HOBART and MT FIELD NATIONAL PARK
I visited the Australian state of Tasmania this past weekend which lies south off of the eastern side of the continent. Below you’ll see photos of its capitol city, Hobart, a place defined by the river and sea.
View of Hobart foreshore with Mt Wellington in the background.
Snapshots from the downtown harbor area:
View of the capitol city and surrounding area from the top of Mt Wellington. It was about an hour’s climb each way up this mountain in the car … yes, AND driving on the opposite side of the road I might add!
After spending my first day touring around the capitol and eating seafood, I decided that I wanted to drive to one of Tasmania’s many national parks and do some bush walking. I rented a car and drove to Mt Field National Park. The park is one of the state’s oldest national parks, with tall forests and waterfalls dominating the lower sections and glaciated mountains and tranquil lakes in the highlands.
Views of Russell Falls, one of Tasmania’s best known scenic attractions. The trail was lines with ferns, giant eucalyptus and myrtles. Along the way, I saw a wild platypus (which I’m so sad to say I was too slow to get a picture of).
Mt Field’s Lady Barron Falls
While in the mountains, I randomly made some stops while on my road trip . First I made my way to a wildlife sanctuary, where I had a lot of fun playing with this adorable wallaby. She even came up to me and nestled her head into my lap.
This was the first kangaroo I’ve seen carrying a “joey” in her pouch. You can see the baby peeking its head through. Actually several of the kangaroos at this reserve had just had young, so there were lots of babies!
Emus are the largest bird native to Australia and the second largest bird in the world by height, after the ostrich.
The manager took me on a personal tour of the reserve because I was the only one there, so I got to ask tons of questions and help feed the animals. I was asking about the nature of koalas … he told me sadly that they’re quite aggressive in the wild and to never approach one outside of a reserve. Apparently they bite and their claws are really sharp for climbing trees. The reason they’re so seemingly docile is due to a lack of energy and nutrients from their limited diet of eucalyptus. It’s typical for them to sleep up to 20 hours a day!
Of course I had to see the infamous Tasmanian Devil. Although they are the largest surviving carnivorous marsupials in Australia, they were recently declared endangered as of May 2008. Tasmania is the only place in the world you will find these little devils.
Another detour from tassie’s Highway 1 was a bumpy gravel path which led me to Salmon Ponds, Australia’s oldest trout hatchery. The ponds continue to supply over a million trout each year for the stocking of Tasmania’s lakes, rivers and dams that make up the state’s renowned recreational trout fishery.
Lastly, before arriving back to Hobart, I stopped at one of the many hops farms that exists in this region of Tasmania producing for Australian breweries as well as overseas customers. One of the farmers informed me that the hops farms in Tasmania make up the largest cluster cultivated in the southern hemisphere, but most of them are actually Japanese owned.
View of the hops farms from a roadside lookout.
