A slightly later start this morning - bags to the bus and breakfast at 7.30 - luxury! Tomorrow, as the tour is over, I may stay in bed all morning!
There is some spectacular coastal scenery near Port Arthur, and we went to look at some of it. We stopped at Maingon lookout, where there is something described on the signpost as 'Remarkable Cave' and I am not sure whether that was its proper name, or whether it was merely a description. The sea has forced a hole right through the rock from one side to the other.
We also stopped at the Tasman Arch
then The Devil's Kitchen, which is so deep it is really impossible to photograph, and the Blowhole, which is another cave, but very long and narrow.
On the way to the Blowhole, we passed through an area laughingly referred to as 'Doo-town'. It is a group of 30 or 40 houses, and they have all managed to get the word 'do' into the house name, by hook or by crook. Xanadoo, Dr Doolittle, This'll Do, Do It Yourself, Just Do It and so on.
On the way back, we got a much better view of the narrowness of Eaglehawk Neck (only 30 metres wide) but we were in the back of the bus today, so pictures were difficult. I managed a picture of sorts of Pirate Bay on one side, and you can just see Eaglehawk Bay, which is very shallow, on the other. Try to ignore the window reflections.
We drove to the historic town of Richmond for lunch. The most historic part is Richmond Bridge, which is the oldest stone bridge in Australia. It was built in 1823, by convicts, and not only is it a pretty bridge,
it stands on a very pretty river.
After lunch, we drove through Brighton to a wildlife park, where we saw some native wildlife. There was a huge Koala - apparently a koala's size depends on where it lives. Southern koalas are 30% bigger than Northern koalas. This was rather a nice koala, who listened to me with great attention when I spoke to him, and allowed everybody to stroke him.
For the first time ever, I saw a Tasmanian Devil. It is about the size of a small dog, but not all that appealing. It was very anxious to eat a piece of meat the keeper was holding, and ran about a lot. I managed a much better picture of one who wad so hot it had got into its pool to cool down, and was lying quietly in the shade trying to maintain the nice cool feeling. It reminded me of how I felt in the Kakadu, when I had to get out of the nice cool water and hike back to the bus, and I just wanted to continue lying in the water. You can almost hear this one saying he has no intention whatever of getting up to hike anywhere, so don't ask him!
Then we went to look at the baby wombat, who was utterly adorable. He was an orphan, his mother was killed on the road, and he will be released into the wild when he is old enough. Wombats are not taught anything by their mothers, they learn by themselves and trial and error.
We saw lots of other animals. The quoll was difficult to photograph, because he was lying half in the shade. I photographed the two frogmouths because they look so self-satisfied.
And we hand fed the kangaroos and the emus. They all know what comes in paper bags!
Then we drove back to Hobart. We were on the wrong side of the bus, but still managed to get a picture of the Tasman Bridge, as we may not manage it tomorrow.
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