Tasmania Too: Hobart, Bonorong Sanctuary, and James Boag's Brewery

From the last blog post, I thought I would mention two things that I didn't go more into.  First, the brushtail possum (see pic below).  These guys are not your North American opossums of home.  You can really see their evolutionary connection to wallabies and other marsupials here in Australia, and they lack the snout and ratty tail of our American opossums (though I will say their eyes make them look a bit off in the intelligence department, in anthropomorphic ways at least).  They were very curious, less than timid guys in Tasmania, and a few of them hung around our campsite each night, checking us out.  The second things was our post-backpacking lunch in Coles Bay at Tombolo (see pic from their website below from exactly where we sat).  Gorgeous views from the deck, really nice local wines (Devils Corner vineyard), and super nice people!  We both had a harissa-spiced pumpkin soup to start and split a wood-fired pizza with all the meats!  It was maybe my favorite meal since I have been here, though it's hard to say whether that was because we had just returned to civilization or not, but who cares?  I loved it!

Brushtail Possum friend.

View from the deck at Tombolo Cafe, Coles Bay, Tasmania.

From Coles Bay, Cameron followed me in his car to the Hobart airport to drop my car off and consolidate back down to one as originally planned!  It was nice to unwind quietly, listening to the ABC Radio International shows (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, much like NPR programming), and taking the scenery of my initial drive in from the other side of the road.  We then made our way into Hobart during rush hour to find our place for the night.  Hobart is a beautiful, hilly town set along both sides of the bay formed where the River Derwent meets the sea.  It reminded me a lot of Astoria in Oregon near the mouth of the Columbia River but a good bit bigger.  We drove to the westside of town and up into the residential hills to our abode, the downstairs apartment of a house overlooking the river and city below!  It was amazing and honestly quite affordable.  As our host was checking us in, he gave us the rundown on the cable TV pointing us to all the sports we could watch, including American teams like the Washington Redskins!  I asked him why he mentioned them specifically and it turns out he used to captain Dan Snyder's yacht for many years and was even around when he bought the team as Dan called him to celebrate!  CRAZY!  We got settled, grabbed much needed showers, and sipped a few beers while watching the second half of an Australian Football match between the Adelaide Crows and my team, the Melbourne Football Club (MFC) Demons.  I will surely do a post about the AFL later as I will be going to a game in a few weeks.

Map showing Hobart, surrounded by mountains and along the banks of the River Derwent as it meets the sea.

Dusk view of Hobart from our place in the hills.  Truly a beautiful town!

We were in a pretty chill mood but wanted to seek out some seafood as there were a BUNCH of shacks and trucks selling oysters and scallops along the road leading to Hobart (reminded me a lot of the shrimp sellers in the low country of South Carolina).  I had tried to order oysters at lunch but they were clean out as recent rains had left the waters in the bay muddy with runoff.  We found a spot that was kind of touristy, but enough to get us a good sampling, and we had oysters, fish chowder, local Tasmanian smoked salmon, and calamari, which is much more substantial than what we have in the States.  Really good stuff!  We then wandered around the marina and local buildings a bit, encountering a really nice park next to the cathedral and some really eerie but cool music piped out to the streets from the Arts Center (kind of odd choral chanting...a bit spooky, a bit pretty, and all around odd but interesting!)  We then headed back to the pad to watch some rugby, another big sport here but regionally more popular around Sydney.  Cam filled me in on the rules and I have to say, I finally get it.

Floating Fish and Chippery in the harbor.

Monumental statuary to a footballer unknown.

Interesting light up quotes with fiber optics in the ground near the Capitol building.

Some state building I do not recall the name of, looking really sharp on the water on a cool night.

