2019 AU-NZ: WTP with Hazel and Alan Veevers Feb 5

 What a super day out with Hazel and Alan Veevers to Melbourne's Western Water Treatment Plant! Similar to our observations at Eastern Treatment Plant on January 27, the amazing numbers of each species was mind-boggling! A few counts were low, but clearly exciting for Hazel and Alan, for example, the 3 Glossy Ibis and Brolga pair.

We also had intermittent coffee, lunch and soup stops to relax and socialize. We hope to see them again on our two more times through Melbourne before we go back to Canada April 16.

2019 AU-NZ: Tasmania, Jan 29 to Feb 3

Six days to cover 1,400Kms to Tasmania's many land reserves (forests, lakes, wetlands and seashores) sounds almost reasonable, maybe.

The land area of Tasmania is close to that of Ireland - it is the length of Canada's Vancouver Island and more than double the width. The population of Tasmania is approximately the same as Vancouver Island’s.

Also, looking at numbers, AU's population is about 10 million shy of Canada's, so about 3/4 the population of Canada in AU in a similarly proportioned land area, and mostly living on the East Coast, with Sydney being the home to close to 20% of the AU population, and about 600 thousand on Tasmania (double in tourist season - November to March). Tasmania's population density is less than half of what we have on Vancouver Island, but the landscape and vibe is similar, and well-supplied and serviced towns are frequent on the few arterial routes.

Tasmania has many "foodie" and "artie" gems in the communities along the way, and a vibrant market-day system Fridays to Sundays. Similar to Vancouver Island, Tasmania has many surrounding Islands, accessed by ferry. We found out on the ferry crossing from Melbourne, VIC, AU to Devonport, TAS, AU that a few areas on Tasmania were closed (and people cut off) due to bush fires (what we call forest fires). The heat was intense, but by our second day on Tasmania it was cool and the over-due rain had thankfully arrived to assist the firefighters and enable us to access previously closed-off areas.

January 28, 2019 On the 9.5hr crossing from mainland AU to Tasmania, AU on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry (mini cruise ship, with two levels of suites), Bob watched for pelagic creatures and Yolanda wove on her "interface" tapestry.

We met 78yo Jan England, who is Australia's top female bird observer, and she told us that 80yo Mike Carter (who was our host a day previous, January 27, at the volunteer bird count with Bird Life Australia, Melbourne chapter) is the top bird observer in Australia. Jan told Yolanda that she crochets and also volunteers with a local-to-her (Sunshine Coast, QLD, AU) charity that accepts clothing and Jan and her group repairs them for the charity shop. Jan is on a year that Bob thinks is a "Big Year" around Australia and she left home May 2018, with plans to return home at the end of April 2019. Maybe Jan will eventually surpass Mike in her total bird count for Australia.

We arrived in Devonport off the ferry by 7pm, enjoyed an exquisitely prepared and presented quail on fresh shaved vegy slaw and local white wine (Yolanda) and lasagna and microbrewery draft (Bob) at Café Fifteen Tables, and then walked to the dockside platform to watch the Spirit of Tasmania pull out in the dark for its night crossing back to Melbourne on mainland Australia. A cluster of girls were cheering, “I love you Tasmania!” from the sparkly lit outer decks.

January 29, 2019 Our first day on Tasmania included morning sightings of Rainbow Lorikeet, the Narawntapu National Park (NP) wetlands & seashore, and Tamar Island Wetland Reserve (just a few days before their International Wetlands Day celebrations), and then arriving too late in the evening to get a camp site at Freycinet NP, about half way down the east shore of Tasmania. So, we tried out our Rav4 car boot, which was great! Almost the interior size of our teardrop trailer, our 74" thermarests fit perfectly in the boot. Because it was dark, we happened upon a nocturnal Common Brushtail Possum in the camp.

