Of low tides, swamps, and beaches

After almost wiping myself out on the boat ramp — when I slipped and collided with the jetty, damaging my pride, bruising my shin and temporarily embedding at least one bit of broken barnacle in my leg — I spent the morning kayaking around Port Sorell in search of caches with some success. I visited the Shell Islands and found — eventually in both cases — the two caches that are hidden here. It was low tide, which made kayaking not quite as convenient as it could have been, as these are tidal islands and the water was a long way from the high tide mark. The two caches resisted my caching radar for longer than was polite, but I finally found them. My pursuit of a third cache, across the channel at Baker’s Point, was more frustrating as it couldn’t be found at all.

What remains of the stretch of water between two of the Shell Islands. There’s a cache on either side.

Starfish in the channel.

View from Baker’s Point back to the boat ramp; that’s my kayak on the beach.
This particular cache was supposedly under a tree, but there were lots of trees, and shifting sands, and it was nearly lunchtime!

After lunch we decided to go to Narawntapu National Park, where we saw various birds and animals, and walked out to the bird hide through an eerie tea-tree swamp.

Cloud effects over old hut near the Visitors’ Centre.

The tea-tree swamp.

Fallen tree branch through the tea-tree.

Tea-tree trunks rising from the swamp.

Coot on the lagoon.

Sticks protruding from the weedy water of the lagoon.

Denuded ghostly tea-tree at the edge of the lagoon.

After our walk to the bird hide, we were content to drive to a couple of points of interest in the park, finishing up on Baker’s Beach where the waves were breaking gently and the water was nice and warm for soothing feet and damaged shin-bones.

A young family part-way along Baker’s Beach.

A series of waves.

One wave.

Cloud reflections.

Cloud panorama.