The White Wallabies of Bruny Island.
We came to Bruny Island for the white wallabies. Well I did, David came for me - he isn't a wildlife person. Bruny Island, a small island off the coast of Tasmania is home to a colony of rare white wallabies. I have a long history of disappointment in the wild animal spotting stakes. Just recently I have failed to see whales in Alaska, cassowaries in Queensland and sunbathing kangaroos in Esperance but Bruny Island proved the exception. Within half an hour of arriving we saw two of these beautiful creatures up very close in the bush.
Where to look for platypus in Tasmania.
After more than an hour walking along the river bank path in Deloraine, stopping every few metres to scan the surface of the water, even I was ready to give up. This was platypus country and we were here in search of one of Australia's most elusive creatures. The platypus is an egg-laying mammal. Along with echidnas it is the only mammal still in existence which lays eggs instead of suckling its young. It has a bill like a duck, a tail which looks like a beaver's tail and the male platypus has a spur poisonous enough to cause severe pain in a human being. The platypus is one of the most unusual looking animals on the planet. It is also cute - seriously cute.
The Little Penguins of Low Head
We could have come yesterday. Yesterday was a warm, balmy, windless summer's evening. We could have come tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a warm, balmy, windless summer's evening. We have chosen tonight, for no good reason I can think of. Tonight is cold, very cold, and the wind is whipping through our inadequate summer jackets, making us wonder whether this was a good idea at all.
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One of the most persistent myths which David and I encounter in our travels overseas is that Australia is a nation populated by the descendants of convicts. This supposed ancestry gets dredged up from time to time to explain almost every aspect of Australia's national character. In reality, in a country of 24 million people, just 4 million of us have a convict in the family tree and a lot fewer than that have a convict ancestor who committed a serious crime. The forebears of the vast majority of Australians came here as free settlers. (Click here to read how I uncovered a branch of my own family's history during a visit to Q Station, Manly.)
Port Arthur, Tasmania: A World Heritage Convict Site
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I have to confess that Launceston was about the last place I expected to find heritage buildings. I am not even sure why we went there. Don't get me wrong, it turned out to be a great destination but when I asked David what possessed him to book us five nights in a cottage just outside the city he didn't seem to have an answer.
It turns out Launceston is known for having one of the finest early Colonial and Victorian cityscapes in Australia with many of the buildings beautifully restored and freshly painted. This week I am going to let my camera do the talking and give you a taste of what you might see if, like me, you find yourself inexplicably in Tasmania's second largest city.
The Heritage Buildings of Launceston, Tasmania
It turns out Launceston is known for having one of the finest early Colonial and Victorian cityscapes in Australia with many of the buildings beautifully restored and freshly painted. This week I am going to let my camera do the talking and give you a taste of what you might see if, like me, you find yourself inexplicably in Tasmania's second largest city.
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Hobart and cycling are not words which sit comfortably together in a sentence. David insists on taking our bicycles with us almost everywhere we go but even he agreed to leave them at home on our recent trip to Tasmania. Part of the reason was cost. As hard as it may be to believe it costs less to fly bicycles the 12,000 kms from Sydney to Los Angeles than it does to fly them 1,600 kms from Sydney to Hobart. Mostly however, it just didn't seem worth the effort for the one or two leisure cycling paths we were able to find in Hobart. Being neither road cyclists nor super-fit mountain bikers we look for easy, relatively flat, family-friendly, off-road paths - and sadly these are in very short supply in Tasmania's capital.
Cycling in Hobart: The Intercity Cycleway and The Clarence Foreshore Trail
