Platypus Bend

Hi, Mark here.

** If you are reading this, only #1 is still for sale **

Two separate titles are offered for sale. They are on opposite sides of the Inglis River with the Zig Zag Road passing through both and connected by a substantial concrete bridge. Thus, if belonging to a single owner, they can be considered a single property - as we did. However they are legally self-contained properties on two distinct titles. This bridge was only built by the State a few years ago at a cost of many hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace the old timber structure. On a busy day there might be five cars go across it, many days not even that.


The western property - #1 - is the smaller of the two at 11.76 hectares (29.4 acres). The eastern title - #2 - is 18.38 hectares (46 acres). Both properties are similar in having substantial river frontages, cleared level areas on the river and sloping up from the river to the "back" of each, but they have somewhat different aspects, with #2 being the more northerly aspect with good sun all year round. In the drawing below the pink shade indicates cleared areas.


These properties are in a relatively untouched setting, yet are really quite close to all modern amenities.

Burnie is about 35 minutes drive away. As the regional centre servicing not only this area but also the West Coast, it has more facilities and services than its size (about 20,000) would normally dictate. It has a well-regarded regional art gallery, the Western District police headquarters, Centrelink, all state government services, a campus of UTAS, TAFE, a range of high schools both public and private, a multiplex cinema, supermarkets, restaurants and about eight blocks of shops and offices. Burnie is also the location of the Northwest Regional Hospital - a modern facility with most functions including a good emergency room. Burnie is a significant port although the car ferry to Melbourne - the Spirit of Tasmania - sails daily from Devonport, another 40 minutes drive east on the freeway. Yes a "freeway". Generally Tasmania has much better infrastructure than mainlanders expect in spite of its small size. There may not be much traffic on it, but it is a freeway.

Closer than Burnie - 15 minutes - is Wynyard, with a strip of shops, service stations and Woolworths and IGA supermarkets. The airport is at Wynyard and Regional Express have four flights a day to and from Melbourne. The flight is just over an hour long and it is not uncommon for people to go over for one or two days for business or to shop or see a show. The entire area is quite beautiful. Rolling farmland, forest and some magnificent coastline. Driving to the supermarket here is nothing like driving in the larger cities.



So if the idea is to just live in a lovely bush setting but still have a standard job and easily access conventional services then that is no problem. On the other hand the properties have all the ingredients to allow an alternative mode of existence. They are private, there is good soil for growing, water is not a problem, more firewood than you can poke a stick at for heating, cooking, hot water (steam powered electricity could well be a goer, too). #1 has a phone line in but neither are on the grid. It is not far to obtain a connection, but the way electricity prices are going, even if care for the planet didn't indicate a stand-alone approach, economics might.

The term "bush blocks" does not really do these properties justice, when one considers that on the mainland (and in some parts of Tassie, too) that can often mean a dry expanse of scrubby vegetation, degraded soils, no permanent water and probably a significant bushfire risk. The vegetation here is beautiful. On the wetter soils in the gullies and on the river the dominant species are blackwood and myrtle with understories of tree-ferns. Higher up it is mainly Eucalyptus Obliqua (Mountain Ash or Tassie Oak) with a healthy smattering of minor species. It was probably logged about 80 or more years ago, but they didn't clear fell then, just took a few nice specimens, so there are some pretty big trees throughout still. It isn't genuine old-growth, never touched - although that isn't far away in the Tarkine and other places - but it is the next best thing. It is quality forest. As noted above you could never take enough firewood to even notice and if you wanted to mill some trees you would have some great timber for building or craftwood.

The first photo below shows some blackwoods on #2. The eucalypts behind are on #1 and are three or four times the height of the blackwoods. The river is between. The foreground is part of what has recently been cleared and disced ready for pasture grass. The middle photo shows more of the newly cleared area - the line of tree ferns in the middle distance marks a creek that is a nice feature of this area. The old shack in the distance is dilapidated. The last photo continues the sweep and shows the bush sloping towards the "rear" of the block. At the edge of this treeline would be an excellent building site overlooking the riverbank and the lush forest-covered hillside opposite. This clearing work cost over $19,000 and provides a lot of space for gardens and buildings in a picturesque natural amphitheatre with the river running through it.


Property #1 does not have as much area cleared and not as much flat land beside the river. The present position of the existing shack is not ideal as it may be too close to the river, but there are a number of other house sites, especially if one were to clear areas further up the property, where there is a good amount of flat at the top of the slope. #1 has a spring fed pond that has lots of frogs and occasionally even the platypus come to visit. This does dry out unless the summer is a wet one. The first photo below is the river in summer in front of the shack on #1 with 10 feet tree ferns on left. In winter the river will come up to the base of these ferns and it might flood one or two times per winter when it will come up to the middle of these ferns. The next photo shows those ferns from the top, in front of the shack. There are many thousands of tree ferns over the two properties.


This place has all kinds of wildlife. Regulars include pademelons (a wallaby), black cockatoos, devils, brushtail and ringtail possums, echidnas, platypus, the giant freshwater crayfish, fairywrens, banjo frogs, blackfish and tiger snakes. Wedge-tailed eagles, quolls, boobooks and wombats are regular visitors. Less frequent visitors or hard to find residents include the dunnart, frogmouth and the majestic white goshawk.

Most of the photos are in summer. There are definitely seasons here and the place feels different at those times, though it is always a good feeling. A hot summer day is perhaps 30, but there aren't many of them. A cold day in winter might be about 6, but again, not that many. There are perhaps a dozen or so frosts a year. I have seen a light snowfall perhaps twice in 13 years, but most winters you can see snow on the hills to the south for a week or so at a time. Most of the year is between 10 and 25 degrees Celsius. Good working temperature! It is a very mild temperate climate with a narrow annual range. Like the south of France but better. Those from tropical or sub-tropical climes can take a couple of years to adapt but it does happen and one day you find you love it and wonder how you ever managed the heat before. The NW Coast is significantly more mild than both Launceston (the Midlands/North) and Hobart (the South). They have up to four or five degrees hotter and colder extremes. Launceston can be particularly unpleasant, in my opinion. The other big difference is that rainfall here is much more reliable and steady. It rarely rains for more than two days continuously - mostly it is a changing kaleidoscope with bad weather rarely lasting long enough to be dreary.

I believe this part of Tasmania gives the best chance to provide insulation against climate change over the next decades. It is a mild maritime climate that would still be very comfortable with some warming and should maintain rainfall levels better than most places in Australia as it is already on the "lush" side and the prevailing westerly weather is coming straight off the Southern Ocean. At this point the river is about 150 metres above sea level. Tasmania as a society gets a bit of bad press, but that is either exagerrated or inaccurate I believe. Tasmania really has everything of value. Agriculture, all basic mineral resources, a larger percentage of forested land than almost anywhere, almost 100% renewable hydro electricity and despite some worrying trends (it is connected to the World, after all) it is still a healthier society with more resourceful and helpful people than a lot of places. Quite a few astute people have decided it is the place to be in an increasingly risky and uncertain future.

Here are some more photos and there is a list of FAQs on the next page. All photos here are near the river. There are of course many acres of forest behind.

Above: First - the Calder River enters the Inglis at the bridge. Middle - looking south from the bridge, #1 on the right, state forest on the left. Last - #1 from the road showing a few sheds.