Driving south from Dunalley you reach the second bottleneck in the Tasman Peninsula called Eaglehawk Neck. So any convicts trying to escape north from Port Arthur had to pass through two well-defended narrow points, both of which were guarded by hungry dogs. Besides which, a series of semaphore relay towers had been placed all along the Tasman Peninsula up to Hobart, some 95 km away, so officials in the city would be aware of any escapes within 15 min (on a clear day!).
The issue of a ‘clear day’ is relevant here because when we arrived at Pirates Bay Lookout, this was our view of the coast...
And within the hour, this was our view………..
We stopped briefly to view the Tesselated Pavement (a geological feature)…...
Lawrence did test the sea temperature at Dogs Bay and deemed it far too cold to swim in. White sands and torquoise water are the standout features of the east coast of Tasmania.
We stopped at the Tasman Blowhole but didn’t see much blowhole activity!
We did discover that the strong westerly winds had taken out the power in the region, so no working toilets and no special berry ice cream, had to make do with regular ice cream which would not blow the generator! Anyway, as we sat in the sun to enjoy our ice cream, we had company from a beautiful Superb Fairy Wren.
Next a walk to the Tasman Arch and the Devil’s Kitchin, both slightly underwhelming today!
As the weather was not improving, we continued on to our accommodation at Stewarts Bay and were glad to discover an electric blanket in the bed! We did take a brief walk to the bay, but the grey weather did nothing to make it look interesting.
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