Tasmania Day 2: Roadkill, Kangroos v Wallabies, and Convicts

To finish off Day 1, our boat ride got a bit rocky as we got out into open ocean.  Rocky by our standards but not by anyone who make the crossing all the time.  The lady at the gift shop said that we were still standing, so the ride wasn't really that rocky.  :)

Upon arrival in Devonport, we picked up our rental car - a lavendar Nissan Micra, it's hilarious - and headed to Cradle Mountain.  Even though the roads were dark, we kept seeing things hop by  or hop off the road and into the bush.  We took a picture of a few kangaroos that we saw that stayed long enough for us to take a picture.

Seen at night on our way to Cradle Mountain Chateau

Seen in the morning on our way to Dove Lake

Bright and early this morning, we bought our Cradle Mountain National Park pass from the front desk of our hotel - Cradle Mountain Chateau - and headed into the park to do the Dove Lake track, a 6km trail around Dove Lake which sits at the base of Cradle Mountain.  It felt a little like being at Pilgrim Lodge - it was mostly on a boardwalk shaded by the woods right near a lake.  However, the weather was not on our side.  It was a gray damp morning, but we did the walk all the same.  Luckily, the heavy rains didn't start until we were 10 meters from our car - phew!  Here are a few pictures from our walk.

  

How great is their logo?

 

Some tight turns on Cradle Mountain Road

After checking out of the hotel, we started our drive to Coles Bay, on the east coast of Tasmania.  The drive there took us about 6 hours but we stopped along the way in Deloraine (for lunch), in Evansdale (to taste sauces at the Tasmanain Gourmet Sauce Company), at Lake Leakes (to see the lake) and somewhere else along the way (to walk to Lost Falls - which had actually lost the water because there was barely a trickle where we imagined a falls to be).

Lake Leakes

Lost Falls Track

Another interesting part of our trip was the amount of roadkill we saw.  Most of it was of the kangaroo variety (we've just been told they are really dumb which makes sense with the number of dead ones we saw in the middle of the road) but we think we've also seen some possums (protected in Oz, pests in NZ), and maybe even a Tasmanian Devil or two.  Two things we've done consistently in regards to the roadkill - 1) if looks like an animal we haven't seen, we slow down and try to figure out what kind of animal it is and 2) driven the car around it because those kangaroos are big and our rental car is small.  A kangaroo underneath would seriously f* up the car.

We arrived at our bed and breakfast in Coles Bay, Sheoaks on Freycinet (fray-sin-ay) and took the 10 minute walk to the beach that we could hear from our room.

Sun starting to set over Coles Bay

  

As Coles Bay is right near Freycinet National Park and hence in the middle of nowhere, we had booked dinner at the B&B...as had the rest of the guests.  The six of us guest plus one of the owners had a delicious dinner together around their dining room table where the discussion ranged from Aussie Rules Football (which is actually a version of rugby) to Obama to why Kiwis call Australians cheaters to how the Liberal Party in Australia is actually the most conservative political party.

The BEST part about the dinner conversation was when we started talking about geneology and the B&B owner asked one of the other guests (who were all Australian), "How many convicts do you have in your family?"  She immediately replied "Three!" to which he said "Me too and they were all First Fleeters."  The conversation went on from there about what their ancestors had done in England to get them transported to Australia, how they had served their time in Australia, and how most had become pillars of society post-penance.  I really enjoyed hearing all the stories and how they really weren't phased by having convicts in their family trees.  In NZ, Kiwis are always saying that Aussies are convicts.  :)  One of the other guests jokingly said "You're not really an Australian unless you've got a convict in your family."

Tomorrow off to Hobart after a trip to Freycinet National Park and a walk around Wineglass Bay.