Strolling with Quolls

May 17: Strolling with Quolls !!
We were sad to leave Cradle Mountain but excited about our next destination Lake St. Clair at the other end of the national park. As we were leaving the camp park I spotted several big white cockatoos in the tree and Bob spotted three Kookaburra.
We drove on small windy mountain roads to the mining town of Queenstown looking to re-provision and have a coffee/tea break. This town reminded Bob of many other small mining towns in the Colorado Rockies in the 1960's. It was somewhat dilapidated with some rough edges.

The people were friendly and not used to foreigners. At the local bottle shop ( liquor store) the owner accosted us outside the front door with questions about where we were from and what we did for a living. We stopped at a butcher shop to buy some bangers and once he heard us speak the butcher came out for a chat. He said he heard unusual accents and had to investigate. We had a nice chat with he and his wife, they told us to be sure to see Nelson Falls on our drive to the lake. We did and were so glad. The walk through the ferny forest was great, the fern trees huge and of course moss and fungi everywhere.

As we were searching for  a lunch spot I tried out the potato chips I had purchased at the IGA in Queenstown, they claimed to be "flamed grilled steak" flavored. They were new and unique taste experience, true to their claim !!
We lunched at the Great Divide between the mountains to the east and those to the west. Have I mentioned how much we enjoy the Tasmania cheeses ?? We had another variety for a classic lunch of local cheese, crackers and apples ( local Galas).
By midafternoon we had made it to our destination of Lake St. Clair. We took a short stroll before checking out our campsite and were treated to a quoll sighting !! I chased it into the brush hoping for photo, no luck until we were walking back near the same spot, another quoll  appreared!! This one was out in the open obviously hunting for something to eat. This time I was able to get a couple of very nice photos !! I was soooo excited to see quoll in the wild like that.

Once we parked the camper we walked around some more looking for animals as the sunset, no luck. The cafe was open for dinner, we have found they often close at 5:00 so this was a treat. Hearty soup and prawns over rice left us very replete and ready to call it a day. We have a week left on our adventure, hooray !!

May 18: Bangers for Dinner
The sunrise was beautiful on Lake St. Clair as Bob had his breakfast in the company of a pademelon and  the birds began their morning chorus.

We got an early start on our drive to Mt. Field , the oldest national park in Tasmania( 1885), only about an hour from Hobart. As always the roads were small, windy and empty of cars. The sky was grey with occasional showers, the clouds moving by quickly. We drove through huge hydroelectric projects interspersed with quaint and not so quaint towns. It seems that this time of year some towns are closed for the season. We did chance upon a picturesque church just outside of Gretna, we stopped and took lots of photos of the various headstones.

 We found a cafe open in Westerway called the Possum's Shed, it was very cute inside and located right on the Tyenna river.They even claim to have their own platypus which they named "Flossy". Bob had his usual "long black" and I my "chai latte".
We also shared a piece of very tasty almond coconut cake in orange syrup served with cream. It was moist and tasty without being too sweet.

At Mt. Fields we paid for our campsite and took off for the 30 minute drive up a very small dirt road to a series of alpine lakes, hikes and the only "ski area" in southern Tasmania (it had one rope tow). We enjoyed our picnic lunch in the A frame "emergency shelter", one hiker we spoke with called the recent weather up in these mountains "evil". We took a short hike around Lake Dobson, part of it in the strange pandani , and pencil pine forest.

 Back down the road we took another great short hike into the "Tall Trees", these giant swamp gum trees are the tallest flowering plants in the world. They are second in size only to our own redwoods. The walk took us through more primordial fern grottos, with the loud raucous calls of the sulphur crested cockatoos overhead. We felt we had stumbled into a scene from the Cretaceous Period.

We are camped right on the Tyenna River, and the amenities are quite good. While I did laundry, Bob worked on cooking our bangers (sausages) on the electric grill provided in open air kitchen.

We met two brothers born in Tasmania but living in Adelaide, Bob had a nice chat with them after dinner. They were researching the history of their father's life as a millwright in the nearby Huon Valley.

Fresh Oysters and Tasmanian Devils !!

