Sarah Island

Speak of Australian history, and outside of Australia, about the only thing that comes to mind is “penal colony.” While it is true that the initial settlement of Australia was for this purpose, even on the first ships, more than half of the “settlers” were soldiers and officers. However, though this first step in settlement was to have an impact on the formation of the country, the current population and character of Australia were more solidly established by huge floods of immigrants during the big gold rushes of the 1800s and following the two World Wars. Today, less than one percent of the population can claim any convict heritage.

I especially roll my eyes when Americans jump on the “it was penal colony” thought. To this I respond, “Do you really think it’s just a coincidence that England started sending prisoners to Australia almost immediately following their loss of their colonies in North America?” Most folks respond with, “Oh, yeah. That’s right. Prisoners were sent here, too,” though some are stunned to find out that the Thirteen Colonies had acted as a dumping ground for Britain’s prisons long before Australia was charted by Captain James Cook.

Of course, back in those days, being poor or disagreeing with the government could land you in prison, so being a convict wasn’t always an indication of poor character. Lots of folks transported to North America and later to Australia were simply down on their luck, and they became useful citizens in the new colonies.

That said, some of those transported were thorough-going rotters. However, the folks who were mass murderers or criminally insane were not mixed in with the pickpockets and hard-luck cases. Really dangerous convicts were sent to remote prison facilities, usually on islands—such as Tasmania. Sarah Island—an island within an island, situated at the edge of Macquarie Harbor near the mouth of the Gordon River—was home to one such facility.

Fifteen-acre Sarah Island was the first penal facility in Tasmania. Established in 1821 and open for business in 1822, this settlement was for the worst criminals or for those who had escaped other facilities. The convicts worked in the surrounding forest, cutting trees for boat-building. Treatment was harsh and escape was nearly impossible.

The facility at Sarah Island only operated until 1833, at which time the convicts were transferred to the more progressive prison at Port Arthur. The island was then taken over and renamed Settlement Island by men known as piners, who were hunting for Tasmania’s valuable Huon Pine.

Today, all that is left are a few ruins of the structures built by the first convicts to arrive on the island.

Ruins on Sarah Island

Home Again

Back from mom’s—and, after nearly three weeks away, I’m facing hundreds of emails and a bushel of snail mail. It’s a bit daunting and will take some time—so this first post will be a short one—just a note and a pretty picture. More will follow shortly.

On the far side of Macquarie Harbour, mountains rise above the snarl of forest in Tasmania’s Franklin-Gordon Wilderness. White sparkles on some mountain’s peaks, but it is not snow; it is exposed quartzite.

Cross Macquarie Harbour

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