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| Fotheringate Beach, with the Stzrelecki National Park in the background |
Today’s main goal is to find a prehistoric shark tooth.
There’s a location on the island known for these. We take the long route there.
We cover a lot of the island today.
First up is Trousers Point – an oddly named cove alongside
the island’s national park in the south-west. Legend has it that the area got
its name from a crate of trousers that washed up ashore from one of the many
shipwrecks the island is known for. The other potentially apocryphal story is
that a survivor of a different shipwreck made it to the beach sans pants.
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| I think this is Mount Chappell Island in the far distance |
Red-necked wallabies graze along the roadside as our car
winds through the bush; they dart back a few metres and watch from behind trees
while we pass. As we alight from the car and explore the beach, a beautiful
secluded cove in the shadow of Stzrelecki National Park’s towering granite
mountain, Green Rosellas chirrup over our heads. We follow a bushwalk to the
other side of the point, sandy paths of faded pink sand surrounded by windswept
beach shrubbery – a gentle slope that overlooks rocky outcrops in the sea, a
nice photo opportunity interrupted by occasional tiny clouds of sea spray that
float down around us.
After this we head to Cameron Inlet on the eastern side of
the island. The biodiversity on Flinders Island is incredibly diverse for such
a relatively small place – so much of the island is filled with completely
different environments. We drive along salt-encrusted sand roads surrounded by
lagoons and black cockatoos sighted for the first time since we got here. This
area is also filled with Australian Shelducks, goose-like relatives of ducks
with sunburst-orange necks. Eventually, after wondering how far this remote
drive will take us, we arrive at a small clearing and pick out path through to
the inlet’s beach.
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| Cameron Inlet |
More than anywhere else, this feels like another planet. The
grey sand whips around us in tendrils of mist as fearsome winds sweep across
the sea and roar in our ears. Bobo is armed with earphones today to cut down on
the overwhelm and he helps as we begin our search. The lagoon is vast enough
for us not to see the other side and so it looks just like the sea. The sand is
riddled with shells and prehistoric remnants that have been carried up to the
beach from millions of years ago. It’s renowned for shark teeth – obsidian-like
artefacts from Megalodons. We search for as long as we can manage in the freakish
weather and Nicole finds something long and tooth-like with a strange texture
and weight. Is it a shark tooth? We’re not sure.
Next stop is Lady Barren where we take in a nice lunch at
the Furneaux Tavern, a lively pub that overlooks the collection of islands to
the south – Little Green Island, Dog Island, Vansitartt Island, and in the
distance, the large mass of Cape Barren Island. Cape Barren Island is the only
other island in the Furneaux Group (aside from Flinders) that has a permanent
human population; something like 90 or so people, an Aboriginal community who
care for this island and the more remote Clarke Island underneath it.
The bar room inside is filled with locals who seemed to have
been bussed in by two vans for a quick lunchtime swill. They’re all gone by the
time we finish lunch in the bistro area and I take Bobo into the main area to see a
pilot whale skeleton suspended above the bar, a cigar glued between its teeth. The
bartender tells me it’s a Flinders Island Flathead but then admits that’s just
what they like to tell visitors – about 35 years ago a pod of these whales
became beached in the area. Nicole shows this bartender, Maxy, her treasure
from Cameron Inlet. Maxy suggests it’s most likely a
prehistoric whale bone. It’s definitely something fossilised.
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| The Furneaux Museum at Emita. Only open from January to May. |
The last part of our day is spent back on the eastern side
of the island. We navigate our way through the coastal settlement of Emita,
briefly visit Allports Beach, and set down at the neighbouring area of
Wybalenna. I hop out of the car and walk several hundred metres to the chapel –
a building nearly 200 years old and a remnant of the island’s dark history.
As I approach this chapel, I notice hundreds of bones dotted
alongside the road in the short grass, all bleached white by the cold Bass sun and the
island’s relentless winds. I see a skull and later spot a long hind
leg – Wallaby remains; a traditional food.
Wybalenna is a place I’ve read about, and written about. At
the end of the Black War, when Tasmania’s colonists finished their conflict
with the Aboriginal Tasmanians in the 1830s, a line of convicts, settlers, and
soldiers joined forces and swept across Tasmania’s rugged landscape – driving
the last survivors of the Aboriginal people to the edge of the isle. The
Aboriginal Tasmanians were then forcibly relocated to Flinders Island and
‘settled’ at the Wybalenna Mission. Conditions were miserable, and over 100 of
these survivors perished in just two years.
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| Wybalenna Mission Chapel |
Today, the chapel and accompanying buildings stand as a
testament to both Indigenous spirit and colonial cruelty. The island’s Blonde
Wombats watch from nearby tussocks as we walk in reflection, darting into their
burrows if we get too close.
One thing I’ve noticed among the residents in the last three
days is an underlying respect for Indigenous culture and a willingness to
acknowledge the atrocities of the past. Tasmania’s Aboriginal lineage is
perhaps no stronger than here in Flinders Island and the other islands of the
Furneaux Group.
We drive back to Whitemark, scaring a pheasant off the road
at one point. The customary one-finger wave seems like a game of chicken –
which car will crack and wave first? I challenge Nicole to not give the wave
first but she is reluctant to seem rude to the other drivers. Some of them seem
to wait to the absolute last millisecond to lift their hand in greeting as they
drive past. Eventually, Nicole proudly points out that she waved second to one
of the drivers.
We stop by a cluster of turkeys once again and call to them
out our windows. They cluck and gobble, the patriarch’s tail spreading out in
pomp.
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| Convenience Store at Lady Barren |
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| I'm not sure what this thing is. I told Bobo it was a sea mango. I probably shouldn't have picked it up. |
Sea mango Sea schmango 🥭 😂
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