| Birding
On My Own - Australia and New Zealand 2002 Emmalee Tarry |
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Tasmania |
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Cradle Mountain North Entrance
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. |
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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 carcases 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. 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. I went back to the Ashley Gardens for the night.
End: Tasmania
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