Friday Fish and Chips and a Day in Dunnalley

“How lucky?” is was what The Bloke was thinking. Our early transit time through the Dunalley Canal would enable us to anchor/moore/come-alongside in good time for a walk to have a Fish and Chip lunch. It was Friday after all! There was rumour too that there was a bakery. Could the fish and chips be bested by a sausage roll perhaps? In any instance, we needed an in-going high tide, especially since we had Chris on Bilbungara trailing us in a deeper drafted vessel than ours; if we got stuck he would know he was in trouble too!

Shane, the canal operator, was ready for us and we’d actually traversed the shallowest part - the channel approach in, before reaching the bridge and the Canal itself.

Bilbungara followed us through. This perspective makes it appear that the Canal is a serious affair but it's actually a bit 'agricultural' and more like a trench created by a farmer with a backhoe.

This old manual signal tower, gives an indication of how long the Canal has been in existence. It was opened for use in 1905. These days traffic is managed by significantly less athletic means via VHF radio and mobile phone.

 

Once we got through we opted to raft-up to the public jetty to make access to the bakery and fish and chip lunch a little easier. Conditions were mild. A northerly kicked in overnight and made for a very unpleasant night. The Bloke and Chris were sipping coffee at 3am while I snored my head off.

Ignore The Bloke in this photo, he does not actually know what he's pointing at! It's a tricentennial memorial to the discovery of Van Diemen's Land by Abel Tasman in 1642. Blackman Bay, to be honest, is quite a strange place to arrive, but Tasmania was not known to even be an Island until about 150 years later. Forget all that Captain Cook stuff, Tasmania was a going concern long before 'Botany Bay' and all that malarkey!

The Dunnalley Pub has a bit of a 'folly' decorating a drainage dam adjacent to their car park.

 

The Dunnalley Pub.

The tide can rip through at up to 17kts, according to the Canal Manager, Shane.

  

It's a funny place allright!

Not where The Bloke got his Friday Fish and Chips but another worthy place to visit.