faithfully served her new owners, the Ellis brothers, who introduced the first regular cruises on the Pieman River before the new owners took over.
The cruise takes you to Pieman Heads and the dozen or so leases that fisher folk have there along with their quirky nature; like the bus that they dragged on a pontoon from Corinna on a pontoon, wheeled it over to a spot and then built a house (so called) around it.
The beach here is littered with logs, for when they come down the river it’s onshore winds that predominate and so they are doomed to a life on the sand; I would like to have said they were also sunbaking but, since it rains here 5 days out of 7, there’s little time for that.
I managed to walk to the picturesque rocks at the southern end before I had to return for lunch and the trip back up the Pieman, named incidentally after a convict who escaped from Macquarie Penal Settlement with seven others. While 2 gave themselves up the others continued and eventually one made it to Hobart where Alexander “The Pieman” Pearce confessed to eating his comrades after he was caught. The judge didn’t believe him thinking that they were still alive and bushranging and so sent him back to Sarah Island where he escaped again less than a year later with a young convict named Thomas Cox. Just ten days later they recaptured him, this time with bits of Cox in his pockets.
He was sent to Hobart and hanged where he is purported to have said, “Man’s flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork,”......I’ve always said you just can’t tell what you get in pies....
We later did the Whyte River walk, a delightful 1½ hour stroll beneath a dense canopy where ferns and native laurel are in abundance around the trunks of the charismatic myrtle, the most photographed trees in Tasmania. The laurel, like leatherwood, is endemic to Tasmania, as is the flat grass, an aquatic plant that grows only in three rivers in Tasmania but lines the banks for kilometres here.
Towards the end of the trail we came across numerous fungi, from white to brown to orange to red and all shapes and sizes; they really are a weird species but delightful to look at. And sadly that was it. The next day the storms rolled in and we headed north."
I've included all my email that I sent back to those mainland types. If you have nothing to do for five minutes there's some interesting tit-bits in there I think.
Cheers all
"But we were heading ever further west, through the dramatic ranges of the south west whose peaks continually break through the horizon and jut skywards in their magnificence until we eventually reached Corinna via Queenstown and Strachan.
What used to be a five house backwater was taken over around 5 years ago by a group of five Sydney families called Corinna Wilderness Experience and turned into a complex with 16 cabins for rent, a large new building that houses a restaurant and reception centre, around 20 kayaks and canoes for hire, solar power (the old generator used to go off at 10 o’clock and there were no lights whatsoever after that) and most of the road in from Zeehan and Strahan has been sealed. Luckily, the old Huon pine launch (1939) is still running for the tours. Reportedly it’s the largest Huon pine vessel still afloat.
She has a leisurely cruising speed of 9 knots. Originally a luxury pleasure craft based in Hobart, it was requisitioned to serve in the Second World War in New Guinea as a supply ship. After some seasons as a scallop fishing boat on the East coast working from the Coles Bay area, the Arcadia was commissioned as a cruise boat on Macquarie Harbour and the Gordon River in 1961. In 1970 she moved to Pieman River where she faithfully served her new owners, the Ellis brothers, who introduced the first regular cruises on the Pieman River before the new owners took over.
The cruise takes you to Pieman Heads and the dozen or so leases that fisher folk have there along with their quirky nature; like the bus that they dragged on a pontoon from Corinna on a pontoon, wheeled it over to a spot and then built a house (so called) around it.
The beach here is littered with logs, for when they come down the river it’s onshore winds that predominate and so they are doomed to a life on the sand; I would like to have said they were also sunbaking but, since it rains here 5 days out of 7, there’s little time for that.
I managed to walk to the picturesque rocks at the southern end before I had to return for lunch and the trip back up the Pieman, named incidentally after a convict who escaped from Macquarie Penal Settlement with seven others. While 2 gave themselves up the others continued and eventually one made it to Hobart where Alexander “The Pieman” Pearce confessed to eating his comrades after he was caught. The judge didn’t believe him thinking that they were still alive and bushranging and so sent him back to Sarah Island where he escaped again less than a year later with a young convict named Thomas Cox. Just ten days later they recaptured him, this time with bits of Cox in his pockets.
He was sent to Hobart and hanged where he is purported to have said, “Man’s flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork,”......I’ve always said you just can’t tell what you get in pies....
We later did the Whyte River walk, a delightful 1½ hour stroll beneath a dense canopy where ferns and native laurel are in abundance around the trunks of the charismatic myrtle, the most photographed trees in Tasmania. The laurel, like leatherwood, is endemic to Tasmania, as is the flat grass, an aquatic plant that grows only in three rivers in Tasmania but lines the banks for kilometres here.
Towards the end of the trail we came across numerous fungi, from white to brown to orange to red and all shapes and sizes; they really are a weird species but delightful to look at. And sadly that was it. The next day the storms rolled in and we headed north."