Excursion to Mount Brown June 2012 
Amanda Thomson 
Eighteen Field Naturalists met at the Remarkable 
Cave car park on a fairly ominous, cool and cloudy 
day. Some of us took the opportunity to visit the 
cave prior to embarking on the Mt Brown track. 
Initially, the terrain consisted of undulating, sandy 
dunes dominated by heath, epacris, Banksia 
marginata, and Correa. We found a small dung 
beetle in the sand. 
Banksia marginata. Photo: Natalie Tapson 
Onthophagus sp.- Horned Dung Beetle. Photo: Natalie Tapson 
It was not long before we arrived at the unfenced 
Blowhole - a cavernous slit in the dolerite with 
foaming, pounding waves hundreds of feet below. 
The general area is a bare rocky platform with 
grasses and a few stunted bushes. 
Maingon Blowhole. Photo: Amanda Thomson 
The heathland continued across the 'Mansfield 
Plain' to the rock platform crossing a marsupial 
lawn of rock covered with mossy vegetation, yellow 
lichens, pigface and plantains. 
Pigface (carpobrotus rossii). Photo: Amanda Thomson 
We were trying to identify birds flying over the 
shore when we realized they were excited by a 
large seal toying with its prey, tossing it back and 
forth out of the water. 
Plates of rock, stunted vegetation, lichens, banksia, 
hakeas and casuarinas traverse the rocky hillside of 
Mt Brown. Views extend across Crescent Bay with 
its scalloped shoreline and tall, descending dunes. 
Erika Shankley thought the Allocasuarina was 
probably crassa (Cape Pillar sheoak) a particular 
species of the area, also found on Tasman Island. 
Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club 
Page 2 
BULLETIN 348 Oct 2012 
