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The ferry to Tasmania leaves from downtown Melbourne. The ferry sails to Tasmania 7 nights a week. On Saturday and Sunday there are morning sailings. You can't see any birds during the night so I took the morning. It cost AU$200 for a round trip for the car and 1 passenger.
I stayed at the Ashely Gardens Caravan Park on the south side Melbourne. The Masters World Championships are going on in Melbourne and the campground is filled with athletes. There are 25,000 athletes here competing for 28,000 metals in all kinds of events from swimming, track and field, baseball. My neighbor is a volunteer in charge of awards.
The day before the ferry trip I drove to Station Pier so that I would know where it was and picked up my ticket. I had made reservations several weeks in advance. Willy was due for another oil change and I also got my hair cut.
This is a huge boat with restaurants, sleeping cabins, stores, gambling, elevators, and swimming pool. Once aboard I took the elevator to deck 8 which is an open deck with lounge chairs and a swimming pool closed until summer. On this cold, damp day the glass walls on either side are welcome shelter. You cannot see directly forward, but there are plenty of space on either side. The trouble is that looking down from 8 stories the birds are very small.
We sailed out Port Phillip Bay using the channel down the eastern side. Mount Martha is on the left side of the boat. I saw 17 Straw-necked Ibis on the bay, Pied Cormorants, White Ibis, Australasian Gannets.Once outside the narrow entrance I began to see flocks of Short-tailed Shearwater.
You are warned that you cannot bring any fruit or vegetables from Victoria to Tasmania and when the boat docks, customs inspects every camper with a sniffer dog and opens every refrigerator. By the time I got off the dock it was dark. I drove directly to the Abel Tasman Campground in Devonport. .
Tasmanian Endemics
While you are on the ferry take the time to review the Tasmanian endemics and specialities. I was able to see all the Tasmanian endemics and saw most of them several times. Here is a table of the Tasmanian Endemics according to Thomas and Thomas and the location where I saw them. The Forest Raven should perhaps be moved to the list of endemics since the Forest Raven found around Coffs Harbor is now a separate species.
| Tasmanian Endemic | Location where I saw them |
| Tasmanian Native-Hen | Bruny Island campground |
| Green Rosella | Brady Lake |
| Forty-spotted Pardalote | Peter Murrell, Bruny Island |
| Brown Scrubwren | Mt. Wellington |
| Scrubtit | Mt. Wellington |
| Tasmanian Thornbill | Mt. Wellington |
| Yellow-throated Honeyeater | Cradle Mountain south |
| Black-headed Honeyeater | Peter Murrell, Brady Lake |
| Strong-billed Honeyeater | Cradle Mountain south |
| Yellow Wattlebird | Snug Campground |
| Dusky Robin | Bruny Island, Cradle Mountain |
| Black Currawong | Mt. Wellington, Cradle Mountain south |
Tasmanian Specialities according to Thomas and Thomas
| Black-faced Cormorant | Bruny Island, Kettering ferry dock |
| Masked owl | |
| Hooded Plover | Phillips Island, Victoria |
| Pacific Gull | Bruny Island |
| Kelp Gull | Bruny Island |
| Musk Lorikeet | |
| Crescent Honeyeater | Victoria |
| Tawny-crowned Honeyeater | |
| Pink Robin | Cradle Mountain South |
| Satin Flycatcher (summer) | |
| Forest Raven | Mt. Wellington |
| Beautiful Firetail | Barren Grounds NSW, |
| Orange-bellied Parrot ( breeds exclusively in Tasmania but winter on the mainland) | |
| Swift Parrot ( breed exclusively in Tasmania but winter on the mainland) | Abel Tasman campground in Devonport |
It took me all day to drive from Devonport to Hobart on the southern end of the island. I saw lots of European Goldfinch, Masked Lapwing, Common Blackbirds. I spent the night at the Sandy Bay Campground in Hobart. This campground was on a steep hill with no level spots. I had to chock my wheels and spent the night trying not to slide out of bed. The next morning I set off for Mt. Wellington making a very bad wrong turn which forced me to go 11 km before I could turn around and go back the way I came..