We've enjoyed being out tenting in the previous week, and found out at Freycinet NP we can alternately stay in the spacious Rav4 car boot. Arrival at Freycinet NP moments after closing time for the park gate restaurant, and having not had time yet to get groceries for Tasmania, meant we needed to zip to a wood oven pizza shop we had seen: Geo-graphie. They were closed, but the oven still had sufficient heat so the staff happily made us a pizza to eat outside - very delicious, by the way!

Speaking of food, this is a shameless recipe for Parrot Stew, from a 62yo Aussie camp mate: In a large pot, put in the prepared parrot meat, four stones, and fill pot with stream water. Bring to a boil over a fire and simmer until the stones are soft. At that point, take out the parrot meat, throw it away and eat the stones. We've been encountering many examples of Aussie humour and been trying to learn a few colloquialisms. For instance, we might say "how's it going?" and they would say, "how ya' goin'?" to which we should reply, "ya' graat!"; or, we might say at the fish dock, "looks like a great catch", but what we should say is, "ya' lucky baws-trd!", or so we were told by an elder shop lady we were polling for how to chat with the locals.

January 30, 2019 Day two, we visited the beach at Freycinet NP, stopped to wander another extensive wetland, stopped briefly at Port Arthur, picked up groceries and arrived too late to make the last ferry to Bruny Island, which leaves from Kettering, just south of Tasmania's largest city, Hobart.

At Port Arthur we sensed something was amiss, as we could see a smoke plume on a nearby hill and there were police and fire crews at a few posts along the route. We were told that someone had deliberately set a fire ("shameful" the radio announcer was saying, "when fire crews were already taxed with the most catastrophic fire season on record"). The road was opened just before we arrived. We were told by an emergency volunteer that there were no programs at Port Arthur, as the staff had been allowed out through the smokey route and so we could wander the property no fee. These factors and the penal theme of the place made us leave too, and we headed towards the Bruny Island ferry, which we missed. We found a community camp site just south of the ferry depot and just beyond Scarecrow Country at dark (yeh!), made and ate dinner, and settled into the boot a second night.

January 31, 2019 Our third day was glorious - a super day and a great sleep in our tent. We started with our favourite apple-peanut oats and espresso camp breakfast and arrived 10 minutes to ferry departure, so pretty much drove on and were at Bruny Island 10 minutes later. The road to the southern tip is about 70Kms, so we drove directly to the camp, on gravel road for the final 18Kms, and found a spot. Due to rain, we sat in our car and did a bit of word and image BLog work, then had lunch at our picnic table when the rain let up and headed down through the forest for a long beach walk.

As we were returning up the beach, we saw 4W-Drive jeeps piled with gear and sporting "snorkels" for air in-take to the engines when the jeep is in deep water (Mad Max style meets Crocodile Hunter updates). The jeeps drove onto and around the beach and away again. As we walked up from the beach, we saw the six mud-covered, snorkled jeeps were hatched in an area by our camp site and the barby was out and laden with meat while three of the boys looked into an engine and two more walked up from the beach with a crate of oysters. How fast that happened! Not their first rodeo! We realized theirs was a lunch stop, as when we returned from a 2-hr cliff walk, on which we saw an echidna (pronounced "eh-kid-nah", a coconut-sized ant-eater), the jeeps had pulled out.

It was 4pm and we decided to go for a drive to the Bruny Island lighthouse and a shoreline back 18Kms at the road-to-gravel junction where we turned earlier to reach the camp. We felt fortunate to see a seal at the shore, as well as the usual suspect shore and forest birds.

After a delicious Florentine pasta dinner back at camp (pasta, eggs & cream, pepper, cheese, and a futon of spinach in a one-pot process), we went down to the beach for the sunset and evening bird watching ("bird walking", Bob said, as a Sanderling skittered ahead of us down the beach, "like dog walking, but 'cheeper'").

We started a game of Bananagrams (speed Scrabble) before dark, and packed up quickly when the rain started again. One letter square slipped to the ground between the picnic table boards and when Bob stooped to pick it up he commented that maybe it should have been left behind: it was a "Q".

