Burnie

The surprise packet town of the trip. Last time I was here, the Reflex paper factory dominated both the vista and the character of the town. Today, Burnie clearly has civic pride and is attempting to reinvent its image as a multi-faceted modern city, retaining heavy industry, but cultivating its more human side. In a fine summer day, all would seem to be well with this plan.

It really is only a short drive from Wynyard across to Burnie. A quick packup and a short walk along the beach had us across the short coastal  road and to the farmers markets by 9am. Accompanied by a quite extensive antiques and collectables auction, the farmer’s markets covered fruit, vegetables, jams, preserves, bread, meat, wines, peanut butter, cakes, baking, honey and probably a few more things I have forgotten about. The best tomatoes I’ve seen this side of Queensland and lots of stonefruit easily fulfilled the main mission of the day. However, the extensive range of other options had us raiding the kids funds to maintain liquidity for a second offensive.

Burnie has an extensive visitor centre combined with a “Makers Workshop”, a rotating exhibition and display of live craftwork and gallery. Today’s makers were glass beads and paper, and there were displays of musical instruments, woodwork, intarsia and many other things.

From there it was a short walk along the waterfront into town where the kids braved the waters of Bass Strait on a fine and sunny day for a swim while I found some Wifi to upload blogs. The front has been developed in a very attractive fashion, although parking meters on a Saturday were a bit of a bore.

Guide Falls was chosen as the nearby option for a late lunch. While quite pretty in its own right, the locals today were using it as a swimming option at the base of the falls. We also chose it as a moment to plan our last couple of days on the island.

Leven Canyon was chosen for tonight. The camping information was a little ambiguous but the place itself was given rave reviews by several people we had met on the road, so we made the journey inland. What a surprise! About an hour round trip walk takes you to a high lookout showing several bends and the steep sides of the Leven River far below. It is then 600 steps down, but that only gets you half way down to what they call the edge lookout. Totally unexpected and a bit of a well-kept secret, even though the reserve itself is about 90 years old.

The campsite is also well setup. Flushing toilets, a shelter shed with wood BBQ and timber provided. Gave us an opportunity to eat some of our market booty and give us a good shake at garlic poisoning. Yum!