Tassie

We leave the skyline of Melbourne behind as we set sail on the way to Tasmania.

Arriving in Devonport, Tassie the last rays of sun shine on our ship.

Tassie has lots of farming.  It's fall here and the crops are ready to be harvested, it makes for beautifully coloured landscapes.

At the bottom of Leven Canyon.  We hiked the over 600 steps to the top of the cliffs you see in the background and then walked along the river which was not so full of water at the end of the summer season.

What a sweet looking Echidna, digging around for something to eat.  They look like they should be related to our porcupine but they are actually in the same family as the platypus and an anteater in Borneo.

On one coutry road we saw many different mailboxes, they must have been having some kind of competition.

The boathouse on Dove Lake in Cradle Mountian National Park.  We did several walks in this park, thescenery  was beautiful and the weather was good for walking...even though it got down to about 2 degrees at night!

Ken tries to make friends with an Echidna in Cradle Mountian NP.

What a cute Wombat, one of several we saw in Cradle Mountian NP.  This one let us get up close without worrying too much.

The Kookaburra in the old Gum tree.  We love to hear the laugh!

The Bay of Fire National Park, rated one of the worlds top 10 beaches...

and we walked and walked around the bays.  Just a worning though, the sand in the campsite will leave your feet black for days to come.

The sun sets on the beach at Marriwah where we were just in time to watch some of the Western Tasmania Surf Championship.

For example, this is an electric grill at a rest/picnic area that is free for everyone to use.  What great facilities.

Tasmanian Devils they say they are out there in their last stronghold in the northwest of the island but we didn't get to see any...alive.  Unfortunately the numbers have dropped in the last years due to a cancer they are contracting on their face, poor things.  The road kill here is very sad, in some areas carcasses line the road every 10 metres.

The Lady Jane Franklin II, the ship we took on a cruise up the Gordon River.  Don't look too close at the picture.

Everyone said we had to take the cruise on the Gordon but we thought our $270 could have been better spent.  I did get a few good reflection shots thought.

Ken caught a shot of this little bandit one night as he was trying to get into our campervan.  Possums are protected here in Australia even though there are millions of them and they are sometimes a menace.  If you remember, in New Zealand where the possums were brought in from Australia years ago, they are trying to kill them off because there are so many...crazy.

A mummy Walaby posses for our picture on the beach at Wineglass Bay, look for the little joey in her from pouch.

A Grasstree, looks like punker having a bad hair day.

The view of Wineglass Bay from the lookout above.  Another of the worlds top 20 most beautiful beaches.  We were starting to wonder...two of the top 10 in Tassie, they are beautiful.

The Devils Kitchen, in Tasman National Park.  This area had very dramatic and rugged coastlines.

Perched on top of a cliff on Huay Point in Tasman NP. 

It is a long was down to the sea.

The Corella Parrot, a beautiful bird on a wire right in our campsite.

We climbed Mount Wellington, just like Ken did 25 years ago.  Hobart sits in the background amongst the many bays and islands at the mouth of River Derwent in the middle of Storm Bay.

The Middle Highlands was a stretch of ranchland, outside Kempton the remains of an old railway sit waiting for a rail pumpcart remembering days gone by.

If you want to experience great walks, fantastic camping for next to free, and unique and friendly people you have to see Tasmania, and that isn't even mentioning the out of the ordinary wildlife.  I had to eat my words after telling Ken that I thought the month we had booked in Tassie was too long because as we sat waiting for our return ferry to Melbourne I already felt a sense of loss and longing to stay longer...but it was not to be (we were lucky to get our boat out when we did as everything was full for weeks in advance).

On the ferry, the Spirit of Tasmania, during for voyage from Melbourne to Devenport in Tassie, we picked up a brochure called '60 Great Short Walks in Tasmania'.  I was excited!  I didn't have to leave New Zealand never to walk again...Tassie had more!   Ken and I walked many of the the great walks in Tassie including Marions Lookout and Ronnie's Creeks via  the Dove Lake circuit and the Wombat Pools at Caddle Mountian National Park, Leven Canyon with its 600 plus steps, Rocky Cape National Park, The Nut at Stanley, Wine Glass Bay in Freycinet National Park, Huay Cape with over 4 kms of stone steps in Tasman National Park, and Mt Wellington in Hobart, not to mention many more beach walks and smaller coastal and rainforest walks in the other National Parks we visited.

Camping in Tassie is another story all together.  It is amazing (in most cases)!  One of our first purchases upon arrival in Aussie was the Camp 7 book, a book listing most every campsite under $24 in Aussie and maps on how to find them and GPS locations...nearly 4000 in total.  It is a book worth its weight in gold.  At many of the sites you can stay for free, many have free toilets, showers and  electric bbqs for use.  Showers can also be purchased at other locations in towns, for instance the local pool or port.  Only on occasion did we have to stay in a r.v. park to do laundry and use other amenities.  The only thing lacking is the use of internet which you can find at most libraries and info-centres, but beside those it is very expensive to purchase and hard to find.  Over-all Tassie has to be the best place for camping.

We have met so many great people in Tassie, many from Tassie itself and even more from other places in Aussie who were on vacation themselves.  We had the opportunity to stay with Rex and Robyn who have a great place in Eastern Tassie, complete with chucks (chickens) and a great garden not to mention that when we visited they were installing an old wood burning stove to cook on and heat their water, going off the grid...I love it!  Thanks for the chutney it was great!  We ran into several people more than once at different campsites, acquiring addresses we only hope we will meet them again on our travels around the mainland.

Ken is having a ball!  What weird and wonderful creatures there are here.  We have seen wombats, echidnas, wallabies, possums, an infamous platypus, a tiger snake that was way too close for my liking, a roadkill Tasmanian devil (we really would  have liked to have seen it alive but unfortunately...not) and last but not least, not to mention all the many types of colourful parrots and other birds.  We "Ken" is looking forward to seeing more of the same on the mainland.  By the way, did you know that Australia is the most dangerous country in the world to travel due to its dangerous animals, snakes, and spiders!  Yeh!