The North Coast
Stanley, Burnie, Tasmanian Arboretum
February 2, 2026, continued.
After leaving Cradle Mountain, we drove about two hours or so, to Rocky Cape National Park. There we took a 20 minute walk to a viewpoint where we could see the beautiful coast to the north and a historic Aboriginal cave. Along the path, we came upon an echidna, another new animal, but we learned it is a mammal, not a marsupial (and like a platypus, lays eggs apparently). However, it moved too fast for us to get a decent photo. It was cute, though!
This map shows our route from Cradle Mountain, to Stanley, Burnie and on to Launceston, with the various stops along the way. The key can be displayed by clicking the arrow left of the title.
Four photos from around Rocky Cape, including a glimpse of the lighthouse.
As was the case in New Zealand last year, we were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful turquoise color of the ocean water. We then drove about 40 minutes to the very small town of Stanley (population under 600), which dates from the first half of the 19th century. The main street has many historic buildings. Once we got to Stanley, we went to The Nut Nature Reserve. The “Nut” is a prominent 143 meter flat-topped volcanic plug behind the town. Here is a photo taken on the approach to town.
We took a chair lift in the blustery conditions up to the top of the Nut. After exiting from the ride, we took the circular hike (2 km or 2.7 km, we’re not sure, signs said both). It took us to five or so nice viewpoints during our walk of about 45 minutes. There were many butterflies to be seen at the top, but unfortunately also many other flying insects. If you were not careful, you could ingest unexpected protein.
Top and left are three views from atop the Nut,
and the chairlift taken from the street below.
After taking the windy chairlift back down (and holding onto our hats) we had ice cream as a reward. We then checked in to our B&B in Stanley and explored the nice looking shops on the main street before heading off to dinner.
Shortly before 9 pm, we walked from our hotel about ten minutes to Godfrey’s Beach. The sun set at 8:40 pm, and the almost full moon was just rising over the horizon. There was a crowd of people amassed along the walkway above the rocks along the ocean shore. As our eyes adjusted to the evening light, we could make out several Little “Blue” Penguins waddling up towards us.
The city had installed a few red spot lights to aid in seeing the penguins, so visitors would not shine disturbing white lights at them. We watched the penguins for a bit over a half hour. By 9:30 pm, they were coming forward in larger and larger groups. We must have seen several dozen of the birds.
Moonrise above. Not the sharpest pictures, but the two below give an idea what the penguins are like.
On our way back to our hotel, we came upon a huge number of pademelons and Bennett’s wallabies grazing in yards. As cars left the beach parking lots, we could see why there is so much roadkill in Tasmania.
February 3, 2026
After checking out of our B and B, and before leaving Stanley, we drove up the hill behind the town to the Big Picture Frame to get a photo of the Nut. We realized the sun would have been at a better angle if we had come in the afternoon yesterday.
We then headed east along the Bass Highway (named for the Bass Strait, the body of water between the mainland and Tasmania). We thought the highway name was pronounced like a fish, but the GPS pronounced the word like a musical instrument, which we assume is the correct pronunciation.
We made one stop on our way to Burnie, at a geological formation called Doctor’s Rocks.
Morning view of the Nut, plus Doctor’s Rocks.
After reaching the town of Burnie, we drove a few minutes to the south to the Fern Glade Platypus Reserve. We spent some time searching the stream for these creatures, but to no avail. We had a nice walk through the shaded fern forest, though. We saw several more pademelons along our walk. It was a very lovely and peaceful spot. Here are a few photos.
Some municipal staff there told us the best place to see a platypus was a ten minute drive away. So from there we drove to Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden. Obviously, the flowers were not blooming in late summer, but as advertised, we were able to see platypus in the middle of the day in one lake in the garden. Here’s a photo.
We were surprised at how little time they spent on the surface, and then how long they spent underwater during each dive. After getting our fill of watching them, we walked a bit around the garden before having coffee in the café. From there, we drove about 20 minutes back to the town of Burnie and had lunch.
We made one more stop before checking into our hotel. We drove about 15 minutes to Guide Falls. This waterfall has three different cascades. The middle one, the largest, is feathery and the lowest one has a powerful single stream. The highlight of this stop were the noisy kookaburras, who cooperated and posed nicely for photos while sitting on tree branches. In three prior visits to Australia, photographing this bird was very difficult. Here are photos of the waterfall and nice bird.
Then we went to Burnie and checked in to our seaside hotel. Unlike the attractive town of Stanley, Burnie is an industrial city with a huge port exporting forest products. Yesterday we had seen an unattractive coal port between Burnie and Stanley.
In the late afternoon, we walked along a boardwalk to Burnie’s penguin viewing area. We caught a glimpse of one nesting bird in the daylight. We are not sure that we are going to make a return visit to the penguins tonight, given how many we had seen last night. In the end, we decided once was sufficient for penguin viewing.
February 4, 2026
We left Burnie and drove east on the slow coastal road through the cute town of Penguin, and then on to the Tasmanian Arboretum located south of Devonport (the city where car ferries from Victoria dock). This facility has many paths with impressive Australian trees as well as specimens from other places. It is also teeming with bird life, and we saw scores of Tasmanian native hens and black swans. The highlight, however, was a small lake in which we saw several platypus. We even saw one juvenile who came out of the water for a few minutes; it was very cute!
Nice lake at the arboretum—there were several platypuses in the lake, but the camera always seem to be focused on the wrong spot when they surfaced!
From there, we drove through the town of Latrobe, with its giant platypus statue to Sheffield, which calls itself the town of murals. We saw a few murals, but we also saw one fellow walking down the street with his pet five or six colorful parrots perched on his arms and head, and another man walking his pet alpaca. Interesting place.
Above is the big platypus in Latrobe. Left
is one of the murals from Sheffield. We
are not sure if the fellow walking his
alpaca was the same guy or not, but the
mural reflects what we saw in the town!
After lunch in Sheffield, we drove to Marakoopa Cave, one of the caves in Mole Creek National Park. We took a guided one hour tour of the cave and saw some glow worms but not as many as we saw last year in New Zealand. It was a lovely cave, however, and you could photograph this one (unlike the cave we saw last year in Slovenia). The guide told us this part of Tasmania suffers major flooding every five or six years. Apparently, the last big flood in 2022 closed the cave for six months.
The mouth of the cave is on the right, and left is a photo from inside.
We left the cave and headed east toward Launceston. While driving through agricultural areas over the past several days (and again today), we have seen fields of gray plants topped by seed pods, surrounded by barbed wire fences with signs prohibiting entry. Using Google we discovered they grow opium poppies in Tasmania for pharmaceutical purposes! What a surprise.
Our drive took about an hour to reach Tasmania’s second largest city, Launceston, and we checked into a downtown apartment.
