Our Start in Tasmania

The lovely Loongana Valley and Leven Canyon

From New Zealand we flew to Tasmania to start another adventure. From the capital city of Hobart in this island state of Australia we drove to the north end and Leven Canyon. We stayed at Mountain Valley Wilderness Holidays, a private nature reserve where they feed nocturnal marsupial mammals for viewing out the window of each cabin. 

Our cabin and animal viewing hide for two nights

The first night was a late one as we stayed up watching pademelons, spotted-tailed quoll, brush-tailed possums, and Tasmanian Devils. We were tired the next morning but it was so worth lack of sleep to see these animals. An amazing show! Photography through the window with no flash was tricky but we got a few.

Tasmanian Pademelon 

Brush-tailed Possum

Tasmanian Devil

Tasmanian Devil

In the morning we did a 7.5 mile round trip hike from our lodgings to Paddys Lake. It was great fun. We were going to go to Black Bluff, but had to turn around at the lake due to wind. And it was windy!  The wind screaming over the ridge and across the lake. Fortunately, most of the hike was in the scrubby forest and was pleasant. In addition to several flowering species of shrub, and many species of bird--some of which we could identify and others which we could only hear, we had an echidna. What a fabulous creature!  It heard and smelled us and pushed itself under the leaves. Then, its nose would poke up and it would smell us, think about what to do, and crawl out. Any noise or smell that startled it, caused it to dig itself in again. What fun to watch. Eventually it decided to ignore us and went back to feeding and tottered off into the forest. 

Echidna

Echidna

Forsest stream

Black Bluff

A view of the valley from high up

 

Paddys Lake

Paddys Lake

We had one more late night of nocturnal animal viewing before we set off for Hobart to embark on the rest of our Tasmanian adventure.