South Coast Track Tasmania
Recently I walked the South Coast Track in Tasmania’s Southwest National Park wilderness with a friend and neighbour, Michael Sainsbury. It is regarded as one of the top bushwalks of the world because of it’s pristine, remote and wildlife rich nature. Having done it I completely agree.
In summary the trip is a flight into Melaleuca via TasAir and a walk 83km east coming out at Cockle Creek. The trip took us 6 days but you do need to allow 8 days. Bad weather can prevent you crossing the Ironbound Range and river crossings may not be possible if in flood.
It is a remote walk and there is a wide variety of terrain experience. The walk has three superb climbs. The first easy climb is into the Red Point Hills and the second was a difficult, windy, cold one over the Ironbound Range. The final climb is up to the top of the South Cape Range. I created the following elevation chart to highlight the climbs.
There are no roads, fire trails, huts or human infrastructure other than timbered sections of the track and the odd pit toilet to protect the ecosystem. So you are on your own other than the odd bush walker. There’s plenty of drinking water in creeks and streams. All seem to contain frogs, yabbies and fish. Some creeks flow red due to tea tree.
If you plan to do the walk then permits from TasAir flight departure or from Cockle Creek National Parks Office are $30. Take a map, compass, fuel stove (no fires allowed), first aid, an EPIRB and cold/wet gear.
The fauna is evident everywhere. You are certain to see at a minimum yabbies, freshwater fish, frogs, wallabies and many bird species. If you are lucky you may see the very rare Orange Bellied Parrot. There’s an incredible diversity of flora such as the Isophysis tasmanica orchid which we saw when crossing the Ironbound Range. If you like those strange looking plants in Dr Zeus books then you’ll love the Pandani and Scoparia up in the ranges.
I highly recommend reading King of the Wilderness the Deny King biography by Christobel Mattingley. Launceston Field Naturalists Club’s Guide to Flowers & Plants of Tasmania is also an excellent resource if you want to get the most out of the flora experience. Matt Downunder wrote a good post about preparing for a 10 day hike in south west Tasmania.
I’ve posted our Tasmania South Coast Track photo set at my flickr account
Mars? Blade Runner? No it's a Sydney dust storm
A surreal start to the day with a massive dust storm.
The picture left is one of my snaps on the way to Hornsby Station in Sydney.
There’s been some great photo’s of the event on Flickr.
Getting into nature, gets you into nature.
The easiest way to become environmentally sensitive is to get amongst nature. I always come back from a bushwalk feeling more enthusiastic than ever about saving what I have just seen. This weekend we took the kids and did a walk from Cowan down to Jerusalem bay in the Hawkesbury river (Ku-ring-gai Chase). The valley is steap, dark and has a phrehistoric feeling.
Here’s some Umbrella Ferns (Sticherus flabellatus) we saw on the section where the creek is not quite at sea level. We have this fern growing naturally in our backyard thus my interest in this one.
If you live in Sydney and want to know what plants are called that you see on bushwalks then get Les Robinson’s Field Guide to the Native Plants of Sydney. It just makes the experience richer when you learn a little about what you are looking at.
Stick Creature
We saved this guy from our pool after a storm last week. The kids kept him as a pet for a day and then we released him.
We didn’t think we would see him again but we were cleaning up the vege patch last night and he was still right where we released him munching away own our home-growns. Happy to share with this amazing creature.
I did some searching, it’s called a Ctenomorpha Chronus – Stick creature (Phasmatodea).
Simplicity is Sustainables Best Friend
Simplicity is Sustainables Best Friend is an article I’ve just done for TheCalmSpace.com. Simplicity is a key area of interest for me on many levels, business and personal, so this article was a fun one to write.
Society has somehow decided that simple is bad in many situations. There is a fight to give simplicity back its good name. Simplicity is a very sustainable and freeing existence for people to undertake…
Photo: The Lehmann families home made pasta
The Calm Space – The Sus in Sustainable
I have started writing for The Calm Space online magazine on the topic of sustainability. My first article is The Sus in Sustainable. I get asked to write for tech, saas blogs but time restricts me. The environment however is a topic which can’t wait as it will impact us all much sooner than we think. It can’t wait for ‘some day’ in the future when I have more time. Article teaser -
Society holds much suspicion toward sustainability. In the back of many minds out there I’m fairly certain that life may not be quite as balanced with nature as we would all like it to be… goto The Sus in Sustainable article
Leah Maclean one off our Saasu customers also writes for this online magazine. She wrote a great article about how it’s not easy being green in technology.
5 lessor known electricity saving tips
- Pool filters – cut the hours by half in winter. Keep it clean, filter less.
- Second fridges -keep the grill dust free and don’t cool to much beer and soft drink.
- Oil column heaters – these devices are glacier melters. If you have a couple of these think about an alternative.
- Leaving your computer on 24×7 – this takes down a lot more electricity over a year than I realised. In reflection, a computer should only take a minute to boot and the fresh boot feeling should pick you up those lost seconds.
- Electric hot water – this is one of the biggest and most ignored. Lower your hot water temperature setting. If you always need to add a lot of cold to your hot bath then it’s too hot. Change to off-peak if you haven’t already. Better still, supplement/convert to solar.
Wasp Eating 37 Spiders
On the weekend I was cleaning old clay wasp nests of the eaves of our house when I accidentally scraped one off that hadn’t hatched it’s youngsters yet. Inside it where 37 spiders in total, all alive (twitching) but paralyzed by a parent wasp who had collected them to lay baby’s in. These wasps make little clay homes and stuff them full of spiders. Charming.
However, I realise these wasps keep all the spiders away and as we live in a very typical Australian bushland valley I leave them until they have hatched. Otherwise we would be inundated with spiders. Hat tip to our little spider hunting wasps.
Green Shopping Bags. Why Green?
Cool Hunting points out Japans forever-ahead-of-the-curve answer to the reusable shopping bag. Far less likely to lead to social death when you use them to take stuff to BBQ’s. Who will print the first version with Elvis on the side? Even a Sudoku puzzle? Hit Ponoko , spec it and it could be you!
Water Tanks vs Damns
Are we being too quick to ‘damn’ the ‘dams’? Is it better for the environment if we humans produce 1,000,000 water tanks and the required pipes, pumps, controls and labour or alternately build a 1,000,000 person supplying dam using the utility approach?
I got to thinking about this today whilst looking into water tanks. My collegue Peter Cooper at Saasu.com suggested maybe we should look at more localized dams. I think this is actually quite sensible if sites are available. Don’t think for a second that I don’t like water tanks. My gut feeling is telling me I should have one. I’d just like to be certain (thinking more like an engineer) that the distributed environmental impact of producing water tanks is actually less than the centralised environmental impact of the utility approach of dam building. Any ideas so I can make a decision?