We didn't get immediately to sleep as a few small nocturnal creatures were suddenly dashing around outside our tent screeching and snorting. In the morning we agreed it was a Tasmanian Devil chasing a pig-like-sounding creature.

February 01, 2019 In the morning at our South Bruny Island, TAS, AU camp we spoke with Sierra (from California-mom, Scottish dad) and Anka (from one hour north of Amsterdam). Sierra had been working at Lake St. Claire in the southern Cradle Mountain NP area that Bob had wished to visit, but had cancelled due to fire-related road closure reports. Sierra let us know the main access road was now open and had only been closed fully one day when wind was blowing cinders over the highway. Sierra was excited to hear we planned to eventually visit New Zealand and made notes for us about some favourite spots she discovered while working 10mo in South NZ (we go there March 19).

On our way off Bruny Island we made a few nature viewing stops and one delicious cheese and craft beer stop, where we enjoyed a "flight" of six cheeses of the day, found a nice pub mustard mini jar to take away, and chose the first still-warm crusty loaf of the day from the wood fire oven. Many folks were into the flights of craft beers, but that concept didn't fit into our morning plans. We made the mid-day ferry back to the main island of Tasmania and then drove into the Victoria-BC-like town of Hobart so Bob could pick up another camera memory card, and for a picnic lunch with that nice crusty loaf, a dry-aged wedge of cheese and pub mustard from Bruny Island.

We enjoyed the scenic mountain drive into Lake St. Claire and were interested to learn about the multi-day Overland Track "bushwalking" (backpacking hike) from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Claire. We paid a fair bit for the private-run camp site at Lake St. Claire ($30), but it had a great shower and laundry building, so we put through a load the next morning. There was also a super cook shelter and bbq cook surface, which we used at breakfast.

These "bbq" units are common in public picnic areas, and usually are combined with stainless steel dish-washing sinks with a gazebo with seating. The bbq surface is an almost flat, funnelled solid stainless steel sheet with a central fats drain. We've yet to bbq on one, but it is great for keeping the pasta pot bubbling away after using our gas stove to initiate the boil.

February 02, 2019 In the morning, there were a few echidna waddling around and we later learned that we could have seen platypus too. We somehow missed noticing that the logo for Lake St. Claire was a platypus - and we missed the walk to Platypus Bay on the lake - tough luck!

The information centre staff were helpful with maps and tips for our afternoon drive to Queenstown via the Franklin River Wilderness Drive and so we did many scenic view stops and forest walks en route to our TAS West Coast camp site beyond Queenstown at MacQuarie Heads Fishing Camp.

At almost every stop we encountered honey bees and blow flies (the size of horse flies, but not bitey), and at pull-outs along the route we wondered about the clusters of white bee boxes in tree clearings.

We made a fresh vegy and sausage chili dinner at the Queenstown Fireman's Park picnic area and so arrived at the fishing camp in time for an evening walk and to watch the fishermen pully-load their aluminium boats onto trailers, with rods, nets and traps catching the light of the setting sun.

February 03, 2019 Due to the (eh-hehm) torch-lit "drop toilet" (outhouse) at the fishing camp, we drove 15Kms in the early morning after pack-up to Strahan town to use the public park facilities and get on our way to Cradle Mountain. Before leaving Strahan, we happened across The Coffee Shack, owned by two young sisters and employing their pals (including Danielle, who was creating a lovely 2-meter black ink line verdure of snow-gum branches on the pale pink walls, framing the upper corners of two adjacent windows). For a Sunday morning, the Shack seemed busy. The plentiful savory and sweet muffins offered in appealing baskets adjacent the meter-long espresso machine indicated the flow of dads&kids, fishermen, walk-in elder couples and the occasional tourist would continue. The espresso was the best shop espresso we've tried yet and the warm apricot-coconut muffin we shared was outstanding.

