When the day was done, we said to each other, "this was one of the best vacation days we have spent in years!" It was truly an amazing day – interaction with some special Aussie animals and people made it so.
About 8 AM, I went out and got a couple of the best chocolate croissants ever made on planet Earth, as well as some fruit, yogurt, juice and cappuccinos, and brought them back to our room for breakfast. We set out around 9 AM, and our first mission was to conquer the Cataract Gorge for which Launceston is best known. After walking along the gorge, we returned to the café area, where we spotted our first wallaby (basically a small-scale kangaroo). A lady came along and told us all about "Lucy" the wallaby, and another wallaby she has named "Cuddles". She comes to the park every day and knows these wallabies intimately. We talked with her for a long time and thoroughly enjoyed the exchange. She introduced us to the chairlift operator, who sent us on a return trip via chairlift over the gorge. When we arrived on the other side, his colleague operator said, "you must be the Canadians!" Everyone treated us so kindly.
When we got back to the parking lot, someone had left a note on our windshield indicating that our front tire was extremely low. We returned to town and found a garage within minutes; they took us in immediately, removed the tire, and showed us that it was filled with echidnas quills. The huge clunk we heard on the highway last night, when we ran over an echidnas (similar to a porcupine) resulted in the poor echidnas' quills puncturing the tire. It was beyond repair, so we had to purchase a new one. But the whole thing took half an hour at most, and we were on our way again.
Our next stop was a small zoo further both, quite far off the beaten track. A teacher colleague of Pam's had told her about it, as an excellent place to see Tasmanian devils. This small zoo is working hard to breed devils and to equip them for the wild to survive the cancer that has been decimating their population. A highlight was definitely watching the feeding time. Again, the staff was so kind to us and allowed us to get up close and personal with one of the Devils.
From the zoo, we continued to the north coast area of Tasmania, following the Tamar River. The forests, the agricultural land, the abundance of sheep, it was all picture-perfect. In a small village called Beauty Point, there are two very unique places to visit: a sea-horse breeding farm, and a platypus breeding facility. We visited both and thoroughly enjoyed them. Again, the staff treated us like royalty. We were blown away by the kindness and genuine hospitality we experienced from Tasmanians in all our exchanges today. Truly impressive.
Pam had very much wanted to see a platypus on our last two trips to Australia, but it did not pan out. Seeing them so closely on this trip was a definite highlight. Interesting to note that, despite their cuteness and gentle demeanor, the male platypus is equipped with two sharp horns that contain venom much more potent than any snake.
After a rich day of interaction with truly unique Australian wildlife, we returned to Launceston along the Tamar River, soaking up the sights until the sun went down. We found a diner and had roast chicken dinner to end the day.
Tomorrow we will make a very early start, and head south to Hobart, the capital.
Morning view of Launceston (population 71.000)
Cataract Gorge is the crown jewel of Launceston
Chair-lift over Cataract Gorge
Monster fern "trees" in Cataract Gorge
Irresistible koala at the rustic Tasmania Zoo
The pièce de resistance: the one, the only, Tasmanian Devil!
Feeding time for the Tassie Devils: wallaby on a stick.
This is an echidnas, which we spotted on the side of the rode - it's kind of like an Australian porcupine. This is what we ran over last night, and which punctured our tire.
Seahorses being bred in captivity
The duck-billed platypus is unique to Australia. We were fortunate to see some at a place called "Platypus House", where they study them and try to breed them in captivity.
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