Tasmania

Dove Lake, Cradle Mountain

I'm afraid I've been terribly lax in recent times regarding my blog updates and so I'll try to remedy that now. We're currently putting up with the longest and coldest winter that I can remember since moving to Australia. I've actually had to put on a long-sleeved top on several occasions and the mercury has consistently dipped into single figures which is, quite frankly, un-Australian. Work is also a bit much at the moment and so the combination of exhaustion, short days and chilly weather has kept activity to a minimum.

Coles Bay, Freycinet Peninsula

So what has happend over the last few months? Well in May my parents came down to visit and so as well as spending time round Sydney we also flew down to Tasmania for a bit of a holiday.

 Wineglass Bay, Freycinet Peninsula

We hired a car out of Hobart before heading up the east coast to the Freycinet Peninsula. We woke to a lovely view from the balcony and a lovely Olive Whistler #477 right outside my window. When on holidays I'm obliged to provide at least one fish dinner and so Emily and I cast our lines into the harbour and pulled out a good feed of Leatherjackets.

Tasty Leatherjackets

After a couple of days on Freycinet we headed north-west to Cradle Mountain stopping off on the way in Launceston and then Latrobe to find Platypus. Before we headed to Tasmania we had a day-trip out of Sydney to Berrima. The Wingecarribee River there is a pretty reliable spot for Platypus but on that occasion there was nothing doing. Just rain. Good job we went though as I bagged the Little Grassbird #476 in a reed-bed. One of the local species that had somehow evaded me until then. Back on Tasmania, Latrobe advertises itself as the Platypus capital of the world. Turns out that it is!

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We never actually saw Cradle Mountain but apparently it was there somewhere in the clouds and drizzle. The place was running with Wombats though. Cradle Mountain was followed by a couple of nights in Strahan on the west coast before we completed the loop to Hobart.

Drizzle

We stopped off at Lake St Clair to break the drive to Hobart and a walk in the woods turned up Strong-billed Honeyeater #478 - one of the two remaining Tasmanian endemics missing from my list. A frenzied search for the final endemic, the 40-Spotted Pardalote, round Hobart once again proved fruitless and means there's still unfinished business for me on The Apple Isle.

Mount Wellington, Hobart

Back to Sydney and we spent some time up in the mountains with my in-laws. A trip out to the Glowworm Tunnel on the Newnes plateau didn't yield any big Tiger Snakes like at New Year but I did finally score a Spotted Quail-thrush #479 which, along with the Speckled Warbler and Swift Parrot, was firmly in my top three bogey birds. Tick!

Back in the Blue Mountains