A while back Anne popped into an Australian Geographic shop while waiting for a movie (about the only one she saw the whole year). She did not buy anything but filled out a competition slip… and she won a weeks holiday to Tasmania!!!

So a huge thanks to Australian Geographic and Tourism Tasmania (and of course Anne!!!) for our much appreciated week in that beautiful part of the world. From the forests, the appeal of Launceston & Hobart and the joys of the chocolate factory (which was not like Willy Wonka’s but still fun).

Cradle Mountain was amazing with the Platypus in the river, the wombats wandering around near our cabin and the wallabies absolutely everywhere. We did not get to see a Tasmanian Devil which are under great risk of extinction due to a disease in their population. The area we stayed is protected but there is an ongoing campaign to save Tas forests and stop a the pulp mill proposal there.

Perhaps most memorable for me was the wealth of wombat info we discovered (that’s a wombat in the pic below by the way). They are the only animals in the world to do square poos! They also have extra thick cartilage in their bums which are used for defensive and offensive purposes.

Apparently a favoured trick is to go into their tunnel, lie low and wait for a predator (eg a dingo) to follow. Then they push up using their “super bum” and squash the poor sucker on the roof of the tunnel. They also seem so sleepy and chilled out, the ones we saw looked like they had just woken up… always. But apparently they can run up to 40km/ hr (almost the speed limit in many local towns!).

Anyway… here are some pics.

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