Waratah - Burnie

Heading north towards the coast we made a small diversion to visit the old tin mining town of Waratah at Mt Bischoff. A pretty little town with an impressive waterfall conveniently in the middle of the town. The public gardens were really well maintained with lovely displays of tulips. The tin deposits were discovered in 1878 by James "Philosopher" Smith and were described as the richest tin lode in the world. With the waterfall being so handy the tin deposits were extracted by stampers that were powered by the flow of the water. In 1883 the first industrial use of hydro-electric power in Australia was generated here to help light the plant and other buildings.
Continuing on to Burnie and finally back to the north coast. We camped at the Council provided site at Cooee Point, right on the shoreline. Again there was only one other camper there.
To pass the afternoon we visited the lovely Fern Glade which is right in the middle of a bustling Burnie suburb. There are reportedly platypus in the creek but this time we didn't see any.
As the Cooee Point campsite is only a couple of hundred metres from the Penguin Observation Centre we were hopeful of spying some penguins at night fall, and we weren't disappointed. The penguins turned up right next to our van to feed the chicks that we had no idea were there. The rock walls along the shoreline make perfect nests for them and the chicks started to make a noise when the adults arrived. So cute, and smelly.Read more