Chef Shari and the Spooky Tree People

One night, we camped out a really nice state park. I have no idea what it is called. The forest was beautiful.

Someone had tied little stuff people to the trees.

At first it seemed rather spooky. Apparently, they were a project designed to ask people to save the forest. So, not so spooky ... ok, still a little spooky.

As you can imagine, a lot of people want to log the old growth forests in Tasmania and a lot of people want to save them. A few weeks before we arrived, thousands protested construction of a pulp mill in Tasmania. So, while the tree people were spooky, we understood their cause.

To offset the spookiness ... or perhaps to make it more spooky. Chef Shari conducted a dinner experiment.

And, when we left, we left a gift for the tree people.

Wombat Scat

While in Australia ... only Shari saw a wombat in the wild ... so she says. But, we did see plenty of wombat scat. This is notable because it's rectangular and the wombats place it on rocks and logs ... in stacks. Unfortunately, we only got photos where the wombat scat was apparently stepped on.



There is a great article "What Scat is That." It has more info on wombat scat. Unfortunately, the webpage is down right now. Hopefully it will be available when you read this.

Our Tasmania Group

It's time to meet the group of people that we traveled with.

Jenny - from Tasmania, our guide. She has led 35-day treks in Nepal. She recently purchased TASafari and knows an amazing amount about the flora and fauna of Tasmania.


Camille - from France, is in Australia on a 5 month work visa. She is required to pick fruit (apples) for 3 months. In return, she gets to travel for two months. Here she is looking at water from a rain collection system that Jenny claims is safe to drink!


Travis - from South Africa, moved to Australia when he was 19. Travis is 6'7". He worked lighting in the film industry - and worked on the lighting team for all three of the Matrix movies.


John & Tasiko - John is originally from England, Tasiko is from Japan. They live in Japan now and are in Australia for John's daughter's wedding. They traveled with us the first day and a half.

Wineglass Bay

We camped out on some private land. Shari tried to sleep in a swag - which left her exposed to the elements ... and the wandering bushtail possum (see the borrowed photo below). When we woke up in the morning, she was in the van ... claiming that the mosquitoes were swarming her. However, she also said that she woke up and the possum was staring at her.


We did a walk at Freycinet National Park ... which took us to an overlook of Wineglass Bay.


The rest of the tour group hung back while Ranger S and the Fly Girls continued on to Wineglass bay. The water was quite cold.


But, the sand was warm.


Upon our return from Wineglass Bay, Shari met a wallaby.

Ranger S and the Fly Girls go Bushwalking

We started off our bushwalking adventure at Cape Raoul on the Tasman Peninsula. We are told the Cape Raoul trail is one of the most spectacular cliff top walks in all Tasmania. The bush was wild. The "walk" was a 14 km (~9 mi) "walk."

Ranger S

and the Fly Girls
did indeed enjoy commanding views of the coastline on their way to the Cape Raoul plateau.


The Cape Raoul plateau can be seen in this photo. We hiked (walked if you are Australian) up to the cliffs and then down to the plateau, where we had lunch.


Here is the view of the spectacular dolomite pillar cape at the end of the plateau. Seals were hanging out at the bottom of the pillar.

While the wildness of the bush and the views on this walk were the big highlights, we also stood within 10 feet of a tiger snake and an echidna. Tiger snake = timid snake with highly toxic venom produced in large amounts. The venom is mainly neurotoxic, affecting the central nervous system, but also causes muscle damage and affects blood clotting. The breakdown of muscle tissue can lead to kidney failure. While Jenny, our guide, was a bit concerned by this non-timid tiger snake, we didn't let it hinder our curiosity.

Off to Tasmania

Ticket mix-ups, missed flights, and Australian airline policies

Monday evening, Shari announced we were scheduled for 6:00 AM flight, and K announced we were scheduled to leave at 1:30 PM. Turns out we were both right. After mild death threats and staying on hold with Virgin Blue for 2 hours, it was decided that Shari would go ahead on her own to Tasmania. Except...she missed the flight, and rather than being able to stand by for the next flight, or pay a change fee...she was charged for an entire new trip there.

Moral of the story - don't miss flights in Australia.

We ended up on the same flights there (and back) and had time to view Hobart, which is a surprisingly big and vibrant city.
(stolen picture from http://www.hwidc.tas.gov.au)

We walked around, tried to get a drink at Australia's oldest pub

Instead got one hereAnd ate at Mure's