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To find Fern Tree mentioned in
Thomas and Thomas follow
these directions. After you see the turn off for Mt. Wellington go around
another curve and park near the pub on the left. This is Fern Tree. On the
other side of the road is a small church with a park on the left. I walked up a
steep track from the park. This is the Fern Glen track. One of the first birds
I saw was the Black Currawong a Tasmanian Endemic. Notice the yellow eye
and long tail. There are also Forest Ravens which have a white eye and
no white on tail or wings. In a flock of noisy active birds I pick out Scrubtit, Tasmanian Scrubwren, Tasmanian Thornbill. I drove toward the top of Mt. Wellington stopping at the Springs parking lot. There are toilets, picnic tables and several walking tracks here. Again I saw Forest Raven, Tasmanian Thornbill, and Superb Fairywren. I walked up the road to the site of the old hotel. There is a great view from what used to be the hotel front yard. Daffodils were blooming in old flower bed. |
I drove back down to the B64 and took it south to Longley and then turned left to Kingston. I was looking for the Peter Murrell Conservation Area which was mentioned in the Lonely Planet Watching Wildlife in Australia. The directions were pretty vague. Here are more precise directions.
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From Kingston take the B68 toward Margate. Just outside
Kingston there is a rotary with a Mitre Store on the coast or left side of the
rotary. Immediately after the rotary turn left on the road to Huntingfield
(something I couldn't find on any map). Stay on this road for about a half
mile. On the left just past the Vodaphone plant is a dirt road into Peter
Murrell Conservation Area. If you come to a school you have gone too
far. Drive 100 yards down the dirt road to a small parking lot. I saw Richard's Pippit along the dirt road early in the morning. |
| Next to the parking lot is this small pond surrounded by
White Gums. There were Pacific Black Ducks and Welcome Swallows
on the pond. I found the nest hole of the Striated Pardalote in the sand bank down this path on the right just past the small bridge. Yellow Wattlebird, New Holland Honeyeater, Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Laughing Kookaburra |
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A Pardalote is a small bird with a stubby tail. There are four species in Australia, three of which breed at Peter Murrell.
White gums are the preferred habitat of the Tasmanian endemic Forty-Spotted Pardalote. You can also see Spotted Pardalote and Striated Pardalote here. You can see these two elsewhere in Australia, but the Forty-spotted you have to get in Tasmania and this was the best location I found outside of Bruny Island.
The Spotted, Red-browed, and Striated Pardalotes build dome shaped nests inside narrow tunnels in steep or vertical sand banks. The first Pardalote I saw was the Striated at Lorikeet Park in north New South Wales. It was nesting in the vertical sand bank along the beach. Someone told me that Pardalotes are a problem to the construction industry because as soon as they dump a pile of sand at a construction site the Pardalotes start digging a nesting hole. I can't confirm this bird problem story.
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What makes Pardalotes a challenge is that they like to feed
in the upper canopy and the tops of mature White Gums are along way up. Here is
a shot of the parking lot with Willy parked under a White Gum. I am standing on
a small hill beyond the parking lot trying to get a view into the
canopy. The first day here, Ranger Andrew Kirkley told me the Forty-Spotted were nesting in this White Gum. He also told me the best time to see them is early in the morning . Camping is not allowed in the conservation area. I drove on south to Snug where there is a nice caravan park. |
| I came back here the early next morning and I found the
Forty-Spotted almost immediately. Two were chasing each other around the
parking lot and for a short time both clung to hanging branch. I even had one bird on the ground and was getting ready to photograph it when a dog chased it away. I chewed out the owner for walking her dog off leash. How inconsiderate dog owners can be. After all I had come all the way around the world to see that bird. I eventually noticed a hole to the left of the White Gum in the picture. A pair of Forty-spotted were going in and out of the hole. I moved in closer for a photo and noticed this larger bird in the hole with agitated Forty-spotted hanging around. In this photo the Pardalote is hanging on the piece of hanging bark on the left. The larger usurper is perched in the hole. It may be a Striated Pardalote. |
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Striated and Spotted Pardalotes build their nests in holes in sandy banks. Here is the hole of a Striated Pardalote. I was unable to photograph the bird going in and out of the hole because it always popped in and out very quickly. |
| These two Striated Pardalotes are perched just above the hole pictured above. At least one of them is the owner of the hole. |  |
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Another close shot of the Striated Pardalote outside its
hole. There are 6 races of the Striated Pardalote. The Ranger told me there are orchids, coastal heath and Platypus in the conservation area. He has not seen the Platypus lately. |
I very much wanted to go to Bruny Island. There is a car ferry from Kettering, but the problem is that on the island some roads are paved and some are not. As you drive the island the sealed road will suddenly turn to dirt and that makes for a serious problem with the rental car insurance. Remember my rental insurance specifically limits me to driving on sealed road. While I sometimes risked driving on unsealed road when there was little chance of accident, that is really not the case on Bruny Island. There is a good deal of traffic here and opportunity for accident.
