Tasmania’s largest National Park is Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair at 168,000 hectares. It was one of Australia’s most glaciated areas and now contains Tasmania’s highest peak (Mt. Ossa at 1617 m/5305 ft) and Australia’s deepest natural freshwater lake (Lake St. Clair at 167 m/547ft). Some almost look at this park as two different parks. There’s Cradle Valley in the north and Lake St. Clair in the south. The only direct route from one to the other is a 65km/40 mile walk. It takes six days/five nights and is Australia’s most famous trek. To drive from one part to the other, one has to exit the park, go all the way around it, and come back in the other side.
Waldheim (meaning Forest Home in German) was built by Gustav Weindorfer in 1912. He was born in Austria, but moved to Melbourne in 1900 to work in the Austrian Consulate. He met his wife-to-be at the Victorian Field Naturalists’ Club and they married in 1906. He was primarily responsible for getting Cradle Mountain made into a national park. He wrote, “It is magnificent, and people must know about it and enjoy it.”
He once wrote, “This is Waldheim where there is no time and nothing matters.”
When people think of Tasmania, I think the first thing that comes to mind is the Tasmanian Devil. Of course I had to see one while I was here and obviously it looks nothing like a devil or like the animated Warner Bros. cartoon. It got its name from the early settlers who were frightened by the nocturnal screeches from an unseen animal. The Tasmanian Devil is now the largest marsupial carnivore in the world. One thing that people might not know is that a communicable cancer is slowly killing off the devils. DFTD (Devil Facial Tumor Disease) is a fatal disease that has infected up to 75% of the wild population. It’s only one of three recorded cancers that can spread like a contagious disease and is passed from devil to devil by biting through competition for food or during mating. Tumors grow on the face and jaw and basically the animal starves to death within about 6-12 months because it’s unable to eat. Quarantined populations have been established around the state, but efforts to find a cure have been fruitless. Maria Island is one such place where a healthy devil population was established in 2012 and it is successfully breeding.
This is a google image since most of my pictures were blurry. Devils really like to run around!
Chowing down on a kangaroo leg. Devils are carnivorous so they’ll eat any meat they come across. The sanctuary would ideally give them road kill, but it’s too risky because of the facial tumor disease. If another devil with the disease had already had some of the meat, it will be infected and then it will be brought into the sanctuary. Therefore, the sanctuary hires a guy to go out and hunt fresh meat for them. The guide said it cost $1300/year per devil. Devils are gorge eaters. Since, in the wild, they never know when their next meal will be, they will eat everything they come across. A devil can eat 40% of its body weight within 20-30 minutes. Therefore the sanctuary weighs out his food. They vary his meals to simulate what it would be like in the wild.
An adolescent devil.
Fighting over an egg
An orphan 1/2 blind wombat
Recent Comments