Bird books ain't bird books - and a tale of three wattlebirds

My best Christmas present this year was a new bird guide. The 2012 (ninth) edition of Pizzey's 'Birds of Australia', no less.

I already had two well thumbed, trusty books at my disposal: the 1981 Pizzey, and Simpson & Day's 'Field Guide to the Birds of Australia' (fourth edition, 1993). So why would I want another?

Well the Simpson & Day had been leading me astray with its wattlebirds. It said there was the Little Wattlebird in WA, the Yellow Wattlebird in Tas, and in Sydney it said we got the Red Wattlebird and the Brush Wattlebird. Yet I kept hearing references to Little Wattlebirds in Sydney. What was going on?


Pizzey had no Brush Wattlebirds gracing its pages. And we got the Little Wattlebird in Sydney. The big disadvantage with my old Pizzey was that the picture pages had all the birds bunched close together, and these, as well as the descriptions and the distribution maps were all in totally different sections of the book, which was a real pain.

All was revealed re the great wattlebird conundrum recently when I heard that the Brush and Little Wattlebirds had now been reclassified as the same species. There's no longer a Brush Wattlebird, and yes, it really is the Little Wattlebird here.

And pages 386 and 387 of my new Pizzey are devoted entirely to the three Australian wattlebirds. Pictures, maps, and descriptions are all there together now. All just as it should be! Good work Mr. Pizzey. (And Mr. Knight, the illustrator.)

Gooches Crater

Gooches Crater is a classic old favourite Blue Mountains bushwalk. It's a pleasant two or three hours in along the ridge tops north of Bell.

You start at the spot on Sandham Road just beyond the now unwelcoming private property that we used to be able to walk across. You sidle across to the east a few hundred metres, then join the good old main ridge track northwards.

After crossing the Wollangambe River (probably on a big fallen tree trunk), you clamber up again, and do a couple more kilometres northwards along another ridge. The tracks have become much harder to find, in the aftermath of the massive bushfire here three years ago (described here: 2013 adventure ) and under my expedition leadership, we wandered around a bit more than I'd hoped, before eventually finding our way into the Crater through the maze of hills and pagodas and ridges. It's not really a crater. It just looks like one.






















After lunch among the flannel flowers, we explored some nearby rock features, and then pioneered another route back, via Friday Canyon (as named by us on a previous expedition, pictured here), and Dargan Arch.











Another nice day out for the Thursday Surveyors!

Visiting Cape Horn (not the South American one) on a slow news day

Another excellent day out recently for my Thursday adventure bushwalking group. This time it was the Cape Horn area of the Gardens of Stone region.

Again lots of great views, cliff scrambles, pagoda formations, caves and overhangs etc.

Driving out was interesting. We took what we thought was the easier of the two dirt roads. Then we encountered the scariest bit of road I've ever been driven along. Massive holes and boulders, and a 30 degree downhill slope. Could this really be a road? Was it really navigable?






Most of the passengers got out and walked. Our intrepid driver refused to be cowed, and headed on down.

Then this!



(Actually no. There's a bit of media manipulation going on here. This must be one of those fake news sites we've heard about! The wreck was an entirely different vehicle, and we'd photographed it earlier in the day!)

Maiyingu Marragu

An excellent day out recently with my Thursday bushwalking explorers group! We went to the Maiyingu Marragu Aboriginal Place. It's a special area within the Newnes State Forest, just off the Wolgan Valley Rd, and it used to be known as Blackfellows Hand Reserve.

It's also part of the Gardens of Stone area, and in a future, better, world, it will be part of an enlarged Gardens of Stone National Park.

Here we are, heading on up the fire trail at the start of the walk.


The area is another bushwalkers' paradise - full of terrific rock formations, canyons, slots, caves, labyrinths, pagodas - the lot. A bit like the fabled Donkey Mountain down the road, but easier to get to and a bit more spread out.

The features have all been named (by our Bush Club friends) after places in the Indiana Jones films. So there's a Last Crusade Ravine, as well as a Holy Grail Ravine. There's a Temple Creek, a Labyrinth, and a Sacristy, and there's a wonderful area of spectacular pagodas: the Temples of Doom. We found a bathtub formation too, so we named that.

The best known feature of the area though, is the big rock overhang known as 'Blackfellows Hand Cave'. There are lots of fine examples of hand stencils to peruse.

Have you ever seen Sydney from a 747 at night?

Even from a 737 in the late afternoon it looks pretty good.



Here's the north coast of Tasmania, looking down on Bridport and Tomahawk.

"Sydney shines such a beautiful light.
And I can see Bondi through my window way off to the right."

Paul Kelly said it all really. Sydney's quite a place to come home to.

"Now the red roofs are catching the first rays of the morning sun.
My eyes are full of sand from my midnight run.
And the captain says 'Belt up now, we'll be touching down in ten'.
So I press my seat and I straighten up.
I fold my tray and I stash my cup.
As the red roofs are catching the first rays of the morning sun."

Sydney shines such a beautiful light.

Here's Kelly at the Revesby Workers' Club:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pRthfLnpX8  

Still owner builders

In my long lost north west Tasmanian previous life I rubbed shoulders with lots of enterprising folk who were building their own houses. The owner-builder fraternity (and sorority) were a fine bunch of people in fact, and I was proud to join their ranks.

