Travelways

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Soak up the Tamar's wetlands

THERE'S a novel way of starting a walk to Tamar Island. Catch a bus. The North Riverside terminus puts you a pleasant 15-minute stroll away from the Tamar Island Wetlands  Centre and most of the  routes wind up Trevallyn hills to give elevated views of the Tamar. Monday is a near perfect day for this stroll. Sunny and breezy with one bizarre exception. The splendid path alongside the West Tamar Highway between Riverside and the wetlands centre is mostly under water. I know this path well; flooding like this is really unusual - and the swans who have been flapping their way closer and closer to suburbia have taken the opportunity to launch a full-feathered takeover of the broad lake now covering the track. So 15 minutes blows out to 35 as I wade through ankle deep and knee deep  water, marvelling at the proximity of the swans and wondering about how a person would set about cooking one. This plan requires a degree of stubbornness because the dry highway is about 15 metres to the left. Stubbornness is a worthy trait for this area. Bruno the bull was a famously unyielding inhabitant of Tamar Island in the 1990s when the Parks and Wildlife Service was trying to open the reserve up to the public. More on Bruno later. Sodden of foot, I arrive at the centre. Seriously, the bus idea is a good one for the 364-ish  days of the year that the path's not flooded. But dry-footed softies can drive straight to the centre car park. The centre is staffed by volunteers and this week Heather Warden and Mae De Carteret give me the lowdown and suggest a self-guided tour. Before leaving I discover via the volunteers that the aquiline creatures circling high above the 7LA tower are harriers. Through winter about 200 people a week take the two-kilometre wander along the boardwalk. With school holidays in full flight this week the number is closer to 300 and the traffic ramps up in summer for an annual total of 20,000. Fish traps are dotted around waters near the centre as part of an attempt to rid the wetlands of the pesky introduced species, Gambusia holbrooki. Left unchecked, the aggressive American invader might put paid to the endangered green and gold frog and other natives. The self-guided walk involves a pamphlet and reference numbers along  the boardwalk. The first area - Lucks Flats -  was drained and used for farming from the 1830s. Its return to wetlands has been a gradual process over the past five or six decades. Waterfowl abound. The pamphlet tells me I'm seeing Pacific black duck, chestnut teal, purple swamp hen and Tasmanian native hen, better described in kiddie vernacular as the turbo chook. There's also a big white goose. Not native, not particularly welcome, but there among the natives nevertheless. Bruno-esque in its reluctance to leave. But we'll come to Bruno. Minutes along the track and a bird hide with artistically arranged rectangular windows offers the chance to snoop quietly at the action on the only freshwater lagoon in the wetlands. There's a stand of swamp paperbark trees, the only natives trees in the reserve, and an important forest for an apparently endangered species. A bit further along the track cuts through vast beds of reeds, the dominant flora of the wetlands. At various vantage points you would swear it is an unbroken sweep of sandy blond reed tops from island to land but soon the first of three bridges crosses a broad rivulet. The tide's out (increasing the earlier puzzle of the flooded path) and the exposed mud carries the tracks of swans, waddling from grassy knoll to grassy knoll. Before the first bridge a dilapidated shooters' hut remains - evidence of the wetlands' recent history as a duck-hunting ground. (Shooters and grassy knolls. Readers expecting some cheesy reference to the JFK assassination will be disappointed). These bridges open up wonderful views south to the city of Launceston. Remains of a ship graveyard can be seen to the north of the third bridge. Fourteen vessels were burnt to the waterline and sunk in an unsuccessful attempt to improve flow in the Tamar's main channel. The rotting and rusting wrecks are good photographic fodder before reaching the island proper. From an 11am start it's gone 12.30 and the tide's putting back what it took away. Water under the bridge. A bit like the tale of Bruno the bull.