This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Tag Archives: The Nut


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2000 Travels March 11

SATURDAY 11 MARCH     STANLEY

I was up before John and walked up to the shops for the papers. On my way back, I was stopped by a lady who was walking a black labrador dog. She had seen the Cooktown T shirt I was wearing and wanted to talk travel. I admired her dog – she said it was a neighbour’s, and she just did them a favour, walking it.

S is from Burnie and has a holiday house here. She and her husband are teachers and are planning a trip to Innamincka and the Flinders Ranges in the mid-year holidays. She asked if she could come round to the van, later, with some maps, to have a consult.

Read the papers for the rest of the morning. We had decided to have a fairly quiet day, after yesterday’s travel.

After lunch, we walked to the base of The Nut, where the walking track goes up it. There was also a chairlift for those who wanted. It was a stiff climb up, then we walked around the large flat area that is its top. It was much better up there than I had anticipated. There was a variety of outlooks – along the coast, over the town, and almost straight down to the little port section, below. We spent about an hour up there, watching the activity around the port. There was also an outlook over the historic Highfield property, that occupies the rest of the Circular Head promontory of land behind The Nut.

I didn’t take the camera, figuring we’d be going up again, another day, and rather regretted it when I saw how much of interest there was.

While I was roasting the chicken and vegies for tea, S called in – she’d been by earlier, with maps, but we were out. She said she’d bring her husband round at some stage over the weekend.

Got chatting with four people from vans behind us. It turned out they were friends of the couple that we’d gotten to know in the caravan park at Berriedale. They have moved back into their east coast house, but apparently he was still fretting to travel more. I could relate to that!

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Dusk at Stanley – tide out

Phoned K and left a message for him to send the mail, mid-week, to Burnie. We should be heading that way when we leave here, so can collect it then. Have also been in contact with the bank, and our new Mastercards are being sent to the bank there.


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2000 Travels March 10

FRIDAY 10 MARCH   ZEEHAN TO STANLEY   235kms

There was light drizzling rain when we got up in the morning.

Knowing we had a comparatively long drive ahead of us, we were away about 9am. Had to get fuel in town before we left – 93cpl.

It was slow and careful driving to Rosebery and Tullah and on up to Waratah Junction. We could smell the brakes a couple of times, especially on the big hill out of Rosebery. The country was a mix of forests and the open swampy heathlands common on the west coast.

At Waratah Junction, we turned off the Murchison Highway onto the Burnie road. This road was fine – it used to be the private road for the APPM trucks. Going that way allowed us to avoid the Hellyer Gorge.

Came to the coast at Burnie. Saw a Woolworths supermarket so we stopped to have a shop – first decent stock up I’d done for a while.

Turned west on the Bass Highway, along the coast. This was winding and fairly slow – but a pleasant change in scenery from the forests of the past few weeks.

Turned off the highway and drove down into Boat Harbour – a hamlet of holiday houses, mostly – and sat in Truck to eat our lunch, with a pleasant outlook over the bay and beach. It had turned into a nice day at the coast.

Back onto the highway and we arrived at our destination, Stanley, mid afternoon. We’d chosen to come here as a base to explore some of the north west, that seemed to offer history, scenery and be fairly central for what we planned to do.

Stanley is interesting, geographically, being situated at the base of The Nut – a volcanic plug – which is a really impressive, square, high, hill, rising out of the sea, it seems. The road in follows a narrow neck of land that connects The Nut to the main coast, like a natural causeway, for several kms.

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The Nut and the township of Stanley beneath it

We booked into the very pleasant Stanley Caravan Park. $13 a night, with the seventh free, which we thought was a very good price, given the standard. It is one of the handful of better caravan parks we have come across in our Tasmanian travels.

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Our site at Stanley, with the late afternoon sun on The Nut

Set up camp then walked up to the shops for a look around. Up was the operative word, as the township is on the lower flanks of The Nut. The township streets create a kind of terraced effect, with walkways between levels. It is a very pleasant seeming town.

I ordered the papers kept for us at the newsagency. I could see the morning walk up to get the papers would be a lovely way to start the day.

Tea was bought fish and chips.

03-10-2000 to stanley