The whole Sunday was dedicated to nature and wildlife. In the morning we went for 4-hour-mountain hike around the lakes of Cradle Mountain National Parc, in the afternoon Tasmanian honey-tasting and a visit of the Wilderness Photo Gallery was on the program. The spontaneously booked night safari (by bus) was the highlight of the day. From 9pm till midnight together with a local guide and some big lamps we spotted plenty of animals: cute Bennets wallabys, pademelons (from the kangaroo family but even smaller than a wallaby), plenty of wombats (even one mum with her little one crossing the street), a baby tasmanian devil (having as dinner a hit animal from the road), echidnas...John, our driver and guide, made a great, funny and extended intro into the wildlife we saw. An important fact to learn is that a wombat (living normally underground in burrows), can fight an intruder by just closing the opening of his burrow with his bum.
A cute wallaby, posing for my picture:)This one we met at the car parking of Freycinet.
On Monday a drive took us from the Wild West (of Tasmania: the Cradle Mountain) to the Northeast coast and the national Parc Freycinet. Within the parc there are several beautiful and old gum trees as well as rock formation to be found. The day finished with a bottle of sparkling Tasmanian wine (the bottleshop was the only open thing in Bicheno after 8.00 pm) and some local cheese and smoked salmon on the sofa of our B&B.
The last day of our stay in Tassie started with a visit to the local aquarium with some funny fat-belly-seahorses and baby squids (not more than 3 cm big). A sunny (yes, after very cold temperatures, finally it got really warm for local standards-around 24 degrees) and scenic coastal drive from north to south on the East coast led to the famous prison of Port Artur. The museum including several buildings and some gardens is indeed impressive and explained well the history of this place that was till 130 years ago a work camp for max 2000 English convicts. From 162000 sent over to Australia, 72000 were transported to Tasmania...
After a lovely week in Tasmania, 1100 km by car and 1h flight back to Melbourne, we will take off to New Zealand in 3 hours.
Jana from slow-Internet-Airport -Melbourne with smiles!
P.S. the tasmanian tiger does not exist anymore (last one died in 1930). There are still some tasmanian devils left (much smaller like a cat, the tasmanian tiger was bigger and much more dangerous)...The devils (on the sign with Nico) have a bad disease and since 10 years start to disapppear slowly.
