Day 24 & 25 ~ Recuperating & Burnie, Tasmania

One’s destination is never a place, but always a new way of seeing things. 

~ Henry Miller

The touch of something I picked up in Auckland turned into a really sore throat and I coughed more than I have in years. As a result, I couldn’t sing a note in choir yesterday because my vocal cords were so swollen. I wasn’t running a fever, but the DH talked me into starting the course of antibiotics my hometown doc provided for me for this trip. Then after lunch, I drank a Theraflu and slept all afternoon. I woke up around 6 pm and decided not to go down for supper, opting for room service instead. I was asleep again by 7pm and didn’t stir till this morning.

We had a wild ride last night, cruising south from Sydney and into the Bass Straits, which are reputedly always rough because the ocean is relatively shallow there (@ 200 ft.)  According to our tour guide in Burnie, Tasmania this morning, this used to be the land bridge connecting Tasmania to the Australian mainland. 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but Tasmania has to be the best kept secret on earth. It’s absolutely beautiful, with the cleanest water and air on earth. The residents are an industrious, hardy lot down here at the bottom of the world. On our way to the Wing’s Wildlife Refuge, we rode past well-kept farms, quaint towns, and beautiful mountains and hills. Tasmania is utterly delightful!

A Tasmanian devil may look harmless, but toss him some food and he becomes a raving lunatic.

This was our only destination for this tour and I really appreciated the fact that we were given plenty of time to explore this little park. We watched the Tasmanian devil feeding.  They really are disagreeable little things, making horrific noises and fighting amongst themselves for every scrap of carrion they eat. 

Watch where you step or you'll end up with Roo Poo on your shoe! 

Kangaroos, by contrast, are quite sweet and docile, allowing us to come close and pet their soft fur.

The Refuge houses a family of meerkats that had month old babies. Ridiculously cute as they basked under the heat lamp in their enclosure.

Most of the animals here have either been born in captivity or been injured and are being rehabilitated to be returned to the wild. The birds are incredibly colorful and diverse.

The adult pair were very protective of their fuzzy baby.

My favorites were the pair of black swans. For a long time, swans were believed to only be white, so when early explorers brought a black pair back to England, their existence constituted a paradigm shift. For me, they are a reminder not to have preconceived ideas about the places we visit and the things we see.

And when I do discover something that stands a long held notion on its head, I need to be willing to incorporate this new information into my worldview.