Wednesday 8 June 2011

The Granite Shore

While Tasmania may look tiny compared to the big island of Australia, be prepared to be surprised by its size and complexity. 

Just what length is the coastline of Tasmania? I set out to answer that question a few years ago by walking around the whole shoreline of the island. I planned to write a book about the adventure.

So far I have walked (and climbed) 1350 kilometres and I am not yet half way around the island. I realized very early on, while negotiating the rugged granite sea cliffs of the Freycinet Peninsula, where the great adventure began, just how inadequate one book would be to do justice to a subject that is, in the fractal sense, infinite.

So here are a few images from the projected first volume, the working title of which is The Granite Shore, encompassing the northern half of the east coast. 

That section of coast is composed largely of white and pink granites intruded during the Devonian. Stunning rocky headlands, interspersed with sweeping white sandy beeches, is the guise adopted by this earthly paradise.

The granite doesn't end with the main island of Tasmania. Great lumps of the rock are scattered across the 300 kilometres of sun-smashed, wind-tormented Bass Strait that separates Tasmania from the big island to the north. 

I will include some of those islands in this book as well.

  




Great Oyster Bay from Hazards Beach, Freycinet Peninsula



The Sea Level Traverse of The Hazards, a 6k long climb that begins at Wineglass Bay and finishes at Sleepy Bay
                


Sunset at Bryans Beach Freycinet Peninsula



Diana's Basin



Red Rock Point on the east coast of Flinders Island. Babel Island is in the distance.



Trousers Point, Flinders Island



Sunset at The Docks, Flinders Island



5 comments:

  1. Breathtaking pictures and lovely words...I am going to enjoy this journey with you

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  2. Wow! Your photos are amazing. I can feel the "space" in the climb from the Bay to the top the "Hazards"...

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  3. I'm going to enjoy visiting your blog and seeing these amazingly beautiful photos. What an enchanting place to visit. I can't imagine living where there is so much beauty surrounding me.

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  4. Thank you all for the feed back. Maddyrose - yes Tasmania is a stunningly beautiful place and it is a never ending fight to preserve what we have here in this island from the power and business elites who see nothing more than a bunch of resources to be stripped and liquidated. As the world is degraded Tasmania could be an ark.

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  5. absolutely stunning photography bob... as a Tasmanian I have always been amazed by our beautiful state and what you find around every corner of the coast to the alpine heart of our home . We are just so lucky to live where we live !!!! Natures Best.

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