Day 10: Back to Hobart

Friday, April 4, 2003

We packed our stuff up and headed back to the ferry for a long day of travel. The trails are extremely well constructed and maintained in this park. Most of them are boardwalk style. They also have lovely creek crossings and some fancy suspension bridges. One place they have a beautiful tree trunk where one of the main tree branches completed the crossing. We saw another padamellon up close, and I saw what I think was a wallaby. There were some great birds on the way back too. The final field was gorgeous-clumps of button grass and views of all the mountains we saw (just about) during the trip. We caught the ferry back with more gorgeous views from Lake St. Clair. You could also see the edge of the storm moving out from the area-the one that had followed us most of the time we were there. We had a nice dinner at the visitors' center and I got several information sheets on various animals in Tazzie-including the echinoderms.

We were picked up late by Tazzie Link but we had a crazy driver who drove in the middle of the road at up to 110 in 70 kph zones. I fell asleep for most of it. There were some good marsupial sightings in the bus lights; Jason saw a couple of bandicoots. At last we returned to the hostel where we showered and slept in anticipation for our next day.

A nice waterfall in the valley.

A nice waterfall in the valley.

We saw these five inch lizards all over Australia.

We saw these five inch lizards all over Australia.

Fungus in the forest.

Fungus in the forest.

Palms grew in the wetter portions of the valley under the main eucalypt tree canopy.

Palms grew in the wetter portions of the valley under the main eucalypt tree canopy.