Tasmania

Wineglass Bay
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Who doesn’t want to see a Tasmanian Devil in person??? Well, that was really only one reason for us to visit Tasmania as we had read many good things about it when researching Australia. We only had six days here and although it’s a small island, we chose to base ourselves in only two locations. We were also able to catch up and spend time with a friend that we had met while in Lao.

Our first plan was to spend time on the east coast in the Freycinet National Park. Coles Bay is a great little town where we based ourselves to do a day walk to the beautiful Wineglass Bay and Hazards beach in the Park. We got to see our first wallaby (small kangaroo) in the parking lot entrance to the walk of all places. She had a little Joey in her pouch too and was very cute. Then while sitting on the beach having our lunch, we look up to see a pod of dolphins swimming in the bay. We thought about joining them for a swim but the water was oh so cold.

Oh, you little devil you....

Littel Joey sure is getting big for the pouch....
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We moved up the coast to another wee town called Bicheno. We loved it here as well. The coast was beautiful and we had another little walk in Douglas Apsley National Park to a river gorge where we had a great picnic lunch. And we enjoyed a couple of good meals in Bicheno – one at a lovely French restaurant where the French proprieter makes everyone’s meal one at a time on her own. Another of our meals was on Valentine’s Day – and oh how we love to mock that day by going out for pizza – the least romantic of dinners it seems. We started this tradition a few years back and we thought we’d keep it up here. Our pizza dinner was at the Silver Sands Motel of all places, but it was actually quite good. Our lodging here (Bicheno Hideaway) was almost like a farm with white pigeons, pet peackocks, ducks, a rosella (a parrot) and pademelons (like a wallaby). It was a lot of fun.

Hazards Beach
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The fairy or blue penguins make their home here so we took the opportunity to take a tour to see the colony. They are the smallest penguins in the world averaging only 35 centimeters tall and boy, are they cute. Sadly, it was a slow week as many were out in the sea so we only saw a small number (sometimes you’ll see over 200 on the beach after dusk). The tour was after dark when the penguins return from their day out at sea to their nest homes. They were very comfortable with us walking through the area and some walked up right next to us as we moved through the area.

Wineglass Bay beach
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Our last few days were spent seeing the old penal colony of Port Arthur which is the biggest tourist draw in Tasmania. In 1830, the penal colony was set up for repeat offenders from various British colonies. The U.S. was used for this purpose before this time but since we had declared our independence, this was no longer an option for Britain. Port Arthur was somewhat like an experiment in that the goal was to “grind rogues honest” and hard labor was the key as were other methods that hadn’t necessarily been used regularly elsewhere like isolation cells, an asylum,

Fairy penguin
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Now for the Devils. You can’t come to Tasmania without seeing the devils and what better place than the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Center. We were lucky as it was time for the young devils to be fed when we arrived. They look so cuddlywhen you first see them with their cute little faces. Then you see them being fed. They are carnivorous and quite vicious when they eat. Their jaws are so strong – stronger than a lions, and just below the strength of a crocodile. They happened to be in a mating period which was so violent as the male wouldn’t let the poor female eat as he was busy dragging her around by the neck with his jaws. It was hard to watch. Luckily, there were other native animals at the park like wallabies, kangaroos, and birds that had been rescued due to injury.

Tasmanian Devil
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Our final activity was checking out the Salamanaca Market in downtown Hobart which takes place every Saturday which was quite nice. It’s like a combination of a farmers market and an art fair. There are 300 or so booths of locally grown food and produce, arts, crafts and anything you can think of.

Overall, we enjoyed our time here and the weather was perfect!

Tidbit of the day:

Although Tasmanian Devils are small, they are feisty and have a screech and growl that is quite distinct. They are carnivorous marsupials and happen to also be nocturnal. And although they are a little hyper, they don’t spin like the cartoon character. Their jaws are strong enough to chew bones up to 3 inches thick! As a species, they are now vulnerable due to a facial tumor that is spreading and has killed 50% or more of the population here depending on the area. The tumor is passed on to other animals during their violent interactions where they bit one another and break the skin. They’ve started a conservation effort to keep groups of devils separate so that they can restrict the further spread of cancer. The other unusual factoid was that they can have litters of 20-30 young but only have four nipples in their pouch to suckle their young so it’s basically survival of the fittest.