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Published: August 6th 2007
A Gorgeous Day in Convict Land
We started our day by checking out of our hotel in Hobart. The plan was to drive to the Tasman Peninsula (Tasmania was found by a man named Tasman and thus there are a few places in town with his name attached) in the south east corner of the state. The Tasman Peninsula contains the remains of one of the largest of the original convict prisons constructed to house British criminals in Australia. Located at Port Arthur, Tasmania, there are ruins of 35 of the building left. Our goal for the day was to eventually end up here for a peek at one of Tasmania’s biggest tourist attractions.
The roads in Tasmania are not very wide, so I had to really concentrate on sticking close to the center line in order to make Kel comfortable that she wasn’t going to fall off the road. After a bit of driving I had gotten used to shifting with my left hand but was still having some difficulty ensuring that I didn’t drift to the left and off the road. Kel’s quite a trooper in these situations. Despite her fear she never gave me
any grief about my driving.
Tasmanian Devils are Scary Little Creatures
Before heading to Port Arthur, we decided to stop at the Tasmanian Devil Reserve because one of the daily feedings was happening at 11am. We had arrived with 15 minutes to spare and were excited to see an animal we had never really witnessed before. The Devils are kinda cute when you first witness them running around their cages but the cuteness quickly wears off.
They fight with each other incessantly just because they are ornery. The crazy thing is they actually make the wild growling noise that the Tasmanian Devil on Warner Brothers cartoons is famous for making. The situation occurs like this:
Tasmanian Devil #1: Seen sleeping peacefully, looking similar to a small dog and a cat mixed
Tasmanian Devil #2: Feeling frisky decided to walk over to sleeping friend Tasmanian Devil #1 and jump on him for the fun of it.
Tasmanian Devil #1: Awakens with a start as Tasmanian Devil #2 gets close. Realizing that his cage-mate is getting ready to encroach on his personal space decides to get testy. He jumps to his feet and opens his mouth
as wide as he can, showing pointy, nasty looking teeth. Gggggrrrraaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!! (Read as horrible blood curdling growl)
Tasmanian Devil #2: Realizing he has been bested likewise opens his mouth. Ggggggrrrrrrrraaaaaaahhhhh!!
Tasmanian Devil #1: Attacks cage mate Tasmanian Devil #2 by running directly at him
Tasmanian Devil #2: Runs for his life while emitting as much noise as possible.
This situation repeats ad infinitum as long as the devils are awake and only gets more rambunctious when feeding time arrives. The first time you see/hear this situation occur you are startled out of your initially fuzzy view of these creatures. They are dangerous creatures who are not in the least bit fuzzy or cuddly.
The park ranger came over to feed them and gave us some background on the devils. Funny enough, the Tasmanian Devils are horrible hunters despite their fierceness. They are nearly blind, never work together to hunt, are pretty dumb as well as slow and clumsy and have very little luck hunting animals in general. For the most part they are scavengers who eat whatever they find. They can eat meat that has been rotting for up to ten days and have jaws that
are ten times stronger than a dog of similar size. This fact allows them to eat bones and connective tissue with little effort at all.
Today’s feeding was a dead dingo which had been chopped up. The devils frantically fought each other for the food which created a horrible ruckus. They are a very entertaining animal overall due to their antics, noisiness and general orneriness. We stayed and watched them for about 25 minutes and really enjoyed watching them fight each other and run around.
By this point we were completely starving because we hadn’t eaten anything. I know it sounds stupid to have skipped breakfast all together, but getting to see the Tasmanian Devil feeding was more important than food. With that task accomplished successfully, we both immediately set our minds on to the next most important thing: lunch.
Port Arthur Once we got to Port Arthur and got our tickets to enter the park we were famished. We immediately grabbed some food in the cafeteria and, without talking at all, ate every morsel of food in front of us. Once that was done we could get back down to business and see what
Port Arthur had to offer.
By this point the weather was absolutely fabulous which made spending time in Port Arthur rather idyllic. It’s hard to feel too sorry for convicts who were sent here when the weather is 60 degrees and sunny with a few white fluffy clouds in the bright blue sky. I had to remind myself that there are cold times in this part of the world and that these prisoners had few ways of staying warm.
It turns out that this particular Sunday was a special day at the park with live music and tons of people picnicking. Kel decided to sit in the shade and listen to the big band music in hopes of catching a glimpse of a comedy troupe that was supposed to be performing during the music. More on these guys later.
I ran off to be picture guy while Kel enjoyed the music and scenery. The day was just too beautiful not to get at least a few great pictures that would hopefully be reminders of an absolutely perfect day at Port Arthur. I hope the pictures speak for themselves so I won’t spend any time telling you about
me running around taking them all.
When I returned, Kel had found the comedy troupe. The group is called Roo’d and they are located out of Sydney and are incredibly unique. Each member of the troupe is dressed as a giant kangaroo complete with spring stilts inside their costumes. The stilts/springs make them about 8-9 feet tall and allow them to jump like a kangaroo. They were pretty funny looking and very much in character as ultra cool/sarcastic kangaroos. They costumes are even anatomically correct with a pouch/joey for the female and fully formed male parts for the men. When Kel went to have her picture taken with them she accidentally put her hand on one of the male kangaroo’s male parts which caused quiet a stir amongst the group. The female complained about how forward humans are and the male proceeded to show us that his male parts squeaked when squeezed. Very funny!!
Kangaroo Feeding Up Close and Personal When we completed all these fun times at Port Arthur it was time to head back to the Tasmanian Devil Reserve for kangaroo feeding time. Thankfully the two locations, Port Arthur and the Tasmanian Devil Reserve,
are close to each other because we had cut it a little close on time.
We arrived a few minutes before feeding and were surprised that Kangaroo feeding was not only going to be done by us, but we were going to be in the enclosure with all the roos. When we walked in the enclosure there were about 30 kangaroos and 10 wallabies bouncing around or lounging in the sun. Knowing that it was close to feeding time the kangaroos immediately approached anyone who entered the enclosure. We felt very welcomed when about ten of the bigger roos come up to us but then noticed that this happened any time someone came inside.
Once again the park ranger brought out the food which in this case was similar to the pellets that are fed to bunnies. Each person grabbed a hand full of pellets and went off for some roo adventure. Kel obviously enjoyed feeding the momma roos who had joeys in their pouches while I ventured off to feed the wallabies. The wallabies are smaller than the standard kangaroo and therefore are very shy. I managed to find an adventurous one who was willing to get
near me and then had a kangaroo approach giving me the perfect chance to get a picture of each type side-by-side. The picture, somewhere on this page, should help you understand the differences.
We really enjoyed feeding time as most of the kangaroos would come up and eat right out of your hand. The bigger ones and the mother kangaroos would allow you to pet them while they ate. The smaller ones were still a little skittish about you touching them and would run away when you got too close.
Being this close to kangaroos you really get to see their features, differences and how big they can get. Their claws look pretty dangerous and can be used for fighting during the once a year contest for alpha male within the family. The bigger roos get almost as tall as a human which can be a little scary when you are right next to them. The joeys are really funny when they get close to pouch-leaving time. When you walk up, all you can see is head and feet sticking out of the pouch. It can be really funny to see specially during joey feeding time when the
joey eats inside the pouch so you only see these big feet sticking out. Ha!
After feeding we set out for our new bed and breakfast in the booming metropolis of Ross, Tasmania. The town population, you ask…a startling 260 people live in Ross. We decided to stay here because it was centrally located and had vacant beds. The drive from Port Arthur to Ross took about an hour and a half on twisty windy back country roads. People had told me that getting from point A to point B was never quick or easy in Australia and now I’m starting to see why.
I will tell you more about Ross and our B&B in the next installment. Hope you are well back home. We miss you all and hope you are great.
A special shout out to our friends Don and Lindsay. We love you guys and are sorry we couldn’t be home for the birth of your first little one. We miss you and look forward to meeting the newest member of the family when we get home! LOVE YOU GUYS!! CONGRATS!!
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Schiller
non-member comment
Hola
Glad to hear that all is well in Australia. Sounds like plenty of adventures between Mike's driving and Kelley molesting the comedians. Looking forward to hearing about the small town life in Ross - the rooms available because it is quaint and off the beaten path or because everyone who knows any better stay clear??