Walk in the Narawntapu National Park

Today was to be a walk day.  I'd been reading up and it looked like there was a really nice walk up at Badger Head in one of the northern National Parks (Narawntapu - I always have to look that name up).  The full walk was rated medium-hard (includes rock scrambling) but there was also an easy option where you turned back part-way through.  Nice and flat, it looked like a good idea.

I didn't manage to set off as early as I would have liked (a symptom of having breakfast at 8am, I can never really get out until after 9am.) but I got on the road and headed north.  I'd passed the turnoff yesterday so I was feeling pretty confident.

The River House is on the east shore of the Tamar and I needed to get to the West so I crossed at the Batman Bridge.



The driving instructions then said

'follow the A7 highway along the western side of the Tamar River for 39km through Exeter to Beaconsfield.  Continue for 700m to the northern edge of the town then turn left and follw the sealed C629 road towards Greens Beach ...Continue north-west for 8km then turn left onto the signposted road to Bakers Beach.  Follow the gravel road for 10k to enter the national park.'


I was fine until the last bit.  Somehow I managed to take the wrong gravel road.


View Larger Map

You may notice that there's a second gravel road which passes all the way from east to west of the park.  That's the one I managed to get on.   It was definitely spectacular but I wasn't exactly keen to stop in case someone came up behind me.  Still I made it.

Fortunately there was a different walk which could be done from this end of the park, namely the Archers Knob & Copper Cove Circuit.  It was a bit long (15.7 km all up according to my walking book) but it didn't look too bad and when I checked with the Ranger she thought I should be able to do it.

My main concern was that I didn't actually have lunch with me today, just muesli bars.  Still, nothing wrong with that.  At least they're better than nothing and I did have plenty of water so I knew I'd be fine.

It was absolutely gorgeous.  Completely different terrain to Liffey Falls.



But gorgeous in it's own way.



I did the climb up Archer's Knob and the view from the top more than made the effort worthwhile



Then back down and onto Baker's Beach itself where the embedded shells had really marked slipstream trails which were parallel to the shoreline (the tide must do some crazy things)



I started heading up Little Badger head and got to the plateau on the top but decided to turn back as the ground was getting boggy and I was starting to get a bit clumsy (sign of tiredness).  I had 2 near slips and didn't want to chance a third which completed itself (especially as I was walking alone and hadn't seen anyone else on the track)



All up I did 14 km today (I think, I've estimated to take account of where I turned back..it was 6.5km to the bottom of Little Badger head then 2.4km across it - I figure I did about half of that so I rounded down a bit to be sure).  Out of curiosity I checked out the Liffey Falls Walk from a couple of days ago and that was 7.2 km (according to 'Day Walks Tasmania' - an excellent purchase by the way) so I've done 21.2 km so far this trip!!!

After doing the walk I treated myself to buying some new boots.  I didn't need them but I had a booking for dinner tonight at the Launceston Yacht Club and thought it deserved something better than my R.M. Williams (although they have proved themselves indispensible in so many ways).  And they were on sale so a definite win.  Truth be told, I've been looking for a new pair of 'dress boots' for a while now (since I broke the heel on my last ones about 9 months ago) and this just was the right time.

Dinner was gorgeous!  I don't know if they were on their mettle due to the Targa (Carl from The River House mentioned that he'd had variable service there) but it was the little things which made a difference.  I'd made my booking for just myself (obviously) and when I arrived they had a selection of 3 magazines for me to browse through between courses).  They were also marvellously attentive (the table in front of me dropped one of their knives on the floor and someone was checking on them and bearing a replacement knife within a few minutes).

Entree was fine but I indulged myself with the main and ordered a seafood platter so I could try a little bit of everything.  Glorious!!! (and another example of me staying strong and not feeling compelled to eat everything on the plate once I felt full).

Once again, here's the link to all my photos related to today