Australia Day

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Today is Australia Day, here down under. Like our 4th of July, this is the day the Australians celebrate their independence - kind of. It is also a very controversial day here as it means the day the British prisoners made Australia a country, but moving and imprisoning the many Aborigines necessary to create this country. Many here are not proud of it and will not celebrate. We in the US celebrate freedom from the British, but we have also a dark history related to those who occupied this land before us. My sweet Barb, ¼ American Indian, understood the mental conflicts. On a happy note, the fireworks outside my window last night were spectacular!

Today we started with a tour of the Cataract Gorge, a river surrounded by granite walls. Over the suspension bridge hundreds of feet above the river, it was a spectacular view. While rain can fill the gorge to the bottom of the bridge, today was sunny and very mild. As I write this, the outside temperature is 77 degrees. Later, we traveled from Launceston to near the north coast to visit an exhibit containing Platypuses (or Platypi) (I understand both are correct colloquially), and the Echidnas. Both are native to Australia and Tasmania and are the only egg laying mammals in existence. It was a very interesting day, which included a beautiful lunch near the exhibit. Small family owned, the cafe overlooked the Tamar River which flows to the Tasmanian Sea. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I have rarely experienced such a friendly group of people as we experienced in Tasmania.

Tomorrow I will be leaving Tasmania for the mainland of Australia, spending several days in the very international city of Melbourne. I have been very impressed with Tasmania. I had no real expectation, but I must say this was a beautiful, very friendly and livable country; actually one of the Australian states. I am so happy I decided to take this part of the tour.

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Comments

[Linda]

Enjoying your blog
Beautiful scenery and interesting animals!