Helping Mom

Just to let you know there won’t be any posts for a couple of weeks, as I’m off to mom’s in the morning (just one state over, but a bit of drive). She’s had major spinal surgery, and while she’s been in the convalescence center for a few weeks, she still can’t be allowed to go home alone — and she really wants to go home. So I’ll be moving in with mom for two maybe three weeks, just so there’s someone to drive, shop, cook, and take care of things while mom recovers.

But we’ll travel farther up the Gordon River when I return — and beyond.

The Gordon River

The Gordon River is Tasmania’s longest river. It cuts through an area of incredible wildness—an area that has in fact been designated a World Heritage Wilderness Area. Then, near the coast, the river empties into the broad expanse of Macquarie Harbour.

While the history surrounding this river dates back to Tasmania’s days as a convict settlement, in more recent history, this river was the focus of a huge environmental controversy that broke out, followed by an international campaign beginning in the late 1970s, over suggestions that the powerful river could produce a great deal of hydroelectric energy, if it were dammed. It was in time decided that the value of the wilderness area was too great to simply flood it, so the area was preserved.

The wilderness area is nearly impenetrable. The rivers that feed into the Gordon, the Collingwood and the Franklin, cut through mountains and deep valleys, and have recently become the destination for serious whitewater rafting. But thanks to the dense foliage, including the stunningly snarled “horizontal forest,” the surrounding land remains largely unexplored.

Nearer to Macquarie Harbour, the river is gentler, and cruises amid the wilderness and to historic sites are available from the boat docks in Strahan. The distant vistas available from Macquarie Harbour vanish as a tidal wave of greenery closes in around the river itself. It was to be a splendid day.

Gordon River, Tasmania

Strahan

The Roaring Forties is the name sailors gave long ago to the latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere from the fortieth to fiftieth parallel. It is the same latitude range in which one finds South America’s rugged Patagonia. It’s well south of Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. It is also the latitude range in which one finds Strahan, the lovely but isolated fishing village on Tasmania’s west coast that was our next destination.

The Roaring Forties are so called because they do roar. Strong, often gale-force winds blow persistently from the west along these parallels, buffeting this coast all year long. The waves that break on this shore have moved uninterrupted from the other side of the world, from South America to Tasmania.

Fortunately, Strahan is somewhat protected by splendid Macquarie Harbour. Historically, the town’s income has come from rock lobster. Today, tourism has become a key income generator, because aside from interesting history (this was once the site of a particularly unpleasant penal colony), it is the entrance to Tasmania’s astonishing World Heritage wilderness, an area so densely forested that most of it remains unexplored.

We would have a chance the next day to explore more, but that first day, we simply wandered through town, enjoying its charm and the beauty of the location, returning to camp in time for sunset.

Strahan

Round Mountain Lookout

Tasmania is actually the tail end of Australia’s Great Dividing Range, the range of mountains that runs like a spine down the Eastern seaboard of the continent. As a result, most travel in Tasmania involves crossing mountains. This afforded us frequent glorious vistas during the time we spent traversing Tassie. My first crossing was soon after we left the north coast, heading southward along the west coast. It was a cloudy day, and the clouds were close overhead. Like most of Australia’s mountains, these were not stunningly high peaks, but rather manageable mountains that invited rather than challenged. A brief stop at Round Mountain Lookout gave me an opportunity to photograph, and not just admire, the green mountains and drama of sky and earth.

View from Round Mountain Lookout.

Tiagarra

The Tassie devils were not the only ones to get pushed southward by the arrival of the ancestors of today’s Australian Aborigines. There was an even earlier Aboriginal people group, a different race from the newer Aboriginal peoples, who were pushed off the mainland. By the time Europeans arrived, this other race survived only in Tasmania. The Tasmanian Aborigines lacked many of the skills and technologies (including making fire) that were common among the newer Aborigines, but they still generally ate better because of Tasmania’s abundance.

While there are many mixed-blood descendants of the of these people, no pure-blood Tasmanian Aborigines remain. Many of those descendants carry on aspects of that earlier culture, such as specific hunting seasons. However, most of the culture of these very early Australians can only be seen at places like the Tiagarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre & Museum. Splendid, seaside Tiagarra is home to a museum that records the history of the Tasmanian Aborigines, while extensive, beautiful grounds are full or outcrops of rock that bear some of the rock engravings that were the primary art form of these early people. Symbols, signs, and a few rough outlines of fish or emus were painstakingly scraped into the rock. The photo below is one of the these rock engravings, possibly of a fish.

Tasmanian Aboriginal rock engraving

Tasmanian devils

Okay—here’s the one you’ve been waiting for: the Tasmanian devil. Echidnas and wallabies are all well and good, but it was the Tasmanian devil that we grew up watching in cartoons. While the whirling of the cartoon character is entirely fictional, the snarling/growling sound is anchored in reality—though real Tasmanian devils sound much worse than the cartoon, adding to the snarling and growling a whole range of barking, snorting, and screaming.

Tasmanian devils, like almost all other Australian mammals, are marsupials—they carry their young in pouches. Like the koala and wombat, the Tasmanian devil has a rear-facing pouch. As with other marsupials, the pouch-dwellers are called joeys. However, in devils, the whole early life experience is a bit rougher than it is for most other marsupials. Mom bears up to 50 babies but has only four teats. The tiny newborns have to crawl into the pouch and compete for one of the four teats, to which they attach until weaned. The others just die. After six months, the babies are on their own. If they manage to live to the end of the first year, they’ll probably enjoy a full life—which for a devil in the wild is from five to eight years.

Tassie devils are the largest carnivorous marsupials, even though they are only about the size of small dog, and they’re not aggressive animals—unless food is involved. Devils are solitary creatures, but more than one might approach the same carcass (they are primarily scavengers), and the hideous shrieking, screaming, and snarling is how they establish dominance when feeding. The devil has sharp teeth and strong jaws and can deliver a tremendously powerful bite, so it’s not all sound and fury. You don’t want to come between a devil and his dinner.

Devils are muscular and quite powerful for their size. Among marsupials, they are odd for having front legs that are slightly longer than their back legs. Nocturnal hunters, these curious, high-energy animals will travel as much as 10 miles a night in search of food. Because they will eat anything, bones and all, no matter how rotten, they are great at keeping the countryside tidy.

As the name suggests, Tasmanian devils are found in Tasmania, but there was a time when they were abundant on the mainland. Scientists suggest that their extinction on the mainland was most likely caused by the introduction of dingoes, Asian dogs that were introduced by migrating Aboriginal people. Today, a new threat faces the devils. A highly contagious disease called devil facial tumor disease (DFTD) has been spreading since the mid-1990s and has already killed thousands of Tasmanian devils. Animal health experts are working to isolate populations where the disease has not yet appeared, and captive breeding programs of healthy devils have been put in place in an attempt to save the species from extinction. Tasmanian devils have long been protected, but now, because of DFTD, the Australian government has listed them as endangered.

I had the pleasure of seeing the devils pictured below when I visited a wildlife park in Tasmania. Because they are nocturnal, one would not normally see them in daylight, and even more rarely see them in groups. The one that looks alert has just awakened from sleep because it caught the scent of an approaching pail of food. The others would soon join him. Fortunately, these captive populations are doing more than just amusing the tourists these days—they’re helping ensure the devils’ survival.

Tasmanian devils

Echidnas

Monotreme is an order of mammals that are so odd, they originally confounded scientists and were at first thought to be hoaxes. Monotremes are egg-laying mammals, but that is not the only odd thing about them.

The monotreme with which most people are familiar is the platypus, that delightfully wacky composite of duck and otter, with webbed feet and a duck’s bill, soft fur and an otter-like body. It lays eggs but feed its young milk. It also happens to be poisonous, though not through its bite, but rather through spurs on the back feet of the male. (The venom is not lethal to humans, however.)

The only other known monotreme is the echidna, or spiny anteater. Just about the only thing that the echidna has in common with the platypus is being an egg-laying mammal. Instead of the duck bill, it has a tube-like snout. Instead of being sleek and slim, it is pudgy and covered in sharp spines. Unlike the platypus, which is hard to see, as it spends days in a burrow and nights under water, hunting, the echidna is land-based in its food seeking and is regularly up and about during daylight hours. As a result, it is easier to both see and photograph echidnas.

Echidnas, as their alternative name suggests, eat ants, as well as termites, digging into nests and mounds, inserting their log snouts and even longer tongues, and sucking the bugs into their mouths. (Echidnas’ tongues, by the way, are six to seven inches long, which is fairly astonishing given that the echidna itself is only about 14 inches long.) In a pinch, they’ll also eat worms, grubs, or beetles.

When in danger, the echidna digs rapidly straight down, then rolls into a ball and erects its spines, presenting a daunting array of bristles to would-be attackers. Echidnas have adapted to a wide range of climates, and their appearance varies accordingly. Those in cooler Tasmania have longer fur—almost as long as their spikes— so the bristles are not quite so much in evidence when they are not in a defensive posture.

Echidnas lay one egg, which hatches after about ten days. The milk the female offers a newly hatched echidna is so rich in iron that it’s pink. Newborns live in burrows for three months or so (the only time in their lives echidnas live in burrows), and then begin exploring. However, because they are born without spines, they are vulnerable for about the first year. Echindas then live for 30 to 40 years, though some have been known to live almost to 50.