We encountered a fire-related road closure north of Strahan near the town of Zeehan, so deviated south 70Kms towards Queenstown before turning north again, and then needed to back-track 20Kms to "petrol" the car (gas up). However, the detours were okay, as near the Mt. Dundas Regional Reserve we crossed "Yolande River"!

The UNESCO Cradle Mountain experience is similar to that of Lake O'Hara in BC's beautiful Yoho National Park, but with blue rather than turquoise lakes, as the glaciers are long gone from Australia and so there is no marl. In place of the interesting marl effect we see in the Rockies, there are grass trees, a protected species. The vistas are equally compelling, even without the glaciers.

Visitors are limited by a 20minute, 56pax shuttle bus service (still, this means up to 4,000pax/day!). There are high hike options, lakeside walks, and the start point for the multi-day Overland Track that ends 75Kms south at Lake St. Claire.

With 3hrs to last shuttle down, we had time for a short hike at Cradle Mountain, and chose the Dove Lake circuit, with a bit of elevation in spots.

Similar to the Lake O'Hara area, there are stepping stone ways, and boardwalks to keep boots from stomping the sensitive alpine plants.

Near Cradle Mountain we stopped at the Cradle Mountain Wilderness Gallery. It is an extensive series of high-ceilinged, large-scale galleries, housing local art works in metal, wood, textile and photography. One of the photo collections was from Peter Dombrovskis (1945-1996), whose work in the field was instrumental in the shift of social values required to enable the creation of Tasmania's land, fauna and flora reserves and on-going celebration and support for the Tasmanian natural environment. [Side note: 40% of Tasmania is Regional and National park or reserve land and much of that is designated UNESCO World Heritage land!] There was also a gallery for sharing one's own story with many media for doing so, and inspirational items, such as taxidermy specimens and archival newspaper pages. The typewriter at a view window desk, colouring book pages, textile scraps and other media were compelling, but we needed to move on so visited the ninth gallery, the "dark room", which was a play on the "cabinet of curiosity" "dark ages" precursor to contemporary museum philosophy. The Gallery had an extensive shop of local hand-crafts and art. We bought a little textile art piece and some leatherwood honey, as the sales clerk and her husband were keepers of some of the boxes we had seen the day previous at the highway pullouts, and we had seen the leatherwood bushes on our walk at Dove Lake.

At this point, and to close our Tasmania week notes, we need to write about the enormous numbers of road kill. They are so prevalent that there was a road kill recipe book at the Lake St. Claire information centre – yuk! In some winding mountain highway sections there are furry balls to skid marks every 250 meters and driving amongst them takes river canoe skill. Also, we've noticed that frequently crows are hopping on the road where there are no furry victims. This has made us wonder if, as we've noticed on the Bowron Lakes Chain, in central BC, the crows are aware of the animal at the forest edge and await the warm moment of the kill. "Car, car, car" the crows say, "car, car, car" to perhaps call their buddies to be in the right spot at the right moment.

February 04, 2019 We're on the Spirit of Tasmania again 9.5hrs back to mainland Australia. Things are looking good: Bob just photographed an Albatross!; and Yolanda has a window seat to spread out her colours!

February 5 we are with Hazel and Alan Veevers, whom we met January 26 at the first of the two Bird Life Australia volunteer events in which we participated. They invited us for an all-day outing to their favourite bird viewing spot. Bird expert David Torr also invited us to the same location, but his schedule was full on February 5.

We are then on our 40-day camp tour February 6 to March 18 on mainland Australia. Our average camp night cost is currently $9.50, mostly due to $0 cost at forestry camps, which off-set the $30 cost at the well-appointed private sites. We expect a mix of camp experiences in the upcoming ~6 weeks. It is 14,000Kms around the perimeter of mainland Australia, and there are another 3,000Kms of side routes, so we might adjust our distance goals as we pluck along.