Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary

For the first two stops in Australia, we did a city tour and a country tour (and wineries!).  For this third port of call, to do something a bit different, we visited the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary that focuses on those animals native to Tasmania, or Tazy natives, as they called them. I admit, my dream was to see a Tasmanian Devil in Tasmania.  Jeff told me not to get my hopes up too high, as they are nocturnal critters.  Still, hope sprang eternal! 

“Bonorong” is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning “native companion”.  It is on land originally owned by the Mumirimina people, who did not survive the early colonization of Tasmania.  It’s currently owned by the Palawa, today’s Tasmanian Aboriginal Community, and is used with their blessing.  However, nobody told the kangaroos that – they seem to feel it’s totally their space, and they are very welcoming to guests, albeit at time curious as to what else we’re checking out in their “home”!

The sanctuary is set up with several wooden boxes of “Roo Food”, free for the taking.  We were encouraged to feed the kangaroos, and were assured they would always be “up for food”!  The food seemed to be dried corn kernels, or something similar, and all we had to do was hold our hands out with the kernels, and the ‘roo’s came around.  Jeff quickly became a two-fisted feeder!  I had my hand at feeding them as well, and they were very gentle as they took the food from our hands.  I also petted a kangaroo – the place they love to be petted/scratched is at the base of their throat, just above their chest.  They are in kangaroo heaven when you scratch them there!  Petting them on the head or back just tells them to back off and leave you alone, so it accomplishes exactly the opposite of what one would be trