MOT Tour Day 14 - The Nut & Highfield

The view from the Nut

Another pleasant day in Stanley. A little cloudy today but still, enough sunshine and no hint of rain so a good day to be out and about.

Leaving our digs about 10 - showers and general faffing about - we walked up into the Main Street and found the Brown Dog Cafe, where it seemed prudent to have a coffee. Sue was there before me and had caught up on some local knowledge. Coffee quaffed, we made our way through small passages and laneways, up the early slopes of the Nut.

The Nut is what is left when the outer cone of a volcano is eroded away, leaving only the hard, inner flow chamber, long since dead and solidified as rock. It’s known as a volcanic plug but has other names in other settings. For instance, you’ve seen all those great cowboy movies in which John Wayne rides through the desert, surrounded by Indians and flat topped mountains. Those mountains are called mesas. Skinny ones are called buttes. They are volcanic plugs.

The weird thing about the Nut is that it sits on the end of an isthmus - pronounced the way someone with a lisp might say Christmas. Like a gigantic full stop, about two thirds of its sides are vertical cliffs of about fifty metres, while on the Stanley side, there is a talus slope which provides access. On the right angle, it looks like one of those raccoon skin hats Davie Crocket wore.

Stanley just sort of rests at its feet.

There are two ways for the public to climb to the top of the Nut and once there, enjoy a two km loop of the mostly flat surface. You can walk up a very steep and reasonably direct, well defined track or you can ride a chair lift. We chose the chairlift … to hell with it, we don’t have to offer excuses!

Bit of a problem. We paid our money. We stood on the painted footprints, as instructed but that were the only instructions we received. Chair arrived behind us and Sue got knocked base over apex but some home recovered and scrambled back on the chair. I was ropeable. Sue claimed no damage done so we enjoyed the ride. The view was behind us, of course, so this leg was about the thrill and exhilaration.

Unfortunately, more trouble at the top. We made the dismount okay but I asked a question and got a pretty sharpish, I thought unnecessary reply and given my anger at Sue being knocked over below, I offered what I’ll call a correction. Sue dragged me away.

It was soon forgotten. The walk around the top of the Nut offered spectacular views and the unexpected experience of walking through a quite serene forest, at one point. We had expected tracks surrounded by grass and rocks and yes, there was a fair bit of that. There were Shearwater nests, which are holes they burrow into the ground, usually amongst the grasses. Also known as Mutton Birds, a name early English sailors gave them for obvious reasons and locally as Yolanda or Moonbirds, they migrate here for the summer, from great distances - try Siberia - and live for prodigious lengths of time, well into their thirties.

We wondered about snakes and wore our gaters in cases but were told there were none. Defies reason when you imagine Shearwater’s eggs so available.

Lots of fabulous lookouts and only one decent rise in the track, it was a really pleasant walk.

Returning to the chairlift station, I detected a change in attitude and by the time we reached the base at the bottom, the operator spent some time talking with me and several times offered a genuine apology. I made a few points about the danger of complacency and we shook hands. I gave them a chance to be reasonable and they were. Fair enough.

Highfields

On the walk back to the van, we stopped and chatted with a couple tending to their garden of assorted berries. They moved here from Melbourne fifteen years ago and are on their second Bed and Breakfast venture.

A quick lunch and then we drove up to Highfield, originally built by convict labour in 1826 for the previously mentioned boss of the Van Demons Land Company in the north west of Tasmania, Edward Curr. A two story timber building then, later to be encased in bricks and mortar, it was a building that would epitomise the difference between Curr and everyone else and the indifference with which he treated convicts and aborigines. He and his wife had 15 children but not all of them lived at Highfield, being sent to England for their education ... including a three year old. It was the scene of social dinners where gossip was shared. Two of the more famous, regular diners at the Highfield dinner table were Jorgen Jorgensen and the explorer and architect Henry Hellyer. Sadly, the latter died by suicide in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Click here to see today's photos

Highfield has a long and interesting history which I won't attempt to unpack here. The building has been carefully restored whilst still providing examples of how it was built by exposing layers of walls etc. The outbuilding, including stables and a combination chapel/classroom are in excellent condition.

Highfield sits high on a hill facing the Nut and overlooking Stanley or Circular Head, as it was known then.

Nice day.