Tasmania

October 28-31

On Thursday the 28th, it came time to leave for Tassie. Now the things I had heard about Tasmanians were quite interesting. They mostly consisted of a whole nother breed of people (many of the Aussies suggested at inbreeding...) who were simply different. The rest I had heard was about the fauna: it has a number of unique and weird species of animals running around. The most famous was the Tasmanian devil, a large, carnivorous rodent that looks and acts like it wants to rip your face off. However, this was a species in a lot of trouble because of a mysterious cancer. Anyway, Thursday afternoon three of us grabbed a taxi to head to the airport. It was not the normal taxi ride. For one, our driver was making all these racists comments against the young Indian taxi driver, and how they cannot drive. Then, he had to drop off a package to some woman on the way to the airport and ended up cursing up a storm at her in front of us. We finally arrived at the airport, with just 5 minutes before boarding, and hurried to catch the flight. As soon as we had reached cruising altitude we were on our way back down. The flight was maybe an hour. After getting off the plane, we walked into the airport to find a quarantine test (they do not allow any food, plants, seeds, etc. into Tasmania to keep out diseases that have ruined some Australian crops and other stuff like that). A hound dog sniffed everybody's carry-on and checked bags as they came through. What was incredible was that we watched as the dog sniffed out a huge suitcase, sat down to signal a problem, and the lady produced a small, unopened bag of gardening seeds. Impressive. We headed into Launceston, the second biggest town in Tasmania, to find hardly anything. For those at home, it was maybe like Eugene. If that. We found a backpackers on the edge and the lady in reception straight up laughed when I asked whether they had room for us three on such late notice. Dumb question. We found an Irish bar that night, enjoyed a couple beers, noticed every woman in the bar had a tattoo, and called it an early night. The next day we wandered into town and quickly redirected to the gorge:

No, there are no wild peacocks in Tasmania, but at the end of a gorge was some old British cafe and landing, complete with a number of these exotic birds, a swimming pool and a chairlift across the gorge. The one creature we wanted to see most, an echidna, was nowhere to be found, despite everyone insisting there would be one there. Later in the day, we met up with the Arcadia crew and started driving for Cradle Mtn. National Park. We traveled through tiny towns separated by miles of farmland. Eventually we hit the subalpine zone. I knew because it was suddenly freezing, the trees were starting to disappear, and almost everything was covered by small, basketball sized shrubs. About the same time, we started seeing wombats everywhere. We almost ran over two or three, then would stop the van, jump out and run after them to take pictures. Or at least, everyone else did. I did not take any pictures, just observed these goody looking creatures running around. That night, we stayed in a few cabins in a caravan park, where possums and wallabies shared the camp with us. In the morning, we drove up to Dove Lake in the park and started hiking. We climbed through alpine slopes and pouring rain up to Crater Lake (nothing like the one in Oregon, but very nice) and then further up the ridge towards Cradle Mountain (the one behind the lake that looks like...well, Cradle Mtn). The place was exactly like I expected. Something comparable to the alpine regions of Alaska. Definitely could have been in Middle Earth even though that is New Zealand.


We went out of our way to find a patch of snow (I don't know why, it was already freezing), but it was pretty cool to play in the snow in Australia.



At midday we went back down to the visitor center to dry off and warm off, and this is who I found on the way in (a pademalon, related to kangaroos and wallabies):

In the afternoon, we went back to walk around the lake on a boarded trail. The fog had set in strong and created a beautiful and erie scene. It was time to head through the mines of Moria, the mountains were becoming impassable.







Saruman even sent spies after us:

Later in the evening, after seeing the wallaby below in our camp,

we went to Devils at Cradle. It was a Tasmanian devil sanctuary, a place where devils were raised in captivity to keep healthy individuals around and try to keep a strong gene pool. The problem with these animals is DFTD, or devil facial tumor disease. It is a cancer transferred from devil to devil through skin grafts swapped during aggressive behavior, where two devils will snarl and clash snouts/jaws. It has wiped out a majority of the population and left such a small number that inbreeding depression is taking over (maybe this is where the inbreed jokes about the Tasmanians come from). Anyway, these animals are incredible, mean and worth saving.

We found out a few crazy things. One is that their normal heart rate is 200 bpm. Two is that they are called devils because as they fight and get angry, they cannot pant efficiently enough to give off heat. Instead, blood rushes to their ears and turns them bright red. Three is that Taz from the Looney Tunes is depicted spinning all the time because when devils get pissed, they pace in circles. As they get more agitated, the circle becomes tighter and tighter until they are almost spinning. Four, a devil will eat about half of its body weight in a 5 minute sitting. We got to watch these devils feed, as a trainer took out wallaby legs and let them go at it. We also saw its closest relative, the Spotted Coal, which drops out of trees to attack its prey below. Really sick.

That was about the end of our trip. On Sunday, we did a couple short walks in the rain before heading back to Launceston. The weather finally shaped up, but all we did was return to the gorge we had been at before. We got back to Melbourne that night to find that all of our friends had celebrated Halloween the night before since Saturday night was more fun. First Halloween I've ever missed, but worth it.