2000/02 Australia trip - Dove River |
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Tuesday February 1st
There were supposed to be some platypus in the Dove River, so I walked to the river just before dawn. Instead I met a wombat ambling across the road. The ranger had told us that they have no road sense, so they’re always getting flattened and wrecking cars. Just then I heard a car approaching and thought I was going to witness a wombat death (and a car wreck, as wombats have a very hard skeleton), but the wombat took off into the undergrowth with legs a blur, proving the rangers to be wrong. I’d love to say that I captured all this on video, but I’d forgotten to put the battery in!
Shortly after this I was trailing a pademelon through the forest with the video camera hoping to capture its fast boing-boing-boing exit when I stepped off the trail and fell into a hole. This wasn’t turning out to be a great morning. 
However, shortly after this I met a wallaby at the bridge over the river where I was looking for platypus. It obviously wanted to cross but wouldn’t while I was on the bridge. It was nonchalantly eating leaves but watching me all the time. It disappeared when some other walkers stopped to chat, but as soon as they left, its head appeared “Damn he’s still there!”. I eventually took pity on it and backed off the bridge and stood behind a tree, and the wallaby hopped across at high speed.
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Dove River (15.27) |
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The walkers I met were from Newcastle (Australia) and Liverpool (England) and they were staying at the lodge as part of an Australian Pacific tour of Tasmania. They said they were having a good time, so I made a note to check out the tour for Sandie’s Mum who wanted to find such a tour.
I had no luck with the platypus, so I walked down river a few miles and found some more waterfalls, and then went back for Sandie, who I expected to be wondering where I was after being gone five hours. No problem, barely conscious!
We went back to the Dove River and hiked the rest of the trail, at least as much of it that had been constructed. It finished at a cliff top. It was a beautiful walk on a sunny day. On the way back we met a tiger snake, which was only too happy to get away from us. All the snakes in Tasmania are poisonous, but luckily they all have similar venom which makes snakebite treatment a bit easier.