We had a lazy morning as our good weather luck finally ended and rains had set in, but we nonetheless made plans to check out the Bonorong Sanctuary, as suggested by some fellow hikers the day before who we had talked local animals with while on the trail.  Plus we had to fly out of Launceston a good 2 hours up the road later in the evening and this was in that direction outside of Hobart.  We drove through the rainy morning commuters, stopped and got coffee from McDonald's (drive-thru on the right-side!), and found our way to Bonorong on a really cold, drizzly morning.  I was skeptical of how this would go but the folks at the front assured us the animals were not really bothered by the rain, so we bought tickets and had an hour and a half to walk around before a guided tour would start.  We were also handed paper bags of kangaroo feed, so that was exciting enough to keep us up despite the rain!

The ubiquitous koalas, here for their popularity despite not actually inhabiting Tasmania.  These guys are LAZY as eucalyptus has nearly no caloric redemption, which is odd because they have evolved stomachs specifically for its digestion as it contains a large amount of noxious compounds to most mammals.  They are cool but I have fallen much harder for other Australian mammals and am kind of over them!

The Tawny Frogmouth, my new favorite bird!  They are part owl, part bird and I find them to be really really funky fun little guys!  They have nearly no neck as you can see and that crazy cool owl face and they remind me a lot of something out of Jim Henson's movies like Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal.

We cruised the paths of the sanctuary that had many caged enclosures for smaller arboreal birds and animals but open areas (though still penned with smaller barriers) for the land-dwellers.  It was cold and rainy, and most of the glimpses we got of any of the critters were them huddled in warm dens or logs with straw, but it was still early yet, so we headed to the kangaroo range to interact and feed the roos.

Our first glimpse of a dozing Tasmanian devil, deep in his warm den.

Baby wombat poking its head out in the rain. Apparently when these guys get bigger they can run as fast as Usain Bolt and are quite territorial and aggressive!  I had no idea.

Emus, dripping wet.

You enter the kangaroo range through double gates much like at the dog park and then are in front of nearly 100 forester kangaroos, a subspecies of the grey type very common on the mainland.  These guys are managed as a small breeding population and for rehabilitation and it was obvious right away that they were used to people feeding them.  Some of them were kind of aggressive at first until I became comfortable with them.  I admit to being a bit intimidated as up close you can see these guys have claws on their upper paws and really long ones on their lower ones.  BUT the kind folks up front said that if we scratched them in between their front paws they would love us because they can't reach there, and once I felt okay trying this, they really did!  It was hilarious!  Their fur is really soft, too.  We hung out with them for quite a bit, trying to feed the smaller guys, and we saw several Joeys poking out of their momma's pouches to have a look around!

Roos, roos on the range.

Momma with Joey!

Cam feeding the hungry buggers.

When our feed ran out it was about time for the tour to start, and after checking out a bunch of colorful birds the sanctuary had saved, we joined the group braving the continual rain and were led around by an employee who dropped some major knowledge on us concerning some of the more charismatic species, specifically the wombats, koalas, and my favorite, the Tasmanian Devils.  These guys have faced a huge decline in the wild due to a really sad communicable facial tumor cancer.  There is promise that the fight against it is turning with healthy populations being bred at places like Bonorong and released cautiously in more isolated areas to spread naturally, though sanctuaries are maintaining insurance stock in case these trials do not go well.  The devils had been hiding all morning but when our guide led us to their areas, they came out and scampered around as they had become used to feedings, etc.  Tasmanian Devils are SUPER cool little guys, like stout but cuddly looking football-sized dog-bears.  They aren't great hunters, feeding mostly on carrion (already dead animals), but their fierce name comes from their hellish growl and the fact that they spread their jaws wide as a sign to others what their bite may or may not be capable of.  I really love them and hope they rebound effectively as seeing one in the wild would be AWESOME!  They actually have a more fierce relative in mainland Australia called the quoll.

Hello friend!  How about this rain, eh?

Male devil named Batman with our guides boot mimicking an open jaw wider than his so he doesn't chomp down.

Friends?  Not really.  See my Youtube clip below when they got too close!

Tasmanian Devils meditate too!