I'm still in touch with some of them, and on this trip I caught up with one old favourite house, and looked over two new ones.

They're pretty impressive, I'm sure you'll agree.

Below is a picture from 30 years ago of my very own creation in the bush behind Ulverstone.

Tassie birds

This is the Tasmanian Native Hen. An endemic Tasmanian, also known locally as the 'roadrunner', for its habit of running along in front of your car, rather than doing the intelligent thing and dodging to the side!

I saw this one in Richmond, near the old bridge.

An Eastern Rosella, a bit camera-shy, and not confined to Tassie.











I called in briefly at Orielton Lagoon, a designated wetland of international importance near Hobart.





Saw a group of  Pied Oystercatchers doing their extraordinary mating dance.

A rocky and rather beautiful coastal park

I made a foray into North West Tasmania's Rocky Cape national Park. I'd forgotten just how scenic it was.

You can do a full traverse from Sisters Beach in the east, to Rocky Cape in the west, or you can do various circuits, one of which I did.

 I visited Anniversary Bay, and was reminded again that in Tasmania you nearly always get the whole beach to yourself.

The creeks are full of tannin from native vegetation, and make for colourful patterns as they trickle across the white sand beaches.







Doone Falls is another highlight. This picture is the right way up, by the way. It's just like that.

The pool at the bottom was exquisitely patterned by the natural foams and tannin-brown water. Some years ago I took a similar picture of a similar pool, and the photo-processing  lady in the local K-Mart was so impressed that she asked me if she could use the image as her standard advertising image for her services. I happily agreed, and for several years I experienced a proud glow whenever I visited that emporium.

Top, middle, and bottom

Pubs, that is. Lots of country towns have a top and a bottom pub, and often a middle one too. Here are Ulverstone's.

Top pub is these days called The Lighthouse, and they've put a (plastic?) lighthouse tower thing on the roof. I had a nice meal here, and asked the barmaid to remind me what the place used to be known as. "Stones", she said. That's right! How could I forget my Ulverstone pubs?

Just down the road is the grand old Furners pub. It looks pretty well unchanged, on the outside at least. I had an even better meal there.

The disappointment is the bottom pub, the River Arms. In the late 70s  and early 80s this one was looking very smart and cosy, and hired some very good cooks to became the gastro pub of choice for hip young Ulverstonians like me. And shortly after then, its bottom bar gained national fame for its 'Bottoms Bar', with its display of (sometimes tasteful) photography featuring the relevant anatomical part.

None of this now though. It's been renovated again recently, and most of it seems to have become a reception centre. Meals were being served in the upper section, but I found the ambience less than inviting.


Ulverstone's main drag is still dominated by the Shrine of Remembrance clock tower, at the very top end of town. It's a bit hard to love this thing, but here's an interesting account of it from the Burnie Advocate on the occasion of its 60th anniversary, in 2014:
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/2179023/clocks-life-and-chimes/

Once were papermakers

While in Tasmania's north west, I paid a sentimental visit to one of my former workplaces there.

The Wesley Vale paper mill was a bright, shiny, state-of-the-art plant when I first worked there 40 years ago. It was somewhat inefficient, in that the original plan had always been to expand it with more paper machines and/or a gigantic new pulp mill, but in those days, what the hell, inefficient was OK, and I was paid quite well to make it slightly less inefficient each year.

The company in those days was Associated Pulp and Paper Mills. Later it became part of Australian Paper, and something called PaperlinX was involved too for a while. I was based most of the time at the Burnie site - the older, smokier and smellier 'Pulp', as it was known.

Tasmanian paper mills in those days were highly polluting, and tended to devour large swathes of pristine native forest for their raw materials. The Pulp was about as bad as they got. Both it and the Wesley Vale site closed finally in 2010. The local marine environment is much better off for it. Unfortunately native forests continue to be cut and woodchipped - supplying overseas paper mills instead these days. Few local jobs are involved, and it brings in not that much cash. So it goes in third world economies like Australia's.


When I pulled up to survey the sorry scene the other week, I saw three or four cars parked there. That seemed to imply that some minor enterprise may have found a use for the premises, but I suspect attempts to sell the site for anything more grandiose have so far come to nothing.

Driftwood

My cabin at Turners Beach in north west Tasmania was called 'Driftwood', and looking at the beach there, I could see why.

I heard that there's far more of it than usual on the beaches around here, because of the wild weather and floods of recent months.

All agog at Mount Roland

I was rather proud of this heading until I realised that Mt Roland isn't actually part of the Gog Range. That's a few kilometres to the south east of it.

Never mind, it's a meritorious and gog-inspiring mountain, and it's a prominent landmark from most parts of Tasmania's North West Coast.

Life under Mt Roland must be very scenic, but I wonder if it's really paradise?

The nearby town of Sheffield is the usual stopping off place for a Mt Roland visit. It's renowned for its public murals, many of which feature the rocky edifice. There's even a cut-out of it there.


I took the short, sharp route up the mountain, starting at Kings Rd, in the settlement known as Claude Rd. It's a good, well marked track, and takes you up from about 400m altitude to over 1230m. At first it's in forest, and then you're scaling boulders up a steep gully.










The last kilometre or so is on open plateau, and there are views across most of the northern half of the state.



The whole walk took about five hours.