Tasmania

Cradle Mountain Lodge

I know what you're thinking and I totally agree.  The best way to choose your vacation destination is to base the decision on 1950s Looney Tunes characters.  Maybe it was our devil-may-care attitude, or maybe the devil made me do it, or maybe we sold our soul to the devil, regardless we were lucky devils to be able to see both the devil and the deep blue sea in Tasmania.  I could go on (just ask Fred) but here's how it went down.

Cabin at Mountain Valley Lodge

That's our little cabin in the woods in the Loongana valley in the mountains of northwest Tasmania, just like home if your home is surrounded at night by Tasmanian devils, quolls, wombats and pademelons.  On the first night there, we stayed up past midnight sitting by the front door waiting in keen anticipation for the devil.  But just like waiting up for Santa, he did not appear until we were snug in our beds fast asleep.  In our defense, it's not easy staying up till the wee hours when you are jet lagged, it's cold and they have heated mattresses on the bed.  The next night though, as we were speaking of the devil, he did in fact appear.

Handsome Devil

He bears little resemblance to his marsupial cartoon counterpart except he does have a voracious appetite and a snarly disposition.  This one in particular did not live up to his famed badassness since it ran off when a bush possum showed up.  Granted it was a really fat possum, but still.

I don't know why they put out raw chicken parts to attract them since everyone knows they prefer wasscaly wabbits.

But Sonia you say, where are the pictures of the quoll, pademelons and wombats.  Hey, give me a break, those guys come out at night and run off the minute you lift your camera.  Just google them, like Abraham Lincoln once said if you've seen one wombat you've seen 'em all.

 How about some nice fern fronds instead, they stay really still.

That's Fred waiting patiently for some Tasmanian rarity which I could probably spot pretty quickly if I went over there, but it annoys him when I do that so I'll leave him there to contemplate how lucky he is to have a spouse that can spot a green bird sitting quietly behind some green leaves in a green tree.

 Striated Pardalote

New Holland Honeyeater

On our way to Mountain Valley lodge we passed through some idyllic, small towns stopping along the way for a little birding.

Native Black Swans

The towns in Tasmania are all ridiculously quaint, spotlessly clean and full to the brim with the nicest, most helpful, friendliest people, but that's not what makes them interesting.  That would come from the fact that each town has it's own claim to fame.

There's Railton, a town where every yard has it's own topiary lion, dog, whale, and presumably platypus and echidna.

Doo town, where every cottage name includes the word doo, such as digeri-doo, cock-a-doodle-doo, doo-be-doo-be-doo, you get the picture.

One where every mailbox shape is limited only by the owners imagination.

We stopped in Sheffield for gas, there's a mural on every building.

This one was 3D.  It's a little known fact the now extinct Tasmanian tiger ate dachshund

My favorite was this town, where the street is lined with, what I can only presume, are works by aspiring local artists:

The top one had a plaque that titled it "Monty's wooly jumbuck", I cannot improve on that.

On our way to Cradle Mountain National Park we stopped along a river to try our chances for every fifth graders favorite egg laying mammal.

Go home evolution, you're drunk

Further down the road we saw one of those, only in Australia, traffic signs.

Ok, first off, it's pretty unlikely they will cross the road so I wasn't sure why this warranted a caution sign.  Then someone explained that this town had actually stolen the sign from another place further along and relocated it here so tourists would stop and take a picture and maybe buy a little snack at the local store which was conveniently located nearby.  Pfft, like that would sucker me in.

Ok, maybe we did purchase a snack at the the local store but I will tell you that some of these small towns, and they are all small, have a somewhat limited selection.

It's like season 2 of the Walking Dead out here

Cradle Mountain National Park

Many Tasmanians describe Cradle Mountain National Park as iconic because of the incomparable views of the jagged, distant mountain, the alpine heathlands, the ancient rainforests and distinctive wildlife.  

What actually makes it iconic is that it contains one of the only real, functioning coffee machines in the entire country.  Suffice it to say that Tasmanians in general and Australians overall are not particularly informed about the definition of coffee.

Also, from dust till dawn giant kangaroos roam the ancient landscape vandalizing cars.

I would just like to state that I did not feed this black currawong, that's not allowed, he just happened upon a perfectly pinched off piece of my sandwich and, as you can see, he's pretty happy about that

But if you really wanna cause a bunch of non-Australian types to come to a screeching halt, then find yourself my second favorite monotreme.

How do echidnas mate?  Very carefully

So cuddly, check out those back claws.  The fact that he's an egg laying mammal, has spines like a porcupine, a beak for a nose and a pouch like a kangaroo would probably make him cool enough but he also has a four-headed penis.  Don't believe me?  I'll just wait here while you google that.

Bruny Island

After wandering around the bush looking for birds and marsupials and mingling with the 68 people who live out here, we found ourselves in the big city of Hobart and hopped a ferry to Bruny Island which is home to several endemic Tasmanian birds and apparently some heavy drinkers based on what I found behind the ferry landing administration building.

Bruny Island sits off the southeastern coast of Tasmania.  It used to be home to the aboriginal people but the keys words in that statement that you will hear used throughout Australia and in particular in Tasmania, is "used to be".

 After viewing this map I was disappointed to learn that the octopus is not drawn to scale

Deep Blue Sea

At first I thought that wallaby pie was just a cute name for a dessert treat, but no I learned from a crusty, old Tasmanian dude that it's actually chopped up wallaby stewed with vegetables.

Sure, it looks like Hawaii but take your hiking boots off and stick your toes in that water and you will learn quickly that the current here flows directly from the shores of the Antarctic coastline.

Tasmania is a completely lovely, wonderful place and I could live here easily except it's a really long way from anywhere and they really like instant coffee apparently.  It's literally down under the down under of mainland Australia and it's also a bit chilly in the winter here what with it being so close to the south pole and all.  It also has an abysmal, blood-soaked convict history and was originally where England sent you if you committed some truly heinous crime such as stealing a crust of bread.  On the other hand, it's not surprising that Swift located the imaginary land of Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels to the northwest of here since the place was originally described as being inhabited by giants.  All of that to say that, in addition to the outstanding geography, the history here is pretty damn interesting.

It is completely unfair though that this amazingly beautiful place has been saddled with a dim-witted cartoon character as the image most often conjured up when you say the word "Tasmanian".  Really, really not fair since, due to law suits with Warner Bros. and licensing restrictions, Tasmania is not even allowed to use the tasmanian devil to promote itself for tourism purposes.  I mean c'mon give the devil his due.