Tasmania is known for its convict prison history and great trekking. So when you add in the fact that it is the size of Ireland you get my kind of place!
I rediscovered my interest in the nineteenth century penal system when I went to the Old Melbourne Gaol, where I bored Kate with what I could recall from my final year history dissertation on that topic. So in Tasmania I enjoyed brushing up on this history by reading Thomas Hughes' "The Fatal Shore" and visiting Hobart, Maria Island and Port Arthur.
Apart from a couple of days in Tassie's two main cities, Hobart and Launceston (both nice enough with quite a British feel: the highlight being Hobart's unique MONA art museum), most of my time in Tasmania was spent exploring nature.
This brought me face to face with much of Tasmania's wildlife: during a scuba dive on the east coast I saw, among other things, a sea dragon; a nighttime tour brought me to a penguin rookery to see "little" or "fairy" penguins; on a day hike in Freycinet National Park I saw a snake on my way down to picture perfect Wineglass Bay;
when I swam there some dolphins were just 20 metres further out in the bay; then when I came out of the water I saw a wallaby on the beach;
and on my way down from the Bishop and Clerk peak
during a sunny day hike on Maria Island I saw kangaroos.But it is my first sighting of a kangaroo that will be my abiding image of Tasmania. I hiked the six day Overland Track in the Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park, where I stayed in basic huts along the way.
On the second day a kangaroo bounded across the track and stopped just in front of me. Standing on an open part of the track with a 360 degree view of stunning scenery with just me and the kangaroo there looking at each other was pure magic.
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