To see Bruny Island I needed a driver. The campground director arranged for me to take a tour of Bruny Island with Robert Pennicott. Robert normally run nature trips on a boat out of Adventure Bay on the south east side of the island. His clients see Southern Right and Humpback Whales, Dolphins, White-bellied Sea Eagles, Fur Seals, Oystercatcher. He is temporarily beached because he just bought a new boat and delivery is delayed. He will go to Queensland next week to pick the new boat up at Noosaville. So today he in willing to be a bird guide for AU$150.
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Robert Pennicott points out the burrow of either a
Short-tailed Shearwater or Little Penguin on Bruny
Island. The new boat will carry 48 passengers and go 25 Knots Robert told me that has a colony of breeding Buller's and Shy Albatross which he could reach on a day trip. Anyone interested in a pelagic trip from Bruny Island should contact Robert. |
| Bruny Island Charters Robert Pennicott PO Box 25 Margate Tasmania 7054 |
Phone: 03 6234 4446 FAX: 03 6234 3166 info@experiencetas.com.au |
The car ferry from Kettering cost AU$21 round trip. ( That is called AU$21 return in Australia.) Walk on passengers ride free. The first boat leaves at 7:30 and then every 15-30 minutes thereafter. The trip takes 15 minutes. At the dock I saw Common Blackbird, Silver Gull, Kelp Gull, Little Black Cormorant, Black-faced Cormorant, European Goldfinch, New Holland Honeyeater, Masked Lapwing.
Robert met me on the other side with his Toyota van. Our first stop was at a pond on the left hand side of the road which met the description of the pond Thomas and Thomas called Dusky Robin Pool. On some big logs by the pond there were Superb Fairywrens. We walked a bit up the road and found Dusky Robin and Black-headed Honeyeater.
The road from the ferry is sealed. We drove on this road and took the second left on a dirt road to Dennes Point. This is a one lane road on which you can meet a large truck. To get the best spot for Forty-spotted Pardalote drive 8.2 km on this dirt road until you pass a quarry on the left. Go up the hill and look for a blue house on the right. The sign on the gate said "321 Lauriston". Across from the gate is another gate and a grass track up the hill. Park on the road and walk up the grass track until you are about eye level with the canopy of the White Gums on the hill below. Look for Striated, Spotted and Forty-spotted Pardalotes in the canopy. I saw both Spotted and Forty-spotted here. This hillside is actually a National Park but there is no sign to indicate this.
At another stop on this road I had Scarlet Robin, another Dusky Robin, and European Goldfinch.
Back on the sealed road we headed south toward the narrow isthmus that separates North Bruny Island and South Bruny Island. An immature White-bellied Seaeagle was sitting in a tree. Before the isthmus the road deteriorates to a two lane dirt road.
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On the isthmus between the two island you can see a colony of
several thousand Short-tailed Shearwaters and several hundred Little
Blue Penguins. If you come here in the evening with a strong torch you can watch the Penguin parade and also watch the Shearwaters come in to their burrows. |
| At the pier outside Adventure Bay where Robert will dock his
new boat we saw several Pacific Gulls including one that stayed put while I got
this picture. Notice the huge red-tipped bill. Just past the store in Adventure Bay look for Blue Gum trees on the beach side of the road. Usually Swift Parrots can be found here. In winter Southern Right Whales come right into the bay just like they do at Warrnambul. |
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Sooty Oystercatcher on Bruny Island. |
| This is the lighthouse at the southern end of South Bruny Island. |  |
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This is a Pacific Black Duck with her brood, but
notice that two of the duckling are very dark. Has she adopted offspring of
another species? This photo was taken in the campground at Adventure Bay. I also saw the Tasmanian Native-hen here. I returned on the 3:15 PM ferry. |
After leaving Bruny Island, I drove back to Hobart and took the A10 to Queenstown. The road went through pastoral rolling hills with sweeping views. At a pond outside Gretna I saw Australasian and Hoary-headed Grebes, Hardeye and domestic Geese. Around noon I reached Hamilton and had coffee and scones at the Glenn Clyde Coach House built by convicts in 1840. There was a gift shop with handmade crafts and a beautiful spring garden.
