March 23

Tasmania, the heart shaped island. We awake to sunshine and cool but nice temps.  Breakfast at the hotel; take the bus out of town south east.  We pass over areas that should qualify as islands as they are joined by bridges, but don’t.  Tas has small islands and a couple big ones included in their boundaries.  Finally we end on what they call a peninsula leading to Port Arthur.  We stop off at the ‘Unzoo’ where we observe Quolla’s a kind of little catlike marsupial and some rescued Tasmanian Devils.  They are the only meat eating marsupials in the world and the only remaining wild TD’s are here in this peninsula area.  They have developed a facial cancer that is transmissible through saliva.  The tumors start superficially and eventually take over the internal organs. They are feisty animals who eat carcasses only, they are not hunters.  When they find carcasses they call out and they gather to eat every last bit of the animal.  But they bite and snarl at each other, passing saliva.  They are solitary and active at night.  Their babies are the size of a grain of rice and must gestate in the pouch.  Out of 50 only 2 or so survive; they live for 6 years in the wild.  We watch the feeding and the TD eats everything, bone, sinew and claws of a wallaby leg.  The conservationists have quarantined this one isolated portion of land to try to find a cure and or let the infected animals die out.  We are able to feed small kangaroos and wallabies, they eat right out of our hands.  One of them has a baby joey in its pouch.  We continue to Port Arthur to the world heritage site where one of the original penal colonies in the early 1800’s has been conserved.  The grounds are beautiful sitting on a small harbor.  Many English trees had been imported. Hard to believe so much pain, death and sadness happened here.  We learned much about the early penal system and how England used it to help colonize Aus.  There are remnants of old buildings built by convicts with locally made sandstone bricks and chiseled sandstone block; each block has the worker’s mark so they could be monitored for production.  The crimes that brought men, women and children were oftentimes menial but all required at least a 6 year term and only one on record made it home to England.  The system changed to be more understanding of mental illness and a special hospital unit was built.  They had to use semi-fore method of communication up and down the coast line, averaging about 15 minutes for relay.  We take a boat ride out into the bay where it gets deep fast.  We are so far south, next stop Antarctica.  The children were put on a special island to protect them from the adults.  And there is an island for the dead, where they buried prisoners.  We have lunch, all locally homemade and delicious. The gift shop has very different products, all Tasmanian.  They grow lavender here.  Back on the bus and stop at the Blow Hole and Devil’s Kitchen to see the crashing waters coming through huge eroded areas of sandstone.  Ice cream and seafood trailers have been set up out of the blue!  Arrived back at the hotel.  Pat and Chuck set off for the marina where they eat an incredible seafood dinner at Murre’s (long established and catch their own seafood).  We eat locally grown oysters that are huge, so good we order more!  Some of the toppings are unusual, all good.  Chuck gets a huge seafood platter including pickled eel that is delicious.  Pat has the blue eyed Trevallie, a local white fish that is excellent.  Walk back to the hotel the night is mild with some wind.  Tomorrow heading for Sydney and will catch up with Knights one last time for dinner