Stanley and The Nut

[Kyle]Stanley's main geologic feature is known as The Nut. Our plan for our day ashore there was centered around getting up it, walking around its table-top, and then getting back down. I hadn't expected to do much else. This was mainly because the anchorage at Stanley faces the least attractive part of the town, which we did not yet know.

From Begonia, apart from The Nut, our main view was of the commercial fishing boat harbor. The boats themselves were picturesque in their purposefulness and attractively painted in bright colors. Their main detractor was the loading docks and warehouses behind, hemmed in by rusty fences and the smell of old fish.

Stanley Harbour has a fishing fleet, one fisherman stands in front of his boat all ready for squid fishing (attracted to the lights)

There was no real place to land the dinghy in the harbor, so we climbed a ladder and tied a long line to a railing in a corner where we hoped it would be out of the way. We then met a few of the fishermen, who looked rough as guts from a hard life at sea, but were just the nicest people you could meet; thankfully they verified that our dinghy was fine right where it was.

We took about ten steps away from the seafood warehouses and Stanley was immediately transformed into a perfectly picturesque little town. This was the part that had been blocked from our view from the boat.

My plan for the day was to head straight up to the top and then do the meander through town afterwards. Almost as soon as we left sea level, the trail intercepted the Moby Dick cafe that was too tempting to pass up. Maryanne wanted some toast, which she hasn't managed to ever get quite right on the boat, and I figured I could always use another cup of coffee. Then I discovered they had waffles on special and it kind of snowballed after that.

Strolling around we spotted plenty of birds (even penguins)

Okay, NOW we were ready to be fit and healthy and climb a hill.

We didn't have to. At The Nut, there is the option of taking a short chairlift ride to the top, which is billed as being northwestern Tasmania's longest or some such thing. I was keen to take the trail, since the top wasn't that far up and I figured it would help us burn off our last breakfast. Maryanne still wanted to inquire about the lift.

As we were approaching the bottom of the lift, she conveniently stepped on a nail. That was no big deal because it was just lying on the ground, but then she stepped on another nail that went right through the sole of her shoe. Also, her whole foot and the top of the shoe as well. Eeeww!

Oh, it was a big, rusty thing. She bellowed just a little too melodramatically. She didn't want me to touch it, but I just braced myself, grabbed her leg and freed her. I'm a hero. She'll be fine. She was having trouble putting weight on it, but there was the unexpected bonus that she left a little trail of evenly spaced red dots behind her so she would be easy to find.

We asked about the lift. It was 15¢ for the round trip. Oh, that's how they get ya. No, thanks. We'll walk first!

{Maryanne: For those who don't really know Kyle - I'll tell you, for clarity, that the above four paragraphs, prices, and all, are entirely a figment of his wild imagination! We did actually climb the hill (rather than take the lift) - for the exercise - the rest is his wild musings and my foot is thankfully without any hole!}

Maryanne was feeling a little light headed by then, so she went to sit down for a minute while I read a few information boards about the place. When she rejoined me, I told her that I had found two things of interest: First was that there was a tiny species of snail that only lived on The Nut. It was interesting because it was one of only two in the world that has a shell that forms counter-clockwise. The other was that there were also pademelons in the area, which I had not expected.

When I told Maryanne about the pademelons, she responded with a skeptical, "Really? Where are they?" Then, right on cue, one hopped out from behind a tree directly in front of us.

"There's one right there", I said and pointed it out. Those things are so cute.

At the top of the trail at the chairlift drop-off, they have a little reading room where you can peruse through old newspaper clippings and such. It was here that we learned the origin of the prominence's strange name. The Nut is really just the central plug of a long-extinct volcano. The softer rock and ash surrounding the harder, denser plug has long since eroded away, leaving a big chunk of rock behind.

The story goes that at one point early after Stanley's founding in 1892, it was decided that they would enlarge the breakwater for the harbor by blasting off a piece of what was then called Circular Head. After using tons of explosive, a lot of dust and noise was made, but no rock fell. Someone then apparently made the comment that, "That was one tough nut to crack!" The name stuck and it has been known as The Nut ever since.

We also learned more about the Van Diemen's Land Company, or VDLC. They were responsible for bringing much of the industry to Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land, as it was known then. They are credited with being the backbone of the economy back in those early days, but of course, much of that was based on slave labor from the indigenous population. At Stanley, they didn't bother with all of that, choosing instead to hunt down and slaughter almost the original inhabitants. It was an evil, shameful thing.

At the top of The Nut is a loop-trail that stops at various clifftop viewpoints. In honor of the snail, we chose to go counter-clockwise. We were expecting it to be pretty uniform and exposed up there. Instead, the trail meandered through several zones, including dense forest, grassland and thick ferns. Most of the grassland was occupied with mutton bird nests. It was currently the part of the season just before the hatchlings make their first forays out of the nest. That made it very important to keep to the trail.

Sweeping views

After descending back into Stanley, we had a meander around, taking in the beach, the old graveyard and, of course, the town museum. We were heading for the three-establishment dining district for a late lunch when I noticed the sign above the door of a building that looked like it used to be a bank. It read, The Angel's Share.

There wasn't a lot to do in town, but Kyle soon found the whisky!

Well, that was intriguing! We've been through enough distillery tours to know the angel's share is what they call the portion of the whisky that is lost to evaporation during its time in the barrel.

The place was indeed a former bank. Now it was a souvenir shop with a vault full of whisky and a tiny, two-seat bar at an old teller window. When we asked the guy there about tastings or possibly a small flight, he said they didn't really do that, but he would be happy to sell us taste-sized portions on an á-la-carte basis. Maryanne agreed that as long as they were less than 15¢ each, I could have a few as compensation for having to do the driving on our South Australia wine tours.

Well, there was some kind of funny symbol on the menu next to the prices. I thought it was a ¢, but I'm not really good with those things. There were too many to chose from, so I let the knowledgeable guy in the teller box guide me.

I must say, everything I tried was much nicer than the stuff at my last Tasmanian whisky tasting on Bruny Island. Each could hold its own against most of the Scottish stuff we like so much. Of interest was that a lot of the local distilleries like to move their whiskies around between different barrel types during aging, which made for some nice flavors. They had one that was aged in tawny barrels, which tasted so much like tawny that, in a blind taste test, I might have thought it was a whisky-flavored tawny. It could also be that I got better stuff because it was just better stuff. I was following the pourer's recommendations and not looking at the prices. Our final bill was significantly more than the $1.50 I had been expecting. Oh, that guy saw me coming!