Ta Ta Tasmania

Moving fast as always. After Day 1 with animals in the pastoral hills near Hobart and Day 2 along beaches on the east side of the island, Day 3 we went to the mountains inland (Mount Field), and Day 4 we went to Bruny Island off the main island of Tasmania.

We keep saying that Tasmania looks like many other places we have been, but all in one place. It is almost like a theme park with bits of other countries in full-scale reproduction here. And yet its hills seem gentler than elsewhere,

its waterways unpretentious.

In architecture, there is a term “massing” for the size, shape, and relationship of each shape to the whole and the whole itself. I find myself thinking that the massing here of natural elements is perfect.

We walked out to three waterfalls on Mount Field: Russell, Lady Barron, and Horseshoe.

There has been a drought, and locals said that they were not as ample as they normally are, not producing spray like they normally would.

Bruny Island has a lighthouse on the far south end with gorgeous views and a distant seal colony.

The neck between the two parts of the island is home to penguins and shearwaters that nest there but only return after dark past when the last ferry runs.

We did not, sadly, sight any wallabies, including the white wallabies of Bruny Island. We joked that it’s a clever tourism board scheme to claim you have something that you don’t so that people come visit. But locals insisted that they do exist, and many longtime locals said they have never seen them.

We did see Tasmanian devils, wombats, and wallabies, but only as roadkill. Sad to see but at least proof that they are out here. The one thing we did see in the wild was an echidna on Mount Field.

We got all excited and showed it to some people on the trail who were like, “yeah, so?” because they live here and see them all the time. Being able to see so many different beautiful landscapes each day as we did, I would hope I never took it for granted.