After Hamilton the road began to ascend into the wooded hills. Past the power plant on the Derwent River, I stopped to poke around at Brady Lake and chanced upon a pair of Flame Robins. The male posed in a shaft of sunlight for just a short time. It was the color of the Blackburnian Warbler. All the bright robins seems to pass on quickly. I also had Black-headed Honeyeaters and Green Rosella.
Parked on the dam at Brady Lake was a very funny looking car covered with stickers that proclaimed "Paris - Peking 1997, Rt 93 to Rt 66 1999, Australia 2002." On the hood was a map of Australia showing in green the route taken around the continent. The driver was Bernhard Seiffert from Germany. Part of his story got lost in his poor English and my lack of German, but I gather he had purchased the car from whoever made all the trips. He said the car was more like a big motorcycle with a car body. Bernhard retired 2 months ago and just started this trip. He had already driven the Stuart Highway and had seen the couple riding the tandem bicycle.
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At the south entrance to Cradle Mountain National Park I
rented a campsite and bought a parks pass for AU$33. This allowed entry to all
Tasmanian Parks for 2 months, but the Ranger who sold it to me insisted that I
tell him how long I was staying and made the pass good only for the number of
days I was to be in Tasmania. The campground was on the shore of Lake St. Clair and this Tasmanian Pademelon was in the campground. The lake is fed by glacial melt and very cold. In fact it was very cold here at night and I used the electric heater for the first time on the entire trip. It was very cozy in Willy with the little heater running under the table. I did not trust sleeping with it on and turned it off at night. At a neighboring site a man was camping out of a station wagon. He didn't like the Pademelon or any other wildlife for that matter. |
I walked several track near the park headquarters. I saw Strong-billed Honeyeater , Black Currawong, Tasmanian Thornbill, Yellow-throated Honeyeater. I have now seen all the Tasmanian endemics.
This campground at the south entrance to the park is beautiful with good birds, but the amenities need work. The shower was supposed to cost , but the meter was stunk in the on position so I got the shower free. The headquarters is the end of the road at the south end of Cradle Mountain National Park. Access to the interior is on backpacking trails only.
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Back on the Queenstown road, I entered Franklin- Gordon
National Park. On both sides of the road is a beautiful heathland with snow
covered mountains in the distance. Frogs are croaking which is a sign of clean
water. I parked Willy and walked along the road. It was a fortunate stop. I saw a pair of Pink Robins. They went on their busy way so I was unable to get a photograph. I am very pleased that I am doing so well on the Robins on this trip. Dusky Robin showed up here as well and unlike the Pink Robin hung out for some time.. |
| Thin woods along the Queenstown Highway in Franklin- Gordon
National Park. I kept walking up and down the road for over an hour because I was seeing so many birds. Green Rosellas, Laughing Kookaburra, Skylarks and finally the Striated Fieldwren Calamanthus I remember this as one of the most pleasant places to bird in Tasmania. |
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I called this a Fan-tailed Cuckoo, but since it
doesn't really match the illustration in Simpson and Day I am open to
suggestions. At any rate it sat still for a long time. This bird was the reason
I stopped at this location in the first place. I heard an owl calling, but can't identify it by sound. |
| Leaving the Franklin - Gordon Park the road entered a heavily
wooded area and the road became uphill and downhill. I stopped to bird at
several points without seeing much. Suddenly I came to this barren landscape outside Queenstown. It looks like acid has been poured down the hills. This was the site of the world's largest open pit copper mine. The mine is still active but as a shaft mine. The land remains a moonscape because of the acid runoff from the strip mining. Queenstown is not where I would want to live. |
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At Queenstown I took the A10 north to Roseberry where there is a big tin mine and then went to the north entrance of Cradle Mountain on the C132.
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This is the Cradle Mountain for which the park is named.
