Tasmania part 2

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.

Discovering Tassie...

In Hobart (the capital of Tasmania) next to colourful old buildings and the boats of the Sydney-Hobart race we enjoyed the "Taste Tasmania" festival (the best part was cheese/cider/wine-tasting). The harbour waters were filled with a huge amount of jelly fishes (white and brown ones).

The trip continued with a visit to the Mt Field National Parc and its famous Russell Falls. In the great wildlife sactuarity "Something wild" we met Woki, a 6-month old baby wombat (taken care of here after a car hit his mum), and plenty of Tasmanian devils (most of the animals here are orphans or animals with health problems). Down at the river some platypuses were swimming and relaxing in the sun. Once again we had to realise that driving here takes more time (than usual), so even though driving on highways it took us some 4 hours to get to the Southwest coast and the village Strahan (about 200 km further away). Australian higways are actually normal roads, which in Tansmania become mountain roads... The weather was extremely chilly and on the way to our destination at around 1000 m altitude we saw mountain tops covered with snow!!!

On Saturday (the day after) while travelling to the next National
Parc, Cradle Mountain (Tasmania has 18 national parcs in total) we had
a lovely encounter with Royce, a very friendly Tasmanian
woodcraftsman. In his wonderful wood shop we had a very interesting
lesson about the trees to be found only in Tasmania: the huon pine and
the sassafras. Once in Cradle Mountain the wildlife was just one hand
away: fluffy wombats (eating grass), hungry echidnas (looking for ants
in the ground with their long nose), jumping wallabys (moving their
ears), curious pademelons and colourful parrots are just running
around (if not hiding in the bush) and in most of the time not too
afraid of humans...

Happy and lucky 2009!!!

Dear all,
we would like to wish u a GREAT 2009 full with smiles, happiness, fun, luck and only good things!!!
Our best wishes from Melbourne arrive wrapped in some wildlife-pics:)
sunny smiles from cloudy Down Under, in 2 hours we will be fly to Tassie (as the Aussies call Tasmania)...

P.S. Here its 1pm on 01.01.2009, but i somehow seem to have another timezone i am unable to update with the australian time....

Melbourne online+Happy New Years Eve!

I keep on repeating to myself (as a European who's used to live in crowded areas) that the biggest difference between Europe and Down Under is the space. One can see it directly: in 80% of the cases the houses are on one floor with huge gardens in front and in the back .
Melbourne with its 4 millions inhabitants stretches over 50 km, which also gives the people plenty of space. The city has the river Yarra (the ValleyYarra is famous for its wineries) passing trough and the ocean coast too. The center area has plenty of old buildings (most of them in art nouveau) scattered between modern skyscrapers. Some cute old trams are kept as well. Thanks to our great French-Australian hosts we visited several (completely) different (from shick and modern till alternative or covered with graffiti walls) suburbs:
- Camberwell, Fitzroy, South Yarra, Hawthorn

- Southbank, the area with modern architecture and sculptures

- the colourful beach houses at Brighton beach

- Williamstown (the historical Melbourne Harbour)

The Indian and Greek minorities living here are quiet big down under. The other day we had delicious dinner at one Indian place. The seafood is great and sooo fresh too. I eat every day watermelons and mangoes (grown in Australian sun of course). Some days ago all 4 of us bought new hats at the Victoria Market in Melbourne. Here when the sun comes out (we did not have more than 30 degrees in Victoria), it feels like burning...

Christmas-time+news from Phillip Island:-)

After some days being busy with food-shopping, cooking and present-unwrapping (the Australian style and with Aude, Russell (a real Australian from Melbourne:) and his family), the tourist programme continued with a day at Philipp Island (140km away from Melbourne).

The Island is famous as a place full with Australian wildlife. We visited the Koala Conservation Center, where one can see the koalas in their real environment, sleeping on an eukalyptus tree. The highlight was a koala eating leaves (as all the ones we saw till now were actually asleep)...In the afternoon a boat took us to the Sealion rocks, where a colony of 6000 sealions relax in the sun or play in the water. One could smell them from a km before already...

The day finished with the Pinguin Parade (a colony of 60 000 pinguins lives on the island), which starts every evening after sunset when the pinguin parents come back from a day of fishing to feed their little ones. We saw the smallest pinguin species in the world (around 30cm) waddling from the sea to their babies, who lives in holes/houses within the sand.

If we look tired on the pic abovee, its because it was 11pm already:)

Weather has been really changeable. We had some sun, clouds, showers and again sunshine within less than 12 hours. The sun feels like a big burning machine even at 9am when there is no wind at all. Should be the difference between Europe and Australia and the thickness of the ozon layer here.