Cradle Mountain Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania

Cradle Mountain, right, and Dove Lake. The rain got there just as I did.

I spent six days backpacking (tramping) in Tasmanian wilderness and loved it. I understand now why this place is so special and raved about, and yet it's only a small piece of it that I've seen in the 100 kilometers or so that I walked. Tasmania has been described to me as kind of a hybrid between New Zealand and Australia. I agree. There are beech forests and ferns and mosses and the weather is very volatile like NZ, but there are also eucalytus forests and crazy animals and snakes like mainland Aussie. I was on high alert for snakes, and to a lesser extent, leeches, throughout my hike. There are three species of snakes in Tassie, all are poisonous: copperhead, tiger snake, and a white-lipped whip snake. I saw a snake one afternoon, which was either a copperhead or tiger snake; the coloration of the two are similar and they are distinguished by head plates, which thankfully I was not close enough to see! The leeches here hang onto plants and drop on to unsuspecting hikers. I don't think I ever got one here, but plenty of people did. Enough about leeches though. :) I was really lucky to spend a week in this very special part of the world and the wilderness rejuvenated me completely. Now I am in Melbourne which is a fantastic city, and I've been sitting at this internet cafe for two hours, so it's about time I head out into the real world instead of blogging about it. I'm having lunch at a place called Lentil as Anything, and it's a really neat thing where you pay as much for the food as you like and feel it's worth. Crazy concept, eh?

Lake Hanson

I knew what this was once, but not anymore. Rain sure makes for some beautiful pictures. I don't have many pictures of rain mostly because I don't want to get my camera out when it's wet for obvious reasons. So no, my pictures are disporportionately of nice weather. Don't be fooled - NZ and Tasmania are wetter than they appear to be by my blog!

A pademelon, smaller than a wallaby, with a face like a mouse (a giant one).

A wallaby feeding in the evening (most of the native animals are nocturnal). He says, "What do YOU want?" Wallabies are basically small versions of kangaroos. A baby wallaby is a joey.

an echidna, a monotreme (egg-laying member of mammals), like a platypus. I didn't get to see a platypus, but other hikers did. It's said they swim just like fish and very much resemble them in water. Platypus sightings are rare, although the animals are common, because they are very shy.

Echidnas are awfully cute. Their noses are seldomly seen - they are often buried in the ground rooting for food. Hard workers they are.

Mt. Oakleigh. I hiked right up top to the left edge where the pillars are. This is the view from the Pelion Hut, where I stayed for a night. This is where I was woken in the night by a possum tapping the window next to my head.

View from Mt. Ossa, highest peak in Tasmania at 16xx meters. The peaks in the park are all intrusions revealed through the magic of erosion, and shaped by the long period of glaciation (which covered most of the earth) ending 12,000 years ago.

One of my absolute favorite areas in the park - the Mersey River is magical. A different world down there, and not much explored.

Ferguson Falls on the Mersey River.

Mt. Geryon, a splendid mountain.

Neat cairn in the labyrinth, and of course, gum (eucalypus) trees.

From atop labyrinth lookout.