COLUMNS

I don’t do endorsements. However, if you are ever stumped for something to do out of Hobart, consider a boat ride beneath the highest sea cliffs in the Southern Hemisphere with Damo (Damien)and Susie.

They have a fast little craft, carrying 12 passengers, which zipped over a placid ocean for us. (As I am writing, there is a seven metres swell in southern Tasmania and I would love to be back out there for today’s wave-bash on those cliffs: it must be a stunner!)

We were able to sidle right in next to the ripple-laced rock. Then Damo and Susie handed out wetsuits and snorkels and most people walked overboard to lie on a large mat, like a trampoline, and look down into the clear sea, nose-to-nose with members of an Australian fur seal colony. Fascinated by this scene, with sun-bathing seals on the rocks and the cliffs towering above, I opted to take photographs.

Next they backed us into a huge vault at a fault in the base of the 300 metres high columns of dolerite rising up out of the sea. A massive chock-block holding up the ceiling looked like it would plummet down at any minute. In geological time that’s just what it will do. Wow!

Off shore, the lighthouse-topped Tasman Island stood straight sided against the horizon. It was a lot to absorb after having first gone right in under the legendary Totem Pole, the single dolerite column famed in the annals of rock-climbing. Adjacent the Totem Pole is a thicker, higher bunch of columns