Tasmania

I arrived in Devonport, Tasmania, on the 11th October in the early morning. First surprise, a man had fallen from the ferry onto the water when the ferry was already in the harbour (I didn't see this but they announced it on the loudspeakers), so the police was called and all passengers had to remain on-board until they had finalised all formalities, so we all disembarked one hour later than foreseen. I was a bit nervous about renting a car here; I had only driven on the right side once, in Ireland, many years ago, but after half an hour or so I started feeling comfortable and since the car has automatic transmission it's very easy to drive anyway.

I went straight to Cradle Mountain National Park, on the West Coast, part of an enormous wild area of Tasmania which is on the world heritage list. It was a beautiful sunny day and I could already see the mountain when I still was about an hour away from the park. I got there still early and spent the day doing some of the park walks near Lake Dove - absolutely stunning! But what I liked even more than the landscape - which was sublime and reason enough to go there - was the fact that I saw so many animals... In one single day I saw, for the first time in my life, wombats, an echidna and wallabies, all wandering around in their environment. I was pretty scared when I spotted my first wombat, as it was quite big, I didn't know what it was and it was heading towards me on the trail, not caring about, and even seeming interested in my presence. I thought "Is this thing going to attack me?". I recalled Tamara, an Australian I met in Canberra, who told me half-joking that if all Australian animals look so fluffy and cuddling, that's only a strategy to kill you easier! "Actually, they're all vicious", she said (I burst into laugh with the way she said it: VICIOUS!). Then a guy appeared and I asked him what that creature was and he said "a wombat", headed straight towards it and caressed it on the back while it fed on the grass - crazy! But this was a particular sociable wombat, since many others I saw later seemed less keen in being near to humans.

Lake Dove, Cradle Mountain

My first wombat, heading straight towards me!

My first echidna...

As in Canada, Australian parks seem to be very well organised, you have a visitor centre with all the information that you need, trail maps, ... Also, all trails are perfectly signalled with the time needed for the walk, the distance, the level of difficulty... and everything is impeccably clean, people do seem to respect their amazing natural heritage.

After a day of hiking I went to a place called Devils at Cradle to see a famous animal that I haven’t seen in the wild (at least not yet): the devil of Tasmania. They have opened some centres to take care of these animals and keep them in quarantine since a mysterious contagious tumour appeared in the 1990s, decimating the population (in some areas of Tasmania the population of devils fell by more than 90%). You can watch them, learn more about them, and assist to the feeding time frenzy! They are actually cute but very competitive for food and have an aggressive personality (as well as impressive teeth) and bite each other quite often (which in turn spreads the tumour that causes their death) for food, making lots of noise. A video in the centre explained that the Aborigines used to call them - I forgot the word, but it meant "the nasty ones". Poor devils, I actually found them sweet, I hope they will find a cure for the tumour that is killing them and that they won't meet the fate of the Tasmanian tiger (which, as I also learned, was not a tiger at all but was named like that by the Europeans because of the stripes on its back that looked like those of a tiger), which became extinct in 1936.

A Tasmanian devil at Devils at Cradle



Baby devils with their mum

At the end of that first busy day I found accommodation at the camping ground near the park, I actually stayed in a dorm alone, with the whole place for myself, for $28, my cheapest night in Australia so far, and I slept like a baby!

The next morning I headed to the southern part of the park, which means driving for about two hours, since you must actually drive around the park. I had my coffee in Queenstown, a little mining town where a foreigner is spotted within seconds of his arrival, a quiet, friendly place. Then I made a few stops on my way. The road is amazing, you can do little walks and visit waterfalls, climb to lookouts over the valley, or just walk in the forest. Finally I arrived in Lake St Clair and still had time for more walking. I did the “Aboriginal walk”, or Larmairremener tabelti, dedicated to the homonymous Aboriginal group who used to live there before the British colons expropriated them and deported them to Flinders Island (Northeast of Tasmania), where they died of disease and starvation.

Larmairremener tabelti

I was a bit disappointed with the walk itself because it was raining and - perhaps because the vegetation is denser - you don’t see many animals, unlike the northern part of the park. However, at the end of my hike, just as I was approaching the lake, it suddenly stopped raining and I was rewarded with a rainbow on the other shore. J

Lake St Clair after rain

The next day I drove to Mt Field National Park, my last stop in the wild Tasmanian West. Again, the road to get there is just beautiful; you pass rivers, waterfalls, and the landscape changes constantly. You hear nothing but the birds, very few cars drive this road.

 

Russell Falls

 

On my fourth day I drove to the East coast, to the Tasman Peninsula (most of which is also a national park). They call that area the “convict trail” because of its rich convict history. The remains of those times can be visited at Port Arthur (also a world heritage site), a beautiful place (you could never guess the harsh lives that were lived here) and also a renowned haunted one! I went to a ghost tour at night and heard lots of stories. However, much scarier than the tour was driving back to my hotel (I’m staying 13km away from Port Arthur): I could spot lots of animals, both dead on the road and moving on its sides or even crossing it and I was afraid that I might run over one (dead or alive, you sure don’t want to bump your car into a wallaby, it’s still a big animal), so I had to drive veeeeeeeery slowly…

 

Port Arthur. The building on the right used to be the prison