Cradle Mountain

11th January 2011
A last day on Tasmania, we are free to decide how to spent it. The weather could be better, a light drizzle started during the night. So what, you have to take the weather as it is and try to make the best of it. In spite of the rain we go for a walk around Lake Dove. Another fantastic tour with great photo motives. We actually see a flower called “Tasmanian Christmas Bell” which only can be found in Western Tasmania. You don’t know where to look first, here we now also have alpine impressions. One picture of this walking track I like that much that I order a wallpaper with that motive back home, for the downstairs corridor. 

We bought tickets for tonight to go on an animal watching tour by bus. If the animals do not show up voluntarily! Okay, most of them get active not before dusk anyway. And this trip is really worth it, the driver is an expert. There are red spot lights mounted on top of the bus so we are able to see the animals without disturbing them. On our list of sightings there are wombats and possums, also quite a lot of pademelons, a small kind of kangaroo. Even an echidna shows up for a quick snapshot.

The driver has fun taking us to a place where we actually see a Tasmanian tiger standing on the edge of a wood – regretfully just made out of ply wood. We are already on the way back to the information centre when suddenly a young Tasmanian devil crosses the street just in front of the bus. Everybody jumps up to the left side of the bus to get a better look at it, the vehicle staggers heavily. I really hope the Tasmanian devils won’t meet the same destiny as their cousins, the Tasmanian tigers. In any case this bus tour was a successful completion of our round trip.