East Coast Tasmania

Today we left Launceston, heading south the pretty way down the Great Eastern Drive. Very windy roads - as in many bends - led us through high forest, bush and wilderness, down to sea level along the east coast of Tazzie. These photos I took at Shelly Point, Scamander, before we drove further to our hotel for two nights in Bicheno. One of the joys of travelling here in late autumn-early winter, after the tourist season's over, is that we can enjoy the natural world with few people around. Another spin-off, when it's so quiet, is that for the second time our room's been upgraded (not by request, just cos it's available) so we have a raised patio with a sea view. Wonderful.

Back to my blip: the successful fisher is an Australian Pied Oystercatcher (Haematopus longirostris). And if you look closely at the distant rocks in the square-cropped seascape, those two birds, I'm almost sure, are Red-capped plover (Charadrius ruficapillus).

The place names here, influenced strongly by British settlers, confuse this Brit who is already geographically challenged: we left Launceston, drove through Derby and St Helen's (among other places), at some point were welcomed to Dorset (on a signpost) and now we're in Bicheno in ... Glamorgan! It's doin' me 'ead in!