Change In Plans

WOMBAT!

Greetings from Tasmania! We are in the Cradle Mountain National Park, spending a few days hiking and looking at Tasmania’s definitely weird wildlife.

We drove across Tasmania on Sunday, leaving Freycinet on the east coast, cutting back through Launceston in the center, and right up into the west coast mountains. We have been looking at too many wall-size maps of Tasmania, which make that journey look epic in its length and complexity. In reality, Tasmania is pretty small, and the whole drive took about 4 scenic hours.

Similar to the age-discrimination challenges we faced in Freycinet, children are basically not allowed to do anything fun at the Cradle Mountin Lodge either. Canoeing is restricted to 14 years and older, there are no kids’ mountain bikes, and they laughed when we asked about horse riding. Litigators and insurance companies appear to dominate Australian tourism. This has left us with a few beautiful walks, a visit to the Tasmanian Devil rescue center, and the wackiest game drive of our lives.

I will write a post about the Devils and the game drive later, when I have a proper internet connection. We saw a lot of animals (wallabies, pademelons, quoll, wombats, etc.), but both event were so comic that I laugh thinking about it.

The hikes have been very scenic, but with a beauty more subtle than that of the east coast. This part of Tasmania gets three meters of rain a year, which is an enormous amount. Even though it is the height of summer, the days have been very cool and cloudy, with intermittent rain. It seems more like Vancouver or Scotland than Australia.

Yesterday we did a 10-kilometer walk from Dove Lake back to the Cradle Mountain park entrance. Most of the way we were on an elaborate wooden boardwalk, with chicken wire embedded in the boards for traction. The boardwalk saves wear and tear on the plant life, I guess, and it is a pretty remarkable feat of engineering and carpentry. The hike runs past glacial lakes, through heathered fields, over riverine gorges, and into medieval-looking forest. All of this is in the brooding, mist-shrouded shadow of Cradle Mountain.
Dramatic and beautiful.

This morning we walked 9 kilometers around Dove Lake, which is at the base of the mountain. Apparently, in the 1820s, the English surveyor named the lake for his boss, Mr. Dove. The lake looked cold and dark against the gray skies and brown/green vegetation.

Zola has been a total trooper on these hikes, trundling along in his Crocs, and enjoying himself greatly. For the most part, Tallulah has been riding on my shoulders, but she was excited to wear a hood and run along the boardwalk in the rain yesterday.

India, of course, is in her element. She has been running 15 kilometers in the park in the early morning, then returning on these hikes later in the day. Between the walking/running and all of the animal tracking, this is heavenly for her.

I, on the other hand, am going a little crazy. Being this isolated, with limited intellectual stimulation or social activity, is … is… is… is probably building character and making me a better person. Either that or I will start drinking beer in the lodge pub after breakfast. Learning about ourselves is part of travel, I guess. We are all learning that I get grouchy in isolation.

Tomorrow we drive up to Devonport, and fly to Adelaide, connecting through Melbourne.
We stay over near Adelaide, and then take a ferry to Kangaroo Island on Thursday morning. On Kangaroo Island we will be staying in a very isolated place, hiking in the rain and looking at Australian animals. We will see how I do. When I go back to work, I am sure I will look back on these bucolic days and family hikes with enormous pleasure.