Burnie, Tasmania

In case your grasp of geography is similar to mine – Tasmania is an island about the size of Ireland, off the south eastern coast of Australia. The capital of Tasmania is Hober;  Burnie is just a popular cargo port. Guess who one of the early explorers was? If I am ever in a trivia game involving explorers of this part of the world, my pat answer is going to be Captain Cook. Once he located Tasmania they started shipping convicts and their keepers here in 1803. Between the early settlers and later paper and timber companies they said the local motto was “if it moves, shoot it - if it doesn’t, cut it down.”  As you might guess some species of animals are now extinct, like the Tasmanian Tiger and the timber and paper mills are out of business. Not surprising given the philosophy. The havoc was fairly localized however as Tasmania  has two World Heritage Areas , one is Cradle Mountain and the other is a large, pristine Wilderness Area a few hours’ drive from Burnie. We took a tour to several of the surrounding towns. We really wanted to see the Tasmanian Devil while they were still among the living. They earned their name because they have the jaw strength of a crocodile and when in a feeding frenzy they snarl, snap, bite, tear flesh and crunch bone - said to be worse than a hyena.  Sadly, they expect Tasmanian Devils to be extinct in as little as 10 years due a rare form of cancer that is killing them in great numbers. As they can’t find the cause, they have relocated groups of them to different countries to try to preserve them. We were so disappointed to learn that the Wildlife Center was too far out of town for us to be able to get there and back before the ship sailed. We at least we got to see some truly beautiful countryside on our outing. It reminded me a little of Ireland, with the luxurious, green rolling hills. Our first stop was Penguin. It was named because of the little Fairy Penguins that reside there. It was recently decided that the name was “politically incorrect” so now the Fairy Penguins are known as Little Blues. Then on to Preston Falls, more like Preston trickle, but a pretty walk down a shady lane to get to it. The countryside is so fertile it grows a huge variety of fruit, vegetables and flowers. They even export tulips to Amsterdam.  We ate a “light” lunch in Davenport, steak pie. Not bad.  It was back to the ship where bag pipers piped passengers aboard to head to Sydney. We had our standard wine and nibbles on the balcony for sail away, then headed to dinner. As I was walking in I saw a kid about three years old. Well, I have been on this ship 5 or 6 week without seeing a single child. I found Jim in the buffet line and said excitedly, “guess what I just saw”. He guessed a Tasmania Devil, a humpback whale, flying fish etc. I said, “ no, it was a child”! It was like I had spotted some exotic species, I was so thrilled. I think it is safe to say I am now in full blown Nana withdrawal mode!