We took the 6km back at a slightly faster pace taking only 45 minutes this time. The car surprised us yet again, crawling along in high range first all by itself and even compensating the revs over steeper patches! You don't need to be an expert 4WDer these days; the cars are so damned good they do it all for you!

A slightly older form of transport was on for the morning: the Ida Bay Railway. This is the last operating bush tramway in Tasmania, as well as the most southerly railway in Oz. The 2' gauge line was constructed in 1922 to carry limestone from the quarries nearby to the barges. The limestone was used to make calcium carbide and as a source of acetylene gas. The last limestone was carried in 1975. Now it is run as a tourist attraction with a most enjoyable run of 7km each way, taking about 2 hours. At the end of the line we got off to walk the track to the northern shore of Southport Lagoon, a one and a half hour return trip. We were the only ones there and we walked the beach as the tide went out leaving rocks at headlands exposed. There we found mussels growing, not that big and not that many, but edible size nonetheless.

The train does 4 runs a day so we returned to the end of the line and trained it back.

The main, and only, road south became a dirt road, but it deteriorated rapidly. Potholes covered the width so avoiding them was impossible. There are several free campsites down towards the end of the road but, this being a Friday afternoon, every one of them was filled with trucks, boats, campers, trailers, kids, slabs of beer… and not looking like our kinda place to stop.

Over the bridge at Cockle Creek is the South West National Park. With our NP pass it costs us nothing to enter, but the bogans down here for a weekend fishing apparently won't pay for a campsite. So we found ourselves a nice little site with some privacy and quiet and were glad not to be squeezed into a muddy site with one toilet for several dozen campers.

Here in the NP we walked along the beach to the end of the road, as far south as you can drive in Oz. In fact, we are closer to Antarctica then we are to Cairns.

A large bronze sculpture of a baby Southern Right Whale marks the spot, a reminder of the past whaling history of the region when the Southern Rights were almost wiped out.

The mussels were very tasty…