Tasmania--Southeast

Tassie is a compact, picturesque and interesting state in Australia. We fly into Hobart just before another storm and have to endure a few days of rain and wind. We decide we'd better go where we had planned anyway, because we have only 9 days here, so we head out to Port Arthur on Sunday without an umbrella (silly us) and come face-to-face with sideways rain. Fortunately, after about 2 hours, it settles down and allows us to enjoy the area which wasn't so enjoyable for the early inhabitants. They were mostly convicts sent from England to a most inhospitable land and expected to work off their sentences in a number of ways, all of them gruesomely difficult with harsh penalties for disobedience. A number were sent for very petty crimes and second offenses. In some cases, they were taught a skill and sent back. But often times the offender died without returning home to England or any of their colonies. But the grounds of the early settlement are beautiful and buildings nicely restored.

We are staying in Seven Mile Beach, a small community about 30 minutes out of Hobart, the capital city, and it is a good place for us since we are visiting places both north and south. We like the southern part, specifically the Tahune Air Walk out of Huon town. It is a large expanse of walks and suspension bridges around 150-200 feet off the ground through old growth eucalptus and allows for walking among the treetops along the Huon and Picton Rivers. We finally get to see a platypus in Huon after waiting for about an hour, looking under logs and around high banks. We didn't know quite what to expect, but he appeared just at dusk. Very cute, busy diving and feeding. What a fun little guy to watch!

Hobart's waterfront is a very low key place with several upscale restaurants and a pretty famous market, Salamanca Market, which carries just about everything. We wander through its colorful stalls and walkways and buy some fresh fruit and vegetables, jam and a few souvenirs.

Bruny Island is an area that was recommended to us, so we decide we can't miss it. We drive there early but not early enough to avoid waiting in the ferry line. But we make it on the next ferry, get to the island and hike the isthmus where we can see both bodies of water (Adventure Bay and Isthmus Bay) at the same time from a high lookout. There are hundreds of fairy penguin nests, but they are all empty because the animals are out to sea. It is a gorgeous, clear sea, and we would like to be out there, too. We continue around Adventure Bay to the peninsula that found at least 6 whaling stations on our hike to Fluted Cape, part of South Bruny National Park. These whalers were tough men who worked hard and wiped out anything that got in their way, like the native Aborigine people who were actually obliterated from Tasmania. Lots of really sad stories about this period of time. We drive to Cloudy Bay across a rough track and come to a gorgeous spot. It's really isolated on a southern peninsula of Bruny Island which leads directly to Antarctica by boat. Huge, noisy waves crash into the rocks below. But our ferry leaves in just one hour, so we jump in the car and head out back across the bumps and washboard road, back over the isthmus, and back around the many curves that lead to the ferry dock. We are the next to last car on and the ferry takes off as soon as we turn off the motor.