Today I went for a drive out to the south east coast of Tasmania, I was looking to get out of the city and enjoy the lovely weather. I ended up going on a short bush walk to see the Tessellated Pavement, an unusual geological formation, which gives the effect of neatly placing rather large children’s blocks.

The Tessellated Pavement is just near Eaglehawk Neck on the way to Port Arthur, it took me about an hour to drive each way. I didn’t start until late and the sun was creeping towards the horizon so the shadows were long. I realised when I parked my car I had left my camera at home and all I had with me to take photos was my mobile phone (the photos didn’t turn out too bad considering).

I walked the distance along the path to the water’s edge where the Pavement is, it adjoins a lovely beach where there were still a handful of people enjoying the afternoon sunshine. The tide was coming in and the waves were crashing over the rock leaving little rock pools all over the surface.

The moon was full and high in the sky and I even managed to get a photo of it hanging between the tops of a couple of gum trees. One stunning gum tree branched off into two about half way up, had bark peeling off it giving it a multi coloured, and textured appearance.

A lovely old dog came up to me for a pat just as I was about to leave. I took a wonderful photo of him looking up at me. He had beautiful wise old eyes and he was a very friendly dog who plonked himself down on my feet so I could give him a pat. He walked me back most of the way along the path to my car before letting me go at a turn in the path where he sat poking his head around the corner watching me leave.

I had a very peaceful and relaxing day until I was driving back into town and could smell smoke about half an hour away from the city. As we have a lot of bushland surrounding Hobart I thought there must have been a bush fire somewhere. However, as I neared the city I could see a high plume of smoke rising from the city centre that turned out to be coming from our single largest department store in the centre of town, Myer.

I have added some photos sent to me by a friend, of the building fully alight. It was a beautiful old building, which has now been completely demolished. I am happy to report all staff and shoppers got safely out of the building, and nobody got hurt. I had been in the building earlier in the morning, but I promise I didn’t set the fire. The cause of the fire is still to be determined.

There is one photo below of the smoke from the fire, which I could see from my back yard.