Tasmania

The length of my vacation is starting to affect me. That or waking three hours before sunrise to catch yet another flight has tired me out. While I never met a Kiwi I didn’t like during my two weeks in New Zealand, the opposite was true in Tasmania. I went through my whole first day with nothing good to say about Port Arthur’s inhabitants. Those people acted like the convicts they’re descended from. Fortunately - whether from a good night’s sleep or new location - things turned around.

Tasmania is an odd place. The forests have Eucalyptus or Gum trees, shrub-like pines and other plants that can only be described as Tasmanian. I didn’t see any land suitable for farming my whole first day. And it was hard to call it suitable for grazing, though sheep and cows were doing just that.


As I drove from Port Arthur towards Coles Bay things turned around. I started seeing wildlife, and not just the Tasman Devils in the Conservation Park or the road kill (there’s lots of road kill everywhere). My first sighting was a porcupine making its way across the roadway. As I drove further north, there was agriculture. But what I was guessing were Huckleberries turned out to be Tasman Walnuts (shaped like Christmas trees with shiny leaves???). Then there was one vineyard after another. Finally … a civilized place.


There’s watch for Devil signs in Tasmania, just like the watch for penguin signs in New Zealand and the watch for kangaroo signs in Queensland. They’re like the watch for deer signs at home. Do you every really see one?


The Devils are sparse here in the wild. It’s everything else you have to watch out for. There are dead wallabies everywhere; wombats and possums too. And even a dead kangaroo. I saw a road crew whose job it was to clean up the road kill. The speed limits are 65 kph at night. During my 5 kilometer drive from dinner to my lodging in Coles Bay, I saw two possums and about a half dozen wallabies – the nearest in my B&B’s driveway.

Critters are everywhere. The wallabies had the Wineglass Bay car park staked out for food-wielding tourists. Two possums climbed out of a tree and onto the deck next to where I was having dinner at the lodge in Freycinet National Park. I turned around and another one was on an empty table next to me. I bussed my own dishes.


The highlight of my Tasmania visit was undoubtedly Freycinet National Park. The Park is famous for Wineglass Bay, the spectacular wine glass shaped beach. Known as one of the ten greatest beaches in the world, it’s about a three hour hike, in-and-out, up and over the saddleback of the Hazards. But once again, that was the expected.

The unexpected was after a short walk down to Sleepy Bay this morning. I’d gone down to photograph the red rocks and expected to stay maybe five minutes. But when I saw a school of dolphins feeding next to shore I sat down on the rocks and took picture after picture. They played, fed, , jumping over each other, slapped their fins and made their distinct blowhole sounds. What a sight! What a sight!!! I finally left after about an hour.