1/9/2024 0 Comments Tinderbox mobile al![]() ![]() At risk from nutrient loading due to high terrestrial inputs of nutrients and reduced flushing times.The State of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and the lower Huon Estuary report (Parsons, 2012) states the following about North WestBay: That’s why all around us there are tortoises balancing elephants.Ī little more about this tortoise and that elephant: We’re the destruction and destruction doesn’t give a damn. We’ve used up ecosystems like their isn’t going to be one. So far, it had been an absorbing paddle, but I thought how westerners accuse some of the cultures amongst whom they’ve settled their flagpoles of not planning for tomorrow. We haven’t necessarily recognised that actually, we are the ones that haven’t planned for tomorrow in the most significant of ways. The geo was standing on the rocky platform staring at the cliffs. I negotiated the fish farm and the Wingara jetty, passing cormorants holding their wings out to dry. Occasional the kayak scratched as I went over them in too shallow water. Sometimes I had to go out a little wider to avoid the ‘bommies’. From the fish farm and that first house on the shore, it became less interesting beneath the water but the cliffs were awesome. It was as I paddled along the shoreline beside the fish farm that I really noticed the decline in seagrasses and seaweed. ![]() The quietude of private beaches Only rec fishers! For a moment I thought they were fish farm workers out to bust me for straying into fish farm waters The bay spread before me but below the water it wasn’t so uplifting anymore I came to a cove with a private beach and tried that lifestyles on for size. That’s why, on this trip, I sometimes floated above beaches drowned by the tide and gazed at ancient ones laid down in the sandstone’s stratigraphy. Instead of high tide, for the D’Entrecasteaux and kayaking I wanted high tides, expecting mostly muddy shores. Weathering artistically – when geology morphs into art formĪndrew Short (2006) doesn’t mention beaches on this side of the bay in his inventory of Tasmanian beaches, and I had flipped my strategy for exploring beaches. Never high, they sloped downwards, eucalypts and grasslands above, and gave way to a cobbled shoreline. It wouldn’t take me long to reach Wingara, I figured, but then I saw the sandstone cliffs and my speed slackened off again. That’s more than enough, but there’s a fish farm here that ups the nutrient load, a bit of light industry (pre-cast concrete and glazing), a seafood factory and a marina, moorings and a boat yard as well as a sewage works. (Jordan et al. ![]() They, along with various rivulets entering the bay, carry local litter, grey water, toxins and the like. It enters Ranggoerrade, and so does the lovely Snug Rivulet, hugging its secrets to itself in a dreamy sort of way, a perfectly beautiful miniature estuary. The North West River plummets down the southern slope of kunanyi (Mt Wellington) and when it happens to be dry its bed gleams with large, pale boulders and when it’s in flood it’s strength is so awesome your breath catches. It carries the suburb of Howden, the country towns of Margate, Electrona and Snug, as well as Conningham, where shacks along a short series of sandy beaches now make up something of a commuter suburb. The further I went into the bay, the more I noticed that diversity beneath my kayak was diminishing, and I realised that this bay is like a tortoise trying to support an elephant on its stoic little back. It’s a good area to walk too, and on this eastern side there are three spots of interest: Wingara, Stinkpot Bay and the Peter Murrell Reserve, and I was heading to Wingara to catch up with the patient geo. It’s a good road to cycle but it’s still on my ‘to do’ list. There’s a long winding road that feels its way down that particular edge of the bay, past a number of Howden houses set in big blocks of land, a couple of small bays (somewhat muddy) and a bus shelter that doubles as a local book exchange or perhaps a community library. It’s eastern shore is also the western shore of the Tinderbox Peninsula and it’s easy to forget this as you wander about this area. It’s a low energy embayment of about 2,000 ha. Ranggoeradde may not have been properly translated at all. It’s easy to withhold, mislead, confuse or misunderstand when it comes to words and their meanings, particularly when the relationship between the teller and the person with the quill is untrusting, or uncertain at best. Fallen giantĪ lot may have been lost in translation. Calling it by a name so redolent in history restores something of its original character, despite the fact that it has been stripped of its myths and stories and the people who told them aren’t really recognised anymore. The Tortoise and the Elephant Cliffs passed as I entered RanggoeraddeĪnd so I left vibrant Tinderbox Marine Reserve behind me and turned into Ranggoeradde, better known as North West Bay. ![]()
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