The Wonderful World of Sea Horses.

The caravanners were busy packing up their folding chairs and bringing in their awnings. "There's heavy weather forecast," one of them told Roger. "Heaps of rain and a howling gale to boot." I swear there's a secret signal by which BoM devotees can recognise one another.

Sure enough, the television weather was full of dire warnings which mainly centred, this being Tasmania, around the risks to sheep. 

We had planned to visit Mierna, Australia's coldest non-alpine town, but decided that could happen later. Instead, we went up to Hawley Beach at the mouth of Port Sorrell. 

All was quiet at Hawley Beach.

Further down Port Sorrell we had thermos coffee overlooking the water at Panatana Creek. I learned that back in the day this was a popular swimming spot such that in the 1950s the sea wall was raised to facilitate better swimming. This came at the expense of pedestrians falling off the wall and boaters only being able to scrape over it at high tide. Eventually this was too much for one disgruntled boater and he blew a hole in the wall. There was no further information given and no sign of the seawall, leaving me in suspense as to what happened next and wondering if a tendency to solve things with explosives still festers in the calm suburbia of Port Sorrell.

Don't blow me up till I've finished my coffee.

The forecast rain still wasn't happening. We ambled south along the water until we crossed the Rubicon at the bottom of Port Sorrell. 

The die was cast.

The Rubicon, as a river, was rather underwhelming.

Beyond the Rubicon lay the remnants of Yorktown, which was founded very early in Tasmania's European history, primarily as a way to dissuade the French from settling. This wasn't very successful due to York Town being a long way (in 1800s terms) from where boats could land. By  everyone have up and moved the settlement to the fertile plains of the Tamar Valley where it grew up to become Launceston. A gardener was left at York Town, although how he would fight off the French is not explained.

All that is left of York Town.

Down at the mouth of the Tamar river, flotillas of black swans swam in the shallows and further out in the channel bulk carriers came and went as children played on the beach. 

We found a lunch spot overlooking the river.  Not far from our spot a big shed advertised itself as 'Sea Horse World,' and a quick spot of googling advised us that we could, that very afternoon, take a tour of Sea Horse World.  So we did, and very interesting it was too.

Sea Horse World started back when its owners decided to farm sea horses and sell them into the Chinese medicine market, with the laudable aim of reducing the pressures on wild populations. That didn't work out very well because the Chinese preferred the wild sea horses which were free so they just kept on harvesting those anyway. The sea horse farm segued into selling sea horses to aquariums, pet shops, and research facilities. Then people started asking to look at the sea horses, one thing led to another, and Sea Horse World was born.

Other businesses also used the wharf on which the sea horse farm was situated. This workhorse was moored, waiting for a big ship to push around.

We toured through the farm, learning all about sea horses and watching them feed. Sea horses have good eyesight and all the baby sea horses had learned that they got fed when the tours came through, so they pressed their little selves up against the aquarium walls, forming sea horse tangles as they latched their little tails into each other willy nilly.

In addition to breeding thousands of pot-bellied sea horses (yes, that's their real name), the Sea Horse farm had tanks full of interesting creatures, including the leafy sea horse, which also frequents South Australian waters.

We met the spotted hand fish who doesn't have a float bladder and therefore doesn't swim, instead crawling around on the bottom of the Derwent River, trembling in the edge of extinction because they don't live anywhere else. The sea horse farm was involved in a research and preservation effort for the hand fish, not that the hand fish seemed particularly appreciative of the efforts.

We met cow fish,

and fish whose names I've forgotten, but who are apparently characterised by staring down divers.

Staring me down too.

By the time we emerged, heads stuffed full of sea horse facts, the promised bad weather had arrived.

We carried on down the west bank of the Tamar river via a quick drive-by of the Batman Bridge because engineers, bridges, etc etc you know the drill.

And then we settled in for the night in the Launceston Holiday Park which isn't really in Launceston at all and is less a holiday park than a slightly overgrown collection of cabins that time forgot, but was nonetheless quite an agreeable place to spend the night.

Home for the night: Launceston Holiday Park.