Showing posts with label Portuguese man o' war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portuguese man o' war. Show all posts

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Beautiful Scenery and a Blue Pirate

Tassie Day Six: Part II
After having our lives threatened by the little blue bully at the look-out above Pirate’s Bay we drove down to the coast on the bay.

Our target was this. Why am I showing you some ruined foreshore facility you ask?

Well despite the regular lines these blocks are entirely natural.They are part of a feature called (rather boringly) “the Tessellated Pavement”.

Looking at these amazingly straight level blocks it is hard to believe they are not artificial.

As you can see from above the pavement is quite extensive.While we were there the tide was coming in.And washed up onto the shore was this blue fellow.
This is known by Aussies as a “bluebottle”.
They are often called “Portuguese man o' war” overseas.
Maybe an appropriate thing to see in Pirate’s Bay

These are fairly common in Oz waters and are responsible for thousands of stings each year.
I’ve never been stung myself, but Poor Deb was stung by one on the chest when she was 16 and says it was so painful she thought she was dying.

From Pirate’s bay we drove south into the Tasman Penninsula.We stopped at a number of places just to admire the scenery such as these sea cliffs.Then “Tasman’s Arch” We went for a short walk there where I photographed this Melaleuca flower It is very similar to the one I posted a few days ago. The last one was taken at Sydney thousands of kilometres away.

And one of the many plants colloquially known as “Teatree” this one is a species of Leptospermum. As an aside the Teatree that is used to make “tea-tree” oil is actually a species of Melaleuca.