Tastier east coast

 Today was another fun day, but we still have the winds from the Antarctic so temps have been chilly.

We stopped this morning at a place just down the road from our hotel for breakfast

After breakfast the guys offered to drive our bus, but I reminded them that they do not have a license, so they gave way to Carl, our guide/driver

We headed out to a blowhole in the same area we went to look for fairy penguins the night before. My little penguin buddy said he would pose for me. He is very excited to make his new home in the states with us.

Dale and our guide were discussing things while we enjoyed the early morning out on the rocks 

Next we headed to East Coast Nature World, which was a wildlife park for Tasmanian animals, reptiles, and birds

The greeting committee was very welcoming and glad we brought them breakfast 

This is a yellow possum. She was very shy and nervous

The other bush tail possum was more willing to let us pet him as long as her had his veggies

There are several small marsupial native to Tasmania 

This is the hind end of the wombats

I even got up close and friendly with some white wallabies 

They were more shy than the greeting party

Quoll and the 

Potoroo are small about the size of a large squirrel 

The iconic Tasmanian Devil is cute at first

But are scavengers who can rip apart a kangaroo’s leg in short order. 

I forgot the name of this guy, but he was just cute

The bird section was full of colorful birds

And both white

The blue necked peacocks

There were all types of parrots 

Black swans

Unusual tufted birds

A macaw colored large parrot 

I did not mark the names of all the birds

But the variety

Features

And color combos were fascinating 

They had emus as the large birds

Masked owls

And parakeets 

Before we left the wildlife park, this mum wallaby let me feed her Joey. I loved that long suffering look on her face and the fact the the baby was almost too big with his feet sticking out behind his head.

We made a stretching stop at this vineyard.

It was their chocolate selection that caught my eyes 

It was interesting and we ended up with a couple of bars

They even had their support poles for the grapes colored as they did it I guess to set them apart from the other fields of grapes

Next our lunch stop ended up with us getting fish and chips

Then we were off to the beach again

This one had pure white sand

Big rocks and lovely water

It was a nice walk along the sands

Then just a ways down the road, we came to the place called the bay of fire

There are a couple of tales as to the why of them name

One says that the indigenous people had fires going all along the bay when the first Europeans found their way there 

Another says it is because of the orange and yellow on the rocks

The entire bay is full of rocks with these colors

The first non Tasmanians who can here were the whalers 

This is the crew we spent the first part of our tour with. Carl who is our guide took the picture

Down the road a ways was an oyster farm, where our guide picked up a dozen fresh oysters for us to share

Since we had had then the day before also, I had tried them. They just weren’t my cup of tea. Dale opted out also and the other male tourist tried one and said go enough, so the other three people, (Carl, Cindy, and Dianne feasted on them

Our next stop was at this dairy farm

It is totally automated and the cows bring themselves in to be milked

It was funny to see them come strolling in and the auto gates let them into the correct chutes for where they are to go to get milked. Each cow is tagged and only let in at certain times

They had their aging area in a lower area under the floor in the store part

They specialized in cheddars. After the tasting we picked up a small wedge snack on

They also made ice cream

We decided to have the lavender 

We then left the sea side and headed inland

Where we hit pines and eucalyptus trees

We stopped at a part that was dedicated to the soldiers lost in WWI from the area. Right after that war they planted trees in the honors of the soldiers. Then the trees started to die instead of taking them totally out, they got a chainsaw arts to come in and do monuments out of the trees to the soldiers.

We had our afternoon tea there in a old train depot 

Then we headed into Launceston, where our evening’s hotel was

We ended up with room service for dinner as they restaurant was closing early. It was okay as we were ready to relax and rest