Satisfied with our animal experience quota being met, we headed up the road towards Launceston and stopped in a nice rainy day village and had really good burgers made from local beef  (mine was Aussie style with bacon, egg, and beetroot).  With dwindling time, we decided to shoot into Launceston to check out the James Boag brewery for a couple of pints before we flew out.  James Boag's beer is Tassies biggest brewery and can be had all over Australia and I think I may have even seen it in the States.  They had a couple Tasmania-only brews on tap that we tried (XXX Ale and Wizardsmith's Ale) and they are crisp and delicious in the Aussie style ale and lager brewing.  These were made even better knowing they came from the pristine waters of Tasmania, a place I now hold really dear in my heart!  It is like a mountains and sea smorgasbord with the Aussie friendliness but way less of the busy feel of Melbourne.  I could easily retire to a small farm here way down the road.  After our beers we made for the airport and flew out with no hassles, supremely satisfied with a great weekend away!

AWESOME Tasmanian pun!

View from the museum accompanying the brewery pub.

Old picture in the James Boag's museum.

Striking ad used in an artsy campaign during the 90's.  Who IS James Boag???

Bar and Tassie taps.

Tasmanian Bush-Wacking

Before I headed to Australia, I connected with a fellow member of the EAPSI program at our orientation in Washington D.C. that was not only headed to Australia as well but who had also grown up in the suburbs of Baltimore, albeit 10 years after me.  Cameron and I tentatively made plans to do a weekend backpacking trip while we were in Australia, but with he in Sydney and I in Melbourne, we would have to plan to meet somewhere in between.  Instead of that, we decided to fly down to the island state of Tasmania, south of Melbourne, as we had both heard awesome things about the scenery and hiking there.  Plans came together and we headed there for a long weekend leading up to the 4th of July as a patriotic gift to ourselves, both strangers in a strange land.

Tassie, as all Aussies call it, is located south of Victoria and is definitely the closest to Antarctica I will likely ever get.

Map of the island; Hobart is the capital and Launceston (where I tried to fly into) is the other major cty.

We were both scheduled to fly in and out of Launceston, with Cameron arriving an hour before me from Sydney.  As we were flying in, the pilot let us know that some THICK fog had set in over the whole city of Launceston.  It was really cool to see sitting low over the city as we approached, basically blanketing it, but after an aborted landing, they made the decision to push us down to Hobart as there was no sign that conditions would change.  This was really weird because otherwise in Tassie, it was sunny and beautiful!  Plus it totally threw a wrench into our plans as we were renting a car in Launceston and needed to drive a few hours to the park where we were backpacking in order to hike in a few miles to our first nights' campsite before dark.  I was informed that they would be chartering a bus to take us all to Launceston, but this would have taken far too long, so I grabbed a car of my own and we both drove to the park to meetup in time.

Edge of the island on the flight in. No fog yet in view!

Freycinet National Park, a mountainous peninsula on the eastern side of Tassie, where we would backpack for two nights.

The drive from Hobart to Coles Bay was totally GORGEOUS and a great way to get acclimated on my first time driving on the left-hand side of the road.  I left the airport and quickly found the Tasman Highway that took me nearly all the way to the park, so it was easy enough.  The road cruised through beautiful rural mountains and farms and out along the bay that the peninsula forms with the mainland.  Small villages were the only thing in between, with Orford where a river met the Tasman Sea being my favorite which I hope to revisit with Kara in August.  I made my way to Coles Bay, grabbed final supplies, then met Cam at the visitor center before we set off for the trailhead and strapped our packs on.

View of the Freycinet mountains from the small town of Coles Bay.

Wallaby, foraging around, at the trailhead.

Night 1 - Wineglass Bay

We got underway just before 4 pm, kind of racing the remaining daylight (sunset was around 5:30....it's winter here!), to get to our first campsite at Wineglass Bay.  Wineglass Bay is a pretty well visited bay on the Tasman Sea side of the peninsula that is featured on a LOT of Tasmanian tourism material, and we would be camping right next to it!  We only had 2 miles to go so we made our way up to the pass, took in the pretty overlook, then clambered down to sea level again where we trekked across the whole beach to the far side of Wineglass Bay, where we barely found our campsite in the dark that had set in.

