This will hurt me...

Here is a shot of Henry and regular blog pest commenter Roddy looking for crabs up at Fossil Bluff in Wynyard. You might just be able to see Bass Strait in the background. As a bonus, here is an arty black and white portrait to scare people off ever getting tattoos. They fade people, and it isn't pleasant when the skin stretches and contracts over time!

One of the differences between beaches in Tasmania's north west (the place of my birth and first eighteen years), and beaches in Tasmania's south east (where I've lived for the past - gulp - fourteen [!] years; is the distinct lack of crabs in the south. I believe that the fellow photographed - in Wynyard - above is the notorious Cyclograpsus granulosus , other wise known as the Rough Shore Crab . They've earned that name by [allegedly] frequenting the tough bars and clubs in the shore and dock districts of Tasmania, picking fights with sailors and frequenting prostitutes. Tough talking crustaceans are of course not the only difference between north and south. As a general rule, north west men are a) bigger; b) stronger; c) smarter; d) more attractive; e) more virile; f) wittier; g) more adroit; h) more ebullient; and - not least - i) far more modest. This odd evolutionary (?) quirk may or may not be related to the crab wrestling required from toddlerhood on.

Aside from the multitude of fossils and the abundance of crabs, Wynyard's Fossil Bluff is an excellent place to forage for rocks.

I've mentioned Fossil Bluff in Wynyard once or twice before, and I realised that I'd posted a lot of the beach, but not many of the Bluff itself. Thus, I thought I'd best post the remaining shots in a bunch and be done with 'em! For the uninitiated, a bluff is a "steep headland, promontory, riverbank, or cliff". The interesting thing about Fossil Bluff was formed as glaciers flowed as they were melting and reached areas of depression they slowed down, and dropped the rocks they were carrying. Over time, mud covered the rocks, which became a mudstone conglomerate. You can find granites, cherts, quartz, jaspers and agates in the tillite. Thus we have a sandstone Bluff - with layers of fossils encased in the stone - laying on top of the tillite. As you walk around the Bluff (at low tide) you are able to see where the sandstone and tillite meet. You will be glad to hear that the Bluff plays host every year to hundreds of drunken and randy teenagers. I remember it...

Last night we saw Henry pondering in the dunes at Clifton Beach, today is Ezra sizing up his mother at Fossil Bluff in Wynyard. In the background there you can see Table Cape, which is, geologically speaking [ahem] a large volcanic plug .

I am so very, very busy today, so my apologies for the delay. This photo was taken at Fossil Bluff in Wynyard, one of the most important geological monuments of Tasmania. East and west of the beach and at intervals for many kilometres to the east is a low flat gray rock known as the Wynyard Tillite, which is about 280 million years old and having been formed in the age of glaciations while Australia was part of the super continent called Gondwana. The glaciers flowed from the south towards the north and when they were melting and reached areas of depression they slowed down, and dropped the rocks they were carrying. Over time, mud covered the rocks, which became a mudstone conglomerate. You can find granites, cherts, quartz, jaspers and agates in the tillite, and on the beach as small pebbles. Just behind where I took this photo is a sandstone Bluff, with layers of fossils encased in the stone. You can see the sandstone here . This Bluff was beneath the sea in the Oligocene geological ...

Here is Ezra riding Jen like a horse (or a camel) down at Fossil Bluff in Wynyard, on Tasmania's sunny North West! The bloke just over her shoulder (not in red stripes) is frequent (as in every single post commentator " Roddy ".