Day 36 Nubeena 2nd March 2011

view from Jetty area Coal Mines


view from jetty area toward Main Settlement


detail of chapel building Coal Mine Settlement


view towards Tasman Island


Remarkable Cave

Evenin' all

Our day off today! We started with a spa and sauna and then a tidy up of our room.

We finally managed to exit the resort after midday to Lucky Ducks for a coffee.
We then proceeded to The Coal Mines Historic Site which was Tasmania's first operational mine. Coal was discovered in 1833 and the mine was staffed by the "most refractory convicts" from Port Arthur. The site is well spread out and we spent a couple of hours exploring and walked around 5km according to the GPS. I was struck by the size of the building stones used. The sandstone was cut on site and some of the blocks must have been nearly a metre long. They are bloody heavy and I wondered how many people were required to lift them 2 metres or more off the ground to build the walls. Maybe they had wooden scaffolds. They did have 600 convicts so maybe it was a case of many hands.

From there we headed further up the road to Lime Bay Nature Reserve where we pottered around taking in the atmosphere. We had planned to do an fairly easy walk to Lagoon Beach which is supposed to be pretty. However at 4:30 with the walk to take 3 hours we decided to return to Port Arthur to purchase a new copy of the very daggy walking book held here at the resort.

On the way through Nubeena we called into the resort at Susan's suggestion to see if anyone was interested in coming along. Rebecca a new arrival accepted and we duly drove via White Beach to Port Arthur. Books were duly purchased and I managed to get stung on my right wrist by a European Wasp that found its way inside my jacket sleeve while browsing the tourist brochures.

After leaving we took a side road into Port Arthur township and drove to the end of the road to Mendoin lookout and Remarkable Cave which was quite spectacular.

We returned to the resort for tea and found we had fresh steaks in the fridge!

Tonight I have repaired my broken fishing rod and it looks ok!

However I was looking in the roof bag this afternoon and not surprisingly after yesterdays downpour there was some water in there. I also noticed some daylight in the inside upper lining so another chore for tomorrow! It is raining here again tonight with some quite heavy showers so once again I don't think deck sanding will be on the cards tomorrow.

Cheers Simon