From the third to the fourth Advent I travelled around Tasmania. 1.800km in 5 days with a very tiny but cool Hyundai Getz. I arrived on sunday in Hobart the capital of Tasmania. Its a small harbour town with 250.000 inhabitants. I slept the first night in the YHA in the CBD. Just one day later I started my trip to Port Arthur. Its a old city with the first prison of Australia, were the bad English guys spent the last days of their life before 300 years. Close to this place is the first of the 21 National Parks in Tasmania, the Tasman NP. I did 8 of this parks in the following 5 days. The second one was the Freycinent NP with the awesome Wineglass Bay on the east coast of Tazzie. I slept 5 nights in the car on some free camping areas, parking areas or lookouts. I paid just for the second night, because after the walking trip around the Wineglass Bay and the Bay of Fire I needed a shower. But 10 bucks was okay. I met a Dutch/Australian couple at this place and we had a really nice fire and a lot of goon at the evening. Both was very helpfull for the freezing low temperatur. On the next morning I visited a animal sanctuary who take care of injured wallabies, koalas, birds or tasmanian devils. I could touch one of the devils and had a wombat in my arms. Afterwards I drove to the Mole Creek NP and did a cave tour.
On the afternoon of day 3 in Tasmania I arrived at the Craddle Mountain, NP # 4. It was the best one, I walked 3h around a lake and up to a lookout in 1200m height. On the way back I counted 16 wombats and 5 wallabies. It was unbelievable. They ate very close to the walking track, so it was very easy to watch them.
The day after I went to the Lake St. Claire Nationalpark. To get their I drove across the Franklin NP. I hoped to the the platypus in the Lake St. Claire, but I didnt. I was too late or too early. Its just possible to see them from dusk till dawn. On the 5th day I arrived back in Hobart an took a free shower in the hostel. I spent the night in the car on a carpark close to the Museum. It visited it at the next morning and saw a video of the Tasmanian Tiger. The last one died 1936 in the Hobart zoo. European killed this species because he was hunting the sheeps and poultry.
The last with the car I went to the Mount Field NP. And finally I saw my platypus. It was past 5pm, so the dusk already begun so I could catch him with my camera in the middle of the lake. Afterwards I ate fish at the Hobart harbour, drove to the top of the Mt. Willington close to Hobart and watched the city lights. It was freezing the night up the mountain. Very windy in the heights of 1.200m. But I earned with the cold night a fucking awesome sunrise from the ocean behind Hobart. You could see all the island around Hobart and the red ocean from the mountain.
The last stop was the famous Salamanca Market in Hobart in the monring. After this I catched my flight back to Melbourne, where it was rainy all the week. ;)