He first drove us around some of the older wealthier neighborhoods of Hobart. Arthur Circus, a setting of little houses in a circle, which had a very English feel to it all.
We drove around Battery Point, a very wealthy little area. In the area was Hobart's first casino, and Australia. After a tour around, we drove to an over look to see the Governor's House. Apparently, it's special because it has a huge number of acres of land around it, and it's own herd of cattle associated with it.
From there we drove along country roads past hops fields, oust kilns, stone fruit farms, sheep farms, and beautiful glaciated valleys. Rosegarland, Gretna, Hamilton, finally we drove into a wildlife preserve called Bonorong.
We had a guy tell us about Wombats. Hey, I thought they were like big, fuzzy guinea pigs. WRONG. For beginners, the males grow to about 40 kg (88 pounds - they're about the size of Wally, the dog). About two years after they're born, they reach maturity, and the males turn on their moms and toss the moms out of the den. If they're attacked, the run into a den and turn their backs to the attacker. The back side of a wombat (back 1/3 - 1/2 or so has a thick cartilage plate under the fur. Any attacker has to deal with the plate. If the attack continues, the wombat lowers itself down, the attacker rushes head into the den to get at the wombat, which then rises up and crushes the attacker. They've been known to crush skulls, break bones, and cause real damage. They also bite. They still look cute, they just don't act it.
Our next visit was with a Tasmanian Devil. They are adorable, and unfortunately, not well suited to much but crushing bone. The one we watched munched through a wallaby leg - bone and all- in a few minutes. They're slow, mostly eat carrion, and unfortunately not diverse biologically. When a group of Devils meet a large carcass, they bite at each others mouths, the winner gets the first tastes. When they developed an awful, mouth cancer, it was transmitted mouth to mouth, causing a huge number of them to die in the wild. The group of Tasmanian Devils at the park that we saw were disease free, but couldn't be released to the wild and to a certain death. The park's plan was to raise as many as they could and hope there would be somewhere, eventually where they'd be safe.
We then saw a couple Koala Bears. They are really cute. However, they're slow as molasses, stupid as sticks, sit around eating poisonous eucalyptus leaves, and spend most of their day (22 hours) sleeping. They are closely related to the wombats, and after close inspection, really look similar. They, too, have the cartilage plate. They use theirs to help ease their bottoms while they sit in the crook of a tree all day long.
We then walked around the park checking out other things: some emus, kangaroos, wallabies, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and a whole host of other miscellaneous birds.
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| We were given a little bag of food to feed the kangaroos and wallabies. This one grabbed my hand to make sure she could get the grub. |
Our next stop was Mt. Field National Park. We had lunch, and then, Paul drove us to the top of a trail. Charlie and I walked down the trail and Paul met us at the bottom. It was called the "tall trees trail" and led through a growth of huge eucalyptus (swamp eucalyptus was the thinner ones), super ferns, moss, it was the most primeval of forests, dark and wet. I kind of imagined finding a raptor out of Jurassic Park in its midst. The trail included Horseshoe falls and Russel Falls. These were really magnificent, especially since it's been quite wet around here, and there's been a lot of snow melt.
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| Mt. Field National Park in the distance. |
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| Horseshoe Falls. |
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| Russel Falls. This was particularly spectacular from the top. |
We made our way back to the hotel. Then we decided to go off to dinner. We had a wonderful soup and sandwich at lunch so neither Charlie or I was very hungry. We ended up at a bakery and had a great, warm chicken, cheese, asparagus pie for dinner. I wish we could get good pies in LA.
We're back in the room, packing and getting ready for the airport run tomorrow. Our flight from Hobart doesn't leave us much time for the flight to San Francisco. We can always get a good worry going when we don't have much time. Sigh
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