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| The landscape in the folds beneath the Plateau is very different to that of Poatina |
My friend doesn’t drive, making it difficult for her to get to many parts of Tasmania, so I thought while we were in this area I should try to take her to Liffey Falls.
I should point out that at the same time as I broke my arm, she had broken her leg and was still having physio and I wasn’t too sprightly myself. Ever since my stint in hospital I would start out enthusiastically enough, and then quite suddenly run out of steam. We pulled into the lower Campground and set off on the three -hour walk from the bottom of the hill to the base of the falls.
The walk was pretty enough – it was a veritable fern garden through light rainforest with myrtle and sassafrass trees and the river beside us on and off, but it was all uphill. By the time we got to the little bridge which marks the junction between the track which comes down from the top, and this one, I had to sit down and rest. Determined, my friend struggled on for a bit, but also returned disappointed.
If you wanted to learn about the great variety of ferns in Tasmania, this would be a good place to start, though there are many others. Not sure about some of the names. These are either ones or know or as identified by my phone. Don't quote me.
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| Hymenophyllum |
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| Belchnum attenuatum |
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| The familiar fishbone fern though my camera says its Polypodium scouleri |
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| Kangaroo Fern - Microsorum pustulatum |
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| There's a small tree fern on the left - Dicksonia antarctica |
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| We call this one Five Finger Fern but its proper name is Dicanopteris linearis |
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| The juvenile form of kangaroo Fern Zealandia postulata can be seen on the tree trunks |
We did have one more night in Poatina, so during the night I pondered whether we should give it another try in the morning, this time coming down from the top. Although this track was much shorter, only about 45 minutes, it was also much steeper and involved 284 steps. There was also the question of whether the unmade road was accessible. Last time I tried it, the road had been so slippery, that I could barely get back up and the weather didn’t look all that promising. We'd wait and see.
To be continued......
There is more to this story, but because we are about to have an election I will interrupt it for a couple of weeks because there are a couple of things I want people to keep in mind before they vote.
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