Animals

Before our trip to Tasmania we all spent a bit of time on the coast round Sydney as the annual Humpback Whale migration begins in mid to late May. There were no signs of the whales yet but we did find a nice octopus in a rockpool.

Octopus 

We arrived in Tasmania to find it absolutely full of wallabies and in general they didn't seem to mind people too much. We were visiting in low season but I imagine that in the summer there are hordes and hordes of people swarming everywhere and feeding them.

A young Bennett's Wallaby

The fishing was good at Coles Bay on Freycinet and two sessions was plenty of time to land a feed of Leatherjackets. There were also Blue-throated Wrasse and some other more peculiar creatures of the deep.

Leatherjacket

Blue-throated Wrasse

Fish

Latrobe advertises itself as the Platypus capital of the world and it's not wrong. We only had a very short time there as we passed through on the way to Cradle Mountain but we only needed a very short time there as the river seemed to be full of them. It was only a matter of minutes before the first one surfaced right in front of us.

 Platypus

Up on Cradle Mountain the torrential rain at night meant that the local wombat population was probably cowering snug in their burrows. But with the rain abating during the day, these generally nocturnal creatures were swarming all over the heath and we had several terrific views of them. The wombat has to be my favourite of all`the Australian animals.

Wombat

 Green Rosella

Black Currawong

With Tasmania being much further south than Sydney, the whale migration passes by there much earlier than the NSW coast. So despite missing out on them up in Sydney before our trip I was confident of seeing whales off the east coast of Tasmania. That confidence was misplaced and once again the ocean was quiet. With one weekend left in Sydney before my folks flew home we made a last ditch effort to find the whales at Cape Solander and, finally, thankfully, a single pod showed up. Although their appearance was brief, they were pretty close in and one of them even treated us to a full breach before they disappeared beneath the waves.

Whale!