Reflections on Tasmania

Well, Gretchen and I have spent the last four days here in Tassie. It's a fantastic place, very beautiful with lots to see. Our first day in to Hobart we walked around the city centre, found dinner and went to a midwinter film festival. We saw a Norwegian film called 'Kissed By Winter.' Sounds like something you might make up - we were watching a subtitled Norwegian murder mystery in Tasmania.

Day Two was spent at a Tasmania devil park where we saw the real deal. Not much bigger than a terrier, they can be pretty nasty. They can bite harder than any other animal proportional to weight and size. They are carion eaters and we got there just in time for a feeding. There was also a field at the park with kangaroos and we could walk through them like we weren't even there. Then it was on to Port Arthur which was the oldest prison settlement in Australia. Open from 1830-1877, this huge piece of land was beautiful and eerie. We spent five hours here but could easily have spent two days.

One Day Three we decided to make the trek to Cradle Mountain. Located about 4 hours north of Hobart, Cradle Mountain is a National Park with plenty of walking trails to explore. Part of the adventure for me was just getting there. I've gotten used to driving on the left side and the Great Ocean Road was quite a test of those skills. The country and mountain roads here in Tassie were even more so. But we got to CM with no issues. It was raining pretty good when we got to our resort. It was a light rain that swirled around
and seemed to be coming from everywhere. We checked down at the Ranger station for maps and locations of the tracks and planned our walk for the next day.

Day four was spent on the tracks here at CM. We got an early start and made it out by 9:30. While some of the walked were over boardwalks, a lot of it was of pretty challenging rock with loose gravel, steep inclines (and declines) and ice. Grecthen got to be quite the mountaineer and we spent the better part of the trapsing around the lakes and mountains at the north end of the park.

Now it's on to Sydney today for the last part of our trip. So far we have had quite the adventure.