Burnie, Tasmania, Australia – March 4

new itinerary

Overcast, windy, 17 degrees

What did I know about Tasmania? Very little other than that it is close to the bottom of the world and of

course is the home of the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes. I’m not even sure I knew Tasmania was part of Australia, and likely couldn’t spot it on an unmarked map until last week!

bus snacks

So…in a nutshell, Tasmania is an island off the south east coast of Australia. It is the 26^th largest island in the world where 530000 people live and is relatively rural.

hello pademelon!!

We saw a lot of the rural landscape as we drove to our 3 tour spots today. A Tasmanian cheese factory was first on the list – despite passing countless sheep on the way, the cheese at the factory was cow’s milk cheese. Tasmania prides itself on

the fact that their cows live entirely outside, never being sheltered due to the mild climate, this lets the cows graze rather than being fed. The factory aspect was underwhelming.

interesting plant at the vineyard

The cheese tasting (learning about what I’m tasting as I taste it) was more like cheese sampling (eating a bit of each of their chesses.) I’ll never turn down an opportunity to eat cheese, but I was hoping to learn a bit.

Our visit to a chocolate shop was equally meh. The best part of stopping here was seeing my first Australian animal! I learned that it was a

goodbye pademelon

pademelon – a small marsupial. I just thought it was a tiny kangaroo, until our guide said it was a ‘pademelon’. It was just hanging around under the bushes outside of the chocolate shop, snacking on their shrubberies…I loved seeing it, but I wonder if the shop's gardeners feel the same.

Wine is also an agricultural product in Tasmania and tasting this was our last event of the morning. The buildings were very chic and the grounds were beautiful, but like the visits we made in New Zealand, we

winery visit

didn’t learn much.

All in all, this visit to Tasmania was interesting…we got to see a lot of the island as we drove from spot to spot.

We learned about a thing called a ‘penguin fence’ – these are about a foot high between the sea and the highway and are designed to keep the fairy penguins from becoming roadkill! Where am I, I thought to

row upon row of vines

myself! Fairy penguins are about 8 inches high and come back to land each night after being in the sea feeding all day. We didn’t see any but have a penguin excursion

most of the vines were heavy with fruit

planned for a few days from now.