May 13
After breakfast at the Barkmill in Swansea we spent two hours in a backpacker lodge using their wifi to upload photos, and text to Facebook and my blog. The connection was so slow it took a hour just to upload about 20 photos, granted I was looking on FB and trying to do email and make plane reservations at the same time. Since there was only the one computer Bob was on his own for entertainment. He ended up listening the  at times  tawdry life story of the Tassie proprietor of the lodge...poor Bob.
Finally we were off toward our destination of Freycinet NP on the Freycinet Peninsula, next to Oyster Bay. We drove through some beautiful wine country and stopped at Freycinet Winery so Bob could get a bottle of their wine as part of his exploration of the different wines of Tasmania.

Soon after that a sign for a "marine farm " caught our attention. Before we left on this trip Bob had been extolling the oyster farms of Tasmania, we were finally going to get to try them !! The woman in the little oyster shack was surprised when we came back for our second dozen about 5 minutes after we bought our first dozen. They were so tasty, that salty, ocean flavor that comes from no other food on the planet.

Our next  stop was Cole's Bay where the ocean was whipping up a frenzy of force 5 winds and you could tell we are close to the Tasman Sea. 
Bob enjoyed taking photos of the waves breaking over the jetty and the boats being tossed about. We headed on to the visitor center at Freycinet National Park where we would spent our next night. The wind was an amazing force, it's hard to describe how strong it was, what a presence it has in this part of the world. It gives you an understanding of the term "The Roaring 40's" , Tasmania is one of the only bits of habitable land in the southern 40 to 50 degrees of latitude.

Once we drove to our "powered" campsite,(we can literally plug in our van to use all the electricity we want, for the heater, toaster, microwave etc...) we bundled up for an evening stroll. The park ranger assured us we would see lots of animals at dusk.
While the wind whipped around us and the clouds misted us with a few showers we made our way to Freycinet Lodge about a mile from our van. We didn't see a single animal but the sunset from the lodge deck was spectacular. The bistro there provided us with dinner, two "toasted wraps" with a mix of meat, vegetables and interesting condiments. We walked back in the dark with still no animals in sight.  The storm had driven them all to ground.
Back at camp  the rain got more serious and we were lulled to sleep by the swaying of our van in the wind.

May 14

Our plan for today was to head fairly directly to Cradle Mountain...yeah right. Bob said "oh let's just take this route on up the coast" and "oh let's just drive down this road to Douglas Apsley National Park"...you get the picture. We found a very picturesque overgrown churchyard and once again enjoyed the beautiful trees that are changing color.

We stopped at Ashgrove cheese factory as well. The grounds are dotted with life size cows that have been painted in every imaginable pattern.

The shop stocked a lot of local Tassie products besides all their own cheeses. We bought a nice selection and continued our drive toward Cradle Mountain. The roads got smaller and windier the closer we got and then we began to see snow on the ground, a fare amount of it, brrrr. In the  parking lot of the visitor center four young Asian tourist were having an hilarious snowball fight. And a currawong tried to get in our car, facing off with Bob at his window.

After paying for our powered spot at the nearby caravan park, we bundled up and drove to the nearby Tasmania Devil sanctuary, called Devils@Cradle for their evening feeding tour. We were there a bit early so we were able to look around all the enclosures at the devils and the quolls. Quolls are a small marsupial carnivore, that  resemble something out of Dr. Seuss with their dark coats and white spots.

Our tour began inside with a very good presentation on Tasmanian Devils and the problems they face these days mostly due to a devastating disease. Our tour guide was a scientist and very well versed in his subject. Before we went outside for the feeding he brought one of the young devils in for us to see and actually gently touch. We had to be very quiet and hold very still has they spook easily, their fur is surprisingly soft. Outside it was fun to watch them feed on the wallaby haunch the guide gave them. They are solitary but not territorial and most of their vocalizations are just their way of working things out. They are not as aggressive as they have been portrayed. We got to see the quolls feeding as well, both these kinds of carnivores are very active at night . There was snowy slush all over the ground which made it cold going. As the tour ended we were glad to be getting back into our warm dry camper for the night.