The morning after our night of no-sleep at the Coles Bay YHA, we woke up with some fresh coffee and breakfast at a wonderful new cafe in "downtown" Coles Bay with great panoramic views of the main mountain range of the Freycinet Peninsula. After we refueled our stomachs and the gas tank, we headed back toward Hobart, but turned off toward the town of Port Arthur out on the Tasman Peninsula.
Tessellated Pavement on the Tasman Peninsula coast, Tasmania
Danielle got less sleep than I did the night before and when we reached the area around Eaglehawk Neck - a 100 metre wide isthmus - which has a number of geological sites of interest, she stayed in the car while I walked down to a unique site called the Tessellated Pavement. This rock shelf is exposed along the coast, not much higher than the water level. Hundreds of millions of years ago this location was under a lot of water and only the tiniest of sediments were transported out into the deep ocean. Tasmania was also glaciated at the time and larger rocks and pebbles stuck in iceberg ice floated out to the open ocean and as the ice melted, these larger sediments were dropped down onto the ocean floor. Over time these sediments became rock and various tectonic forces deformed the rock ever so slightly, but enough to crack the rocks, forming joints in three different directions. Today, the rock is exposed to salt weathering and wave action. The rock that is higher than the high-tide level allows salt crystals to grow large enough on the rock surface such that it wears that surface down more quickly than it wears down the joints. This process forms salt pans. Alternatively, the rocks exposed down by the water's edge and below the water's surface is inundated by water so frequently that salt crystals can't grow. Rather, the strong wave action picks up sand and abrades the rock and is funneled along the joints in the rock causing the joints to be more eroded than the rock surface and this creates these loaf-like structures. Both the loaves and the pans are exposed along the Tessellated Pavement and even though it is really a simple geologic site, it was beautifully fascinating.
The Tasman Arch on the Tasman Peninsula
Back in the car we drove across Eaglehawk Neck to the Tasman Arch - a large rock arch formed by wave action forming a cave along the coastal cliffs. Over time the inside of the cave erodes to the point where it is no longer able to support its roof and the ceiling caves in leaving behind the arch over the cave's entrance.
The day was getting on by this point and we were both getting tired. There was no way we were going to make it to Port Arthur, but we were close enough to another awesome destination: The Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park.
While in Australia, I started undertaking a challenge I hadn't expected to take: seeing all of the native Australian wildlife IN THE WILD. I've seen a lot on the mainland including platypus, emu, kangaroos, birds of all kinds, wombats, and echidnas (and I saw kiwis in New Zealand). So while in Tasmania I really wanted to see Tasmanian Devils in the wild. Unfortunately, the Tasmanian devil's populations has drastically dwindled after a contagious facial cancer decimated much of the healthy wild devils. Tasmania is now undertaking drastic measures to preserve healthy Tasmanian devils and save the species from meeting the same fate as the other Tasmanian predator - the Tasmanian tiger which was driven to extinction by European settlers after their arrival. The Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park is playing an active role in preserving the genetic diversity of the healthy Tassie devil population and I figured that spending $35 to see them in the conservation park rather than trying to find one in the wild would be money well-spent. We were not disappointed.
Danielle feeding a kangaroo at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park
near Port Arthur, Tasmania
We arrived at the Tassie Devil Conservation Park shortly before a scheduled feeding time and after paying our fees started walking through the park which also has a small family of kangaroos, a few wallabies, quolls, various birds, and four separate Tassie Devil enclosures. We helped the owner of the park feed the kangaroos for a good ten minutes which was SO fun! The kangaroos just hopped over to your hands, holding your hands with theirs, and nibbling the feed out of your hands. Little joeys hopped around excitedly and nuzzled right up to us!
Tassie devil waking up for feeding time at the Tasmanian Devil
Conservation Park
But then it was time for the Tassie devil feeding and the devils knew it! In the one enclosure, right at feeding time, the two brother devils who were at first sleeping in their dens, became quite active and started chasing each other around the pen, snarling, and play-biting each other's snouts. They were quite vicious, but they were so much fun to watch. But then the devils stopped at the same time and looked at us - the owner had opened the cooler and the devils could smell the fresh wombat meat, which he tossed into the pen and the two brothers started a tag as they wrestled the meat away from one another. We must have spent at least 20 minutes watching the devils put on one of the best little shows for us, continuing the trend, as my friend, Danielle said, of, "Tasmania putting on a show just for me!" Once the devils were fed, they retreated to their dens and fell asleep, so Danielle and I walked around the park once more, saying goodbye to all the other residents before leaving.
On the way back to Hobart, we stopped once more at Eaglehawk Neck. The town of Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula was once home to one of the worst convict colonies in Tasmania and the British used the natural defenses of this peninsula - most notably this 100 metre stretch of land - to keep the convicts from escaping. Strung across Eaglehawk Neck was a string of vicious dogs chained up and trained to attack any convicts trying to escape the peninsula by land. The modern Tasmanians are using these natural defenses once again, but instead of using them to keep convicts from getting OFF the peninsula, they will be used to create and protect a healthy area of land, totally cleaned of infected Tasmanian devils. Devils are being completely removed from the peninsula and the healthy ones put in quarantine for two years to ensure they do not have the facial tumors. Once it is certain the Tasman Peninsula is cleared of infected devils, a series of triple-barrier fences and canals will be built and dug to keep infected devils from the newly-disease-free peninsula. With the fences and canals in place, quarantined Tassie devils will be reintroduced to the peninsula and if the Tasmanian efforts are successful, it is quite possible that the Tasmanian devils will be saved from extinction!
We were happy to have experienced the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park, and now having crossed the devils off my must-see list, we began the drive back to Hobart where we readily crashed upon arrival at Danielle's apartment, exhausted from our two-day excursion up Tasmania's east coast.
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