19/11/2007 - Moina & Narawntapu

Northern Tasmania recently enjoyed the Recreation Day long weekend.  We had the joy of a wedding to attend on the Saturday.  After church on Sunday, we decided with a fine evening forecast, it would be a great time to have a go at our first night camping in small bushwalking tents as a family of 5.

My in-law's 'shack' at Moina is something we go to camp by.  It has been some time since anyone was bold enough to brave the critters and stay inside!

With a boot load of food, fishing gear, sleeping bags and tents, we headed up Gentle Annie Hill to the in-laws' bush block at Moina.  Cricket, bull ants, fried rice, pancakes, mobile-phone-photography, fishing and a beautiful sunset kept us entertained through the lovely mild afternoon and evening.

Sunset over Lake Gairdner and Stormont at Moina.

In the morning, we broke camp bright and early to rendezvous with a church group at Narawtapu.  Here we set out to conquer Archers Knob via the bird hide.

Grass Tree in full bloom on Archers Knob, Narawntapu National Park.  Bakers Beach, Port Sorell and the Dial Range in the background. 

After taking in the views from the knob, the group returned via a game of beach soccer and a long monotonous walk along Bakers Beach.  My children were delighted to blind fold me on the huge expanse of sand and watch how hopelessly I could not maintain a straight line.

Grass Tree flower forced down by the neighbouring banksia doing a fine impersonation of a kangaroo heading into the scrub.

Before this trip, I thought cameras on phones was a stupid idea,  However, having left our camera at the wedding, we had to resort to a phone camera for these visits to the bush.  As you can see, it didn't do a bad job.  Certainly better than nothing.  One thing that surprised me is that our phone camera had a panorama function.  Simply hit the button then slowly turn around.  As you do so, the phone stitched together the image.  Nifty!

225° view from Archers Knob stretching from Western Bluff to the south-east over the Springlawn wetlands and Bakers Beach out to Bass Strait to the north.