Tasman Peninsula

Today was a rainy day, spitting after shower, shower after spitting. Plus a good deal of wind on top of that.

But it didn't prevent me from spending a few hours in Port Arthur, in order to visit the penitentiary district, closed in the 1870s but still well preserved, in spite of the various bush fires which damaged this part of Tasmania during the last century.
The last one raged just 10 days ago, and the sides of the road are covered with black ashes. Fortunately, most of the trees were gum trees, and they never burn during bush fires. In just one year, the landscape will be back to normal.
Once again, the most damaged part was the houses.

When you get to the penitentiary, you are randomly assigned the identity of a former convict (a real one, who really existed), in order to learn more about his life. "Mine" was sentenced to 14 years of transportation for having stolen a handkerchief, and spent a few more years there because he tried to escape on and on.
Can you imagine that? They even had a remote island where they kept the under aged boys, because you could get transported for a theft as soon as when you were 9 years old. Away from your family, and from anything you knew. Terrible for a grown up, but how could the kids deal with it?
The contrast between the separate prison, where they used to keep the most troublesome prisoners during a few days / weeks as a punishment, and the commandmant's house is frightening.
The guide has a few funny stories about the ones who tried to escape, such as the guy who found a dead kangaroo in the bush, skinned it, and tried to go through the line guarded by the soldiers jumping in this strange suit. Bad luck for him, the soldiers had not had any fresh meat for days, and decided that a kangaroo would make a pretty good dinner.
They were about to shoot when they had the surprise to hear the roo shout "Don't shoot!".

I was supposed to go hiking during the afternoon, but the weather is still pretty bad, therefore I decide to spend a few hours at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Center.
Good opportunity to see (and feed and pat!) kangaroos and wallabies, to learn more about the famous devils, and also to discover a number of marsupials which can only be found in Tasmania, such as the Eastern Quoll.
Each time I come to Australia, I discover new strange animals. I wonder what it will be, next time...

 

 

Since Monday morning, I started measuring the time spent on the road counting the dead possums, and not the km or hours.
An estimate of 20 possums per hour seems to be reasonably reliable, and the average was confirmed for the 4th day in a row. With a peak frequency of 10 possums in 1 km on Monday.
You can add to that 2 wallabies, 4 crows (never eat anything which is lying dead on the road, it is way too dangerous!), one seagull, one hen (not sure I can include it in the wildlife classification...), various other birds and a medium size animal which I could not identify clearly but which looked like a wombat, and you will have a good idea of what the Tasmanian roads look like.
Very similar to the NZ roads, actually, at least for the possums part.
So far, I am proud to say that I haven't killed a single animal. Let's hope it will go on like that!