Monday 5 December 2011

Day 245: East Coast Natureworld

Mother and baby wallaby

Tasmania is bigger than we thought at first.  We had to book an overnight in a campground cabin in order to see the east coast.  It's still raining on and off today, so we went to the zoo to see Tasmanian devils (and a bunch of other animals).  The devils are so cute, they look like miniature bears - right up until they fall out with each other and start showing off mouths that open as wide as their bodies.  The keeper had raised three of them from when they were tiny, and the cutest thing is to see them attach themselves to the cuffs of his trousers and shut their eyes in ecstasy.  Not so cute is the way they crunch up the bones of the meat he gives them.  Most people know that Tasmanian devils in the wild are suffering from a fatal cancer they transmit to each other through biting.  The idea is that if the wild population becomes extinct, captive breeding programs like the one at this zoo will be able to release a new population of cancer-free devils.  It could be decades before we know how things will turn out.

Tasmanian devils falling out with each other


In the evening we went for a beach walk and saw this atmospheric effect, then Antonia (of course it was Antonia) spotted this fairy penguin.  It is probably a young one waiting for the adults to return in the evening.  Julia went out to see them on an organised tour, and did in fact see hundreds of them waddling up the beach.

Cool atmospheric effect

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