View of Wineglass Bay from the pass.

Cool erosion in rock face at the overlook.

View from the overlook out to the Tasman Sea.

We set up camp and were promptly greeted by a wallaby, a brushytail possum, and another marsupial I can't seem to identify from my memory (too dark for pics, though these guys were not very timid or shy).  Cam had brought some chicken which we relaxed and grilled and ate while we talked home, our work, and the universe too as we saw a MASSIVE amount of stars and the Milky Way.  We also saw a pinkish glow in the sky towards the Southeast and I am pretty sure this was the highest vestiges of the Southern lights (aurora australis) that were only slightly visible over the horizon!  We both went to bed happy and woke to only slight annoyance at some visitors that made off with our remaining meatsticks!  I blame the possum!

Campsite, Night 1, right next to Wineglass Bay.

View from camp near sunrise.

Day 2 - Hiking along the Freycinet peninsula

We woke up before sunrise and went about the coffee/breakfast/camp cleanup routine in the chill.  Honestly, the weather while we camped was near perfect for me!  Warm but not hot during the day, sunny with occasional clouds, and cool but not freezing cold at night.  We really lucked out as it can be quite rainy during the winter here.  The day was spent trekking uphill to the tops of the mountains on the peninsula and the terrain was pretty rugged and steep, but the views up top were pretty awesome with 360 degree views of the mountainous mainland, the bay, and the sea.  We had originally planned to do a circuit but we second-guessed our distance and backtracked thinking we had missed a trail junction and then realized we only had enough time to head across the lowland area in the middle of the peninsula to reach a beach campsite on the interior side of the peninsula.

Wavy, stringy, eucalyptus bark,

View of the bay from high above in the eucalypt forest.

Looking back down on Wineglass Bay from some point during the ascent.

Walking in a eucalyptus forest is great because there is very little understory and you can see quite a long way.  Hillsides covered in the eucalypts are full of the tufted tops with the shiny light bark below and it is a totally different experience from American woodlands.  We backtracked through our campsite then back along the beach to the trail cutting through the marshy isthmus to the other side of the peninsula.  This area was really nice and we found an awesome reflective wetland spot to take pics along the way.

View of Mt. Freycinet opposit the marshy reflecting lagoon.

We were racing the sun yet again on Night 2 and enjoyed a sunset walk along Hazards Beach to our second nights' campsite.  There are a few backcountry campsites in this park and they all have nicely maintained composting toilets that made things a bit easier.  We got to camp after dark and unfortunately had to wade across the stream outlet to the campsite as the tide was in and there was no longer a dry route!  We had SEVERAL curious brushytail possums in our camp, and we ate a quick dinner and hit the hay pretty early, tired after a long day of hiking up and down and along.

Sunset from the dunes at Hazards Beach.

Cameron hiking towards a well-needed campsite with Mt. Freycinet beyond.

We woke early again to a little warmer temps, enjoyed the beachside sunrise and broke camp quick as we needed to move along on a 3 hour hike ringing the westside of the peninsula back to the car so we could get down to Hobart, return my car, and make our way to our airbnb apartment for the night.  It was a beautiful morning!  We cleaned up at the visitors' center, charged phones, and then returned to Coles Bay where we had an AWESOME lunch at a little cafe (wine, soup, and pizza!) with a beautiful view of the mountains.  A really really great time backpacking in Tasmania!

The Curvy Yarra and Flying Foxes

I was beating my head a bit with some of my work and the afternoon looked sunny so I headed out for a solid walk to clear the coffers and get to new thoughts and get some exercise.  I had been wanting to explore the trails along the Yarra River near my house, and when I did some quick research, I realized the park with the colony of flying foxes I had visited on my last trip was really not that far.  This walk was AWESOME and exactly what I needed at the time!