There is a very fine and expensive lodge here which is mentioned in Thomas and Thomas for feeding native animals. The lodge no longer feeds animals, but they do have an evening spotlighting trip for AU$25 at 9 PM each evening. You do not have to be a guest to take the trip. I signed up for the trip and then went to the nearby campground. This turned out to be one of the best campgrounds on the trip. The facilities looked like they were designed by Frank Loyd Wright. Inside the sinks were polished hard wood and hot water was provided for the showers by a small heater attached to each shower. The water was good and hot and there was good water pressure. I think I am back in the land of great plumbing and fine showers the USA . |
| The camp sites were designed so that from your site you could
not see any other camper or tent. This is a Brush-tailed Possum visiting my
site. The best part of all this was the price AU$10 per night. for a powered site for one person. I walked the tracks in the campground and saw several birds. There is a small pond which unfortunately had no birds. The campground is new and there is still some construction going on. The birding may get better once the construction is over. I arrived a little early at the lodge for the spotlighting tour and was invited to sit by their fireplace while waiting. This was most hospitable. The lodge cost AU$158 for one person for one night with breakfast. Perhaps more when the season really get started. |
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| The spotlighting trip
is conducted from the lodge bus and you do not do any walking. The night I went
on the trip it was raining off and on and we had trouble with the bus windows
fogging. I was very happy to have the window open, but I was the only one
really dressed for outdoors and so had to close the window whenever someone
complained about being cold.
The Wombat is a nocturnal relative of the Koala. It
feeds quietly on vegetation. The highlight of the evening trip were 2 Tasmanian Devils. The Devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial. Mostly black they have white patches on the chest. They are very shy and almost always solitary except that groups of Devils gather at the site of a carcase where they fight nosily over the remains. This is how they earned their name. We also saw Tasmania Pademelon, Wallaby, Common Brushtail Possum. Platypus is possible in the creek, but we did not see one this night. |
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Devonport to Melbourne
It is the middle of October and I am beginning to realize the end of my Australian odyssey is near. When I made reservations for the ferry to Tasmania I had to pick a return date. I decided to spend only a week here. I now wish I could stay at least two more days.
My last day was spent driving back to Devonport. I wanted to stop at the Forest Glen Tea Garden mentioned in Thomas and Thomas to see Swift Parrots. Unfortunately the lady who ran it has died and her husband has closed the tea room. I got back to the Abel Tasman campground early in the afternoon and found Swift Parrots right there. I did my laundry and hung it out to dry. A walk to the nearby beach produced Greenfinch an European import.
The next day was a beautiful sunny day for return ferry trip on the Spirit of Tasmania. Again I had chosen to return on a day trip in order to enjoy the birds on the crossing. In the harbor I saw 2 second year Pacific Gulls with big yellow bills with a black spot on both top and bottom. At sea I immediately began seeing huge flocks of Short-tailed Shearwater both flying and sitting on the water. There were Sooty Shearwaters and at least one Wedge-tailed Shearwaters. I also saw 4 black-backed Albatross which I could not identify at this distance. There is no reason for the birds to follow the ferry.
At lunch time I went to the Mediterranean Restaurant on board the ship. There is also a self-serve cafeteria. The food was excellent if rather expensive AU$30 for grilled salmon with Bok Choy and a side order of vegetables. I got a huge bowl of perfectly steamed mixed vegetables enough for about 4 people. I love my vegetables and asked if I could take some of the vegetables with me. After all Willy and a refrigerator were right down on the car deck. This must have been an outrageous request because the waitress was so upset she refused to come back to the table and I couldn't get her to bring me more coffee.
The manager took over waiting on me and finally brought out the vegetables in a huge china bowl covered with plastic. Fortunately I had a plastic grocery bag in my backpack and dumped the vegetables in that and gave her back the bowl. I made two meals out the vegetables the next day. I guess taking food home is just too American, but I am not going to apologize for not wasting food.
When it was time to drive off the ship, my campervan was the first car in line to exit so I was able to watch the door opening. First the water tight doors open. Then the ramp is lowered. Tonight, the ramp sticks about 1/4 the way down. We sat there for about 45 minutes while engineers in white coveralls peered into fuse boxes and passed tools around. When it first stuck I said to no one in particular. " Close it all the way and try again." Eventually that is exactly what they did and it worked and I didn't have white coveralls or tools. I went back to the Ashley Gardens for the night.
| Tasmania |