I was getting bored again and Mitch had to help her sister out, so I decided to pack the kids up and go for a wander. I tried to stick to areas we haven’t been before, but inevitably we travelled through areas we did know.
We pretty much did a quick run across to Westbury where we stopped for a few minutes to stretch the legs. The weather was still quite fresh (approximately 1 degree), however the sun was out and the sky was blue so we really couldn’t complain about that!
Departing Westbury he headed north passing over the highway up towards Birralee. We turned off and wound our way through the forest to Brushy Lagoon. There were a few keen anglers already out on the water – kinda strange because I didn’t think permits come into play until next weekend.
Continuing on the recent wet weather started to manifest itself as we negotiated quite a lot of mud holes. For a relatively main track I was quite surprised how bad it was.
Further down the track I decided to turn around as I really wasn’t looking forward to recovering myself if/when we got stuck – a couple of the holes we went through needed front and rear locker and were getting quite deep.
Might leave the rest of that until I get someone to actually come for a run with me (hint, hint…….)
We ended up taking a bush track and popped back out onto the main road near the Holwell turn-off. Whilst it is bitumen based, the road through Holwell to Beaconsfield winds itself through the Dazzler Range. This makes for a slow but very interesting drive but a word of caution in winter – this road does struggle to get any sort of sunshine on it in areas.
Another quick stop at Beaconsfield (gotta love nappies) to stretch the legs and we again headed north.
This time we continued up to Greens Beach and into the Narawntapu National park, which provides access to a brilliant lookout and secluded beach.
Another word of warning. The National Park pass is $25 for a 24 hour period, $95 for a 12 month pass and $123 for 24 months. You can guess which one I got – the 24 month one. This pass covers you for up to 3 separate registered vehicles that you own – so I received a sticker for each vehicle. I figure I’ll spend enough time in those areas to justify the initial purchase.
The view from Greens Beach is quite good itself. Located at the mouth of the Tamar river, it certainly looks like it’d get busy in school holiday periods.
Outside of that time though (like today) and it’s a peaceful quite community.
We didn’t bother doing the run into Badger Head, deciding to leave that for another day. We instead turned into Asbestos Road and took the gravel alternative again back over the Dazzler Range.
There is a bloody good steep climb and drop at approximately the mid-way point, however being a gravel road it is all easily negotiated. The road is quite corrugated at the moment, in particular at the corners – the outside line is certainly smoother, but inherently more dangerous.
There was certainly an abundance of tracks throughout the area which whet my appetite for more exploring. I might take a look at the topographical maps in the near future and try to work out a plan of attack.
At the end of the road we again headed north and enter the Narawntapu National Park (western side) and explored the area. All of it is doable in any vehicle but it does provide some access to a really picturesque area. The beaches are certainly nowhere near crowded, although school holidays may change that a lot.
There is plenty of room for camping, with costs around the $22 per night per family for a powered site. Other alternative areas are closer to the beach or river, however the sites tend to be smaller or have restriction like no fires etc.
I noticed that the beach access is now totally closed off, so the only way through the area is by foot. This is a shame as you could have drove from Greens Beach all the way across to Hawley Beach if it was for this restriction (like the Bridport to Bellingham run).
Coming back out of the National Park we headed down through East Sassafras before having to use the highway. The highway leg didn’t last for long as we turned off and headed through Kimberley to Dunorlan. Continuing on through Forestry roads we travelled through Weegena and turned left to go over the range.
Arriving in Mole Creek we continued on to Deloraine to catch up with Mitch who had just finished. A quick run home the back way through Osmaston and Bracknell, and surprisingly we did over 350km’s for the day. It adds up real quick!
Overall a very enjoyable day through some great areas worthy of further investigation.
Cheers
Chris