Tasmanian Echidnas

Tasmanian Wildlife

Wildlife is fascinating everywhere in Australia. However, there are places it is more concentrated, usually due to the presence of a better supply of food and water. Tasmania offers much that makes life easier for critters, from abundant greenery to rivers and surrounding ocean full of fish, as well as the abundant flowers and foliage that not only feed animals but attract the insects some animals fancy. As a result, there is a considerable amount of wildlife, much of it readily visible. While I did visit a wildlife park, even in the national parks and wilderness areas, animals were very much in evidence, often attracted to places humans might gather, in hopes of a handout.

Among those eternally hopeful of treats or the remains of one’s picnic lunch, the wallabies were both the most common and the most endearing. Below are a couple of wallabies who had approached me, but looked away momentarily when someone else came into view. Of course, I once again became the center of attention when I pulled some vegetable treats out of my jacket pocket. I can hardly say how much I loved these lovely, gentle little creatures.

Wallabies

Entally House

Our next stop, Entally House, is one of the oldest mansions owned by Australia’s National Trust, and is the most historic of the Trust’s holdings in Tasmania. It is part of a story that is so Australian, it would be unbelievable if it weren’t true. While my book details the numerous fascinating buildings and remarkable collections at Entally House, here, I thought I’d share a bit of the history.

In 1790, at that age of 13, Mary Haydock of Lancashire, England, had the poor sense to ride a horse that didn’t belong to her, which resulted in her being convicted of horse stealing and being sent to the recently established colony of Australia. She was 15 by the time she set sail for Sydney. It was a long trip, and on the way over, she made the acquaintance of a young Irishman who worked for the East India Company.

In Sydney, Mary was assigned the job of being a nursemaid in the household of the colony’s acting lieutenant-governor (the sort of assignment that underscores the fact that the British government knew that most of the offenders they were transporting were not dangerous criminals). When the young Irish merchant from her ship, Thomas Reibey (also spelled Raby and Reiby at various times), returned to Sydney from his travels, he applied for a land grant and permission to marry the little convict girl, now 17. It was to be a remarkable partnership that would build not only a hugely successful importing business, but would also produce seven children. Because of his association with the East India Company, Thomas named their trading business Entally House, after a suburb of Calcutta. When Thomas died, Mary continued to build the business and raise her family. All the children grew up to be major players in the growth of the young colony, and today, Mary appears on the Australian $20 note.

But on to Tasmania: The eldest of Mary’s children, Thomas Haydock Reibey, was drawn to Tasmania by the shipping and trading interests that had made his parents wealthy. He, too, became successful and wealthy, acquiring land, cattle, sheep, and horses. Around 1819-1820, he built Entally House, named for his father’s business. In 1821, Thomas’s son, also named Thomas, was born. This Thomas went into politics, held a seat in the House of Assembly for almost 30 years, and even served for one year as Premier of Tasmania. He retired from politics in 1903 and died at Entally on February 10, 1912. So definitely a family firmly anchored in the history of Tasmania.

Entally House was opened to the public by the National Trust in 1948. The beautiful main house and many other buildings on the property have been carefully restored to show what it was like in its early days. It is a handsomely elegant home, the interiors reflecting subdued tastes of the British gentry, with much dark wood and clean lines.

The gardens also remain in tact, with an abundance of roses, which also reflect British tastes. Also on the grounds of the historic home is Australia’s oldest cricket ground. Thomas Reibey had been keen on sports.

The photo on the left shows the main house at center and left, with the stables visible to the right, behind the wall.

Entally House, Tasmania

Roses, Entally House Garden

Cataract Gorge

Perhaps it was because I was still so weary and battered from my riding trip, or perhaps it was because I missed the silence of the mountains, but when we stopped at Cataract Gorge, I escaped the crowds and headed up a lonely path that carried me up a cliff face and far into the gorge, to a spot where I was surrounded by trees and wildflowers.

Which is not to say I wasn’t interested in Cataract Gorge. I was just interested in it for a different reason than most of those visiting. The gorge’s river empties into a broad expanse known as Launceston Basin. This is the site of the Launceston Basin Chairlift, which is said to have the longest single chairlift span in the world. It’s not the longest chairlift ride, just the longest distance between supports—1500 feet—which is why it dips so low in the middle, as you you can see in the photo below, on the left. I photographed it, but was more interested in “getting back to nature” than riding across the gorge. You can see where I ended up in the photo on the right—looking back toward Launceston Basin, which is only barely visible.

Launceston Basin Chairlift

Cataract Gorge