Terra Tasmania: Black coal, blood red lichen and rare rock lobster

The rocks along the Bay of Fires coast are tinged with red. Against the blue of the sea and sky, and the white of the fine-grained sand, the red looks like blood-stain, but it is actually a lichen, and quite beautiful. It can only grow, we hear somewhere later, where the water is crystal clean. As it is here, where the lichen carpets the rocks.

But back in the 1850s the rocks hereabouts were stained thick black. With coal dust. American workers who came to dig out the coal called the little niche of eroded land that became the port of Bicheno, the Gulch, after similar bits of land in the States.

They loaded coal into wooden wagons and struggled to move them the bumpy five kilometres to the Gulch where steamers awaited. Conditions were terrible for the miners. Their shafts regularly flooded and the track so cheaply and poorly designed that the coal wagons frequently fell off the rails, and had to be manually upheld. The coal that eventually arrived at the Gulch was loaded into a vast bunker built at the port which fed directly into a waiting steamship's hold.

A coal that was found to be of no use to drive steam so after all that effort it was never to be in huge demand.

So when the goldfields in Victoria boomed the Americans skidaddled and the Gulch at Bicheno became abandoned.

Today, there are only remnants of the bunker that was used, and a few rusted mooring rings left to tell their tale.

In the fish shop down at the Gulch we finally scored our lobster.

Last time we were in Tasmania we could buy lobster from wooden market huts that dotted the sea side of the east coast. Back then local vendors and residents, who caught more than they needed, were allowed to sell their spares on the side of the road. No longer.

Rock lobster is now under strict quota. Everyone who sells a lobster must do so with it bearing a plastic tag which proves that it has been sold from an authorised seller, who has to buy each tag from the government, so the tag price is effectively a tax.

The argument being: it is protection.

Rock lobster needs protection. Or I might be tempted to eat it any night I can get my greedy hands on it, truth be told.

We ate ours in juicy white chunks marinated in warmed lemon butter, tossed in zested lemon linguini, flecked with sweet green peas.

We drove down the Freycinet Peninsula as far as we were able, and it is still as lovely as we remember. But, like all National Parks, it deserves time. We need to come back with our walking shoes and kayaks and just camp and play for a longer spell. Today, we check out the development around the Coles Bay area, have excellent coffee at one of the fine resorts and wonder how they survive. There is hardly a soul around and it is early February. If this is not people-on-holiday time, when is?

Further down the coast we come to another barely-surviving town, Buckland, with its old coaching inn looking perky in a relatively fresh coat of paint on aged wooden bones that were laid there, long ago, in 1843.

Ye Olde Buckland Inn looks as if it is still ready to party.

And just outside of town is a spot that I hope will stand forever, testament to the pluck and the power of a band of special folk: all locals, all volunteers, mostly all seniors.

A group of Bucklanders took it upon themselves to fund and build a bushland Botanical Gardens celebrating the plants of this region that they loved so much. From scratch. In dry rocky terrain. Building in their own water pond and rainwater tank in case there is a long dry spell. Bedecked with their own metal sculptures and gates.

Lest their beloved plants be forgotten.

It is a place of peace and tranquility and feels very special.

Thank you, Buckland Bushland Garden folk. What a welcome respite.