To Tasmania

 During the night we heard the deep grunting sound of a male koala.  In the morning we found him high up in the gum above our room.  Aussies call eucalyptus trees gum trees or gum for short— for all 600 species of them. We spent the morning and early afternoon in transit to the Geelong airport for the short flight to Launceston Tasmania.  Having spent a day up in the hills above the « surfing coast » it was interesting to drive further inland, where the countryside is flat and very agricultural (hay, cattle and sheep). We had a short side trip after lunch to see another huge encampment of Grey-headed Flying Foxes (about 6000 this time) at the Geelong Botanical Gardens. The weather was overcast but not unpleasant.  On arrival in Tasmania (80 degrees and bright sunshine!!) we drove about two hours west, first through agricultural areas and then steeply upwards into Cradle Mountain National Park. The mountains are beautiful, and somehow feel familiar although all the tree species are different than at home. 

 Until about 10,000 years ago there was a land bridge from the south coast of Australia to Tasmania, so many species are found in both locations, although there has been some divergence (for example in the details of the wallabies we saw both yesterday and today). The land bridge was grassland, so there are no koalas on Tasmania despite there being eucalyptus trees here. And some species, for example Tasmanian Devils, exist on Tasmania but went extinct on the mainland (or the Big Island as Tassies call it).  It is believed that the Dingoes were the primary cause of the Tasmanian Devils and Tasmanian Tigers going extinct on the big island.  The Dingoes never made it to Tasmania because the land bridge disappeared before the Dingoes were brought to the big island.

During our drive we stopped to watch an echidna cross the road. The echidnas here have fewer spines and more fur than the ones on Kangaroo Island, perhaps because up here in the mountains they need to stay warm while on KI they need to cool off using the spines.  Both times we have seen echidnas, it has been on or near the road. This is a good illustration of why, at every location of this trip, drivers are encouraged not to drive at night. The risk of hitting kangaroos, wallabies, possums, echidnas and smaller marsupials is just too high. 

Our lodge looks rustic on the exterior but is very comfortable inside. The lodge is at about 3000 feet, so it is considerably cooler here than down on the plains. On a walk before dinner we saw two wombats and a wallaby. Wombats are about the size of a bulldog and resemble fluffy bear cubs with short legs. After dinner, as darkness fell, we saw 7 pademelons and a brush-tailed possum. These possums are quite different than North American opossums in diet and appearance.

Pictured: short-nosed echidna, wombat, and Tasmanian Pademelon