Here is the route I took, nearly all along paths and trails, and like instant-wilderness in this pretty big city.

The walk led out of my neighborhood, across the Eastern Highway out of town, and immediately joined up with the Main Yarra Trail, a pedestrian/bike corridor running along the river.  It wound through some parks, right next to the Kew Billabong (an old river oxbow, essentially a floodplain wetland where the river has redirected and left it's old channel), then along the slow flat muddy river that is the Yarra!

The Yarra nearby my house, across which is a golf course. Lots of little birds hunting fish here, spotting divers was pretty common!

Along the main trail, heavily used by commuting cyclists, folks with knobbier tires had created fun offshoot mountain bike paths into the surrounding hills.  The trail ran through several open areas for dogs and peoples, near other housing areas, and finally to the Yarra Bend park where I left pavement for more of a hike.

A sign at the entrance to Yarra Bend park, formerly occupied by aboriginals. Wominjeka wurundjeri beek, indeed!

Yarra Bend park is a SWEET piece of nature within the city.  It is essentially a peninsular area bounded by the highway and a near 180-degree bend in the river.  Trails run around the perimater and up onto the highpoint, and I stuck to the perimeter to catch the river views.  The trail ran up and down from the river along a fairly steep ridge.  There were some great houses on the other side of the river, really cool architecture that is making me realize how similar this city really is to Portland, Oregon, with so much abundant nature mixed in with older Victorian architecture and newer modern and funky.

I believe this was a kingfisher, but I can be pretty terrible at bird-spotting and ID. 

Pretty scene at the bend with a park on the other side, a hillside barbecue restaurant, and rowboat rental.

Cool geology on the ridge trail, lots of upheaved sedimentary rock with crazy weathering and flaking.

It's hard to convey from pictures, but the trees here are really nice. Eucalypts often have smooth or peeling (stringy!) bark and when you can smell the leaves from time to time (maybe akin to cottonwood or kind of desert sage-y) it is AMAZING!

So the trail wound for a while along the river, under highway passes with cool graffiti (future blog post forthcoming!), and then along a really awesome section with a high wall up to my left and natural woods on the opposite side of the river.  REALLY nice walk on a sunny day.  I started rounding another bend and I knew I was getting close to the main attraction, the Flying Foxes!

Tree just FULL of roosting bats!

Nearly every tree in a quarter mile stretch of the river in the park here was full of bats.  It was AWESOME!

So there are signs to let you know you are approaching bat country and to let you know they are totally safe and non-confrontational (unless you find one on the ground which is a sign of disease and to be avoided).  Then you round a bend and see your first treeful and it is kind of AWESOME!  And then you keep walking and you realize every tree in the vicinity is FULL of them and you are about to walk directly underneath some of them!  WHOA!

HELLO!  From Un Downder!

Why you lookin' at me?  I'm NEKKID here!

There are SO MANY bats that it gets to be a bit unnerving even for me as they are hanging relatively low in the trees.  They are so funny to watch and listen to as there are many squabbles and chirping and chatting and a bit of screeching too.  They are mostly resting, but watching them move through the trees with their grip-hooks is super cool, and when one is occasionally inspired to flight, it is truly awesome to witness as they are pretty large flying mammals!  I thought it might smell pretty bad with so many concentrated animals, but it had a really pleasant eucalypty sweetness.  If that is gross, I am sorry, I am just a creepy bat-sniffer.

Bat flight is tricky to capture for an unskilled photog with a point-and-shoot on high zoomage.

Spotted some canoes once I came to the main park again and now I REALLY want to rent one while I am here and see the bats from the water!

Signage.  I love signage.

My walk continued back towards the house, linking pathways between parks, parkways, and neighborhoods.  It was a KILLER 6 mile loop from my door and back and I will definitely be taking Kara on the loop when she is here!

Park along the trails where Charlie would be happy to know he could run FREE!!!

View of Melbourne CBD from park.