Wednesday March 3, 2010 - Day Trip to Riverside

Both of us had a hard time getting going this morning. We headed south to Beaconsfield where we sent a parcel home from the post office. We also checked out the other food store in town. It is not just a food store but a general store as well. We also checked out the on line access facilities. Found out we could not use out own computer.

Onward, down the road to Exeter we stopped at the bakery and picked up buns for lunch. We found out where the internet access centre was. After checking it out we found we could use our own computer here. Neither centre is open on the weekend. We are finding it hard to get internet access in Tasmania. The lady at Exeter said "It is hard to keep the centre open as so many people have their own computer with internet access". Exeter is about 30km from where we are.

Our next stop was the Tasmanian Zoo. We were just in time for the devil feeding. We watched as the handler entered the pen of 3 older females. Rosie is the more active one. She was looking forward to being feed. One of the others was enticed out with food. They are older than their peers in the wild. After feeding them the handler went to a different pen for two young females. One of them didn't mind being handled or shown off to people. He picked her up and brought her out so we could pet her. Even the youngest of the audience got to pet her. She was so cute. She was 7 months and 3 days old. She had a nice personality unlike her sister that is quite nasty. We looked around the rest of the park. It was so sunny and hot at the park. I was hoping to see the little blue penguins but they would not come out. Feeding of them was not until 4pm.

Our last major stop for the day was the Tamar Island Wetlands Reserve. There was a good breeze blowing so we decided to do the 1.5 km walk out to Tamar Island. When we were in the reeds there was not much breeze. I found myself getting over heated. Thank goodness there were 3 bridges over parts of the river. There I was able to cool down. I did not go all the way to the island. I was getting tired. Charles went on and I slowly made my way back to the visitors centre. The reed got progressively taller as we went. Between the second and third bridge the reed were about 2m tall. They were blowing in the breeze but the breeze did not reach the path. In 1920 in order to improve navigation on the river old river barges were scuttles and sunk to block the channel on the western side of the channel. This did not work. The first flood messed up the scheme. You can now see the old wrecks at low tide and at high tide you can see the grassy tops of them. It was something different to see. The Tamar is over 70km in length making it the longest estuary in Australia. It is tidal throughout its length. Launceston is at the head of the estuary.

Our last stop was close to Greens Beach. It was where the town of Yorktown was located. There is nothing left of the town that started in 1806. It was built on a swamp but had good water. The Tamar River could be seen from town. The town did not last long as it was in a terrible spot to get any ships to. The people in town were often near starvation as they waited for supplies to arrive by boat. Later apple trees were on the site. The apple industry continued into 1970's.