A day in the dark

I woke to lots of rain but no snow on Cradle Mountain. It made me aware just how lucky I’d been with the weather yesterday. It was a day for indoor activities so I set off for the Mole Creek Caves.

Not long after I’d started the low pressure light for the tyres came on. There wasn’t a lot I could do except check to see if I had a flat tyre as there were no service stations around to check the pressure. I know from the work cars that these warning lights can be very sensitive and finically. Every time I stopped I checked the tyres and couldn’t even tell which type was likely to be low. At some point the warning light went off.

I got to the Mole Creek Caves in time for a tour of the Marakoopa cave. It was really interesting, a bit tight in a couple of places but really interesting formations. There were also glow worms in the cave.

I stopped off at the Mole Creek Hotel for lunch. It is very Tasmanian Tiger themed and very much a country pub serving good food.

From there I made my way to Low Head which is at the mouth of the Tamar River. The main reason for coming here is penguins and platypuses. The penguins were tonight. I was worried about the wind but apparently the three things you need for good penguin sightings are high tide, dark night and the wind coming in from the Bass Strait. We had the wind. The wind makes it easier for the penguins to communicate. The high tide makes it easier to get up the beach and the dark night means less predators although they don’t have many predators at Low Head as there is a fenced reserve for them. There was 9 of us on the tour and we saw 5 groups of 10-20 penguins over the space of an hour. It was definitely worth the cold weather. I added a neck gaiter to my cold weather gear yesterday. I can wear it in a variety of ways but it’s to cover my face.

Platypuses are tomorrow.Read more