Bay of Fires

The third part of the trip we went to Tasmania, which is an island the size of Indiana of the SE coast of Aussie. It is home to the Tasmanian devil, famously represented as Taz in Looney Toons, but we never saw one in the wild, only an animal sanctuary.

It also has a lot of rugged beauty, with a great mix of beaches, mountains, and forests. The first day of our Tasmanian trip was spent at the Bay of Fires. Everyone assumes the name stems from all of these orange rocks that skirt the bays. In actuality, English sailors saw lots of Aboriginal fires along the shore. The red rocks are caused by lichen. The water is a beautiful turquoise color if the sun shines. We had a nice morning walking along the shore line, rock hopping, and wave evading. a lot of people do the drive and take pictures at the first outcropping they come to, but we were some of the few that walked on farther.  

Apparently there is a stretch of Tasmania that has the cleanest air in the world. Along the 40th parallel, that stretch of ocean that only come into contact with land in three places. In Wellington, N.Z. (which is one of the windiest cities in the world), the southern tip of South America, and then not again until Tasmania. This is the longest stretch of open ocean in the world, so the winds travel unabated, which sailors call the "Roaring 40's." Therefore, the air is really clean once it hits Tasmania, so every day, they fly a little prop plane along this one section of coastline in NW Tassie, and they measure the air quality. That's what they use as a benchmark for "0" pollution for the rest of the world. By contrast, some areas in China have air quality that is so bad, it is off the air pollution scale. 

As we were walking along the beach, we came to a section where someone had clearly spent some time rearranging the rocks for some reason. While we can't know for sure, I am going to pretend these are the fire pits made by the Aborigines however long ago to protect their fires from wind etc. It was certainly man-made, but who knows if they were the real thing. 

As the tide was out, we also got to see lots of tidal pools. There was a star fish in this one! Along with some small crabs and a minnow or two. 

That evening, we stayed at a house called the Penguin Nook, so clearly I was expecting to see heaps of penguins. The penguins fish all day at sea, then come back to shore around dusk, (we thought) clambering over the rocks, then retreating to their nests in the scrub. I was determined to watch this clambering out of the water process, so I geared up with every piece of warm clothes I had, a blanket, and a lawn chair. I set up camp on the side of the rocks right at sunset. The sunset was beautiful, so that was worth it, but as the sun set and the winds picked up, things got a bit chilly. But, I was determined to see a penguin hop out of the water. An hour into the ordeal, Drew took pity on me and joined me, bringing us hot water bottles to hold on to. In the end, we sat out there two hours and didn't see a single penguin until the last 10 min, at which we barely saw one scramble quickly down a trail and at that point it was so dark we could barely make it out. So, we called it a fail and numbly made our way back to the house. We plopped on the couch, which faces the backyard with nice windows, and watched a Breaking Bad. About 30 min into the episode, we see two penguins walk right past our back window on the patio, around the side of the house. Certainly it was a laughing matter. We freeze our butts off for two hours trying to see one, when we see two within the warmth and comfort of our living room. Darn penguins, you are lucky you are so cute. At that point we knew they were back from the sea, so we went out there to see more. As we were standing on a trail down to the sea, we saw one waddle up, coming right towards us. We didn't move, and even while whispering quietly to each other, it took no notice of us, almost scrambling right over our feet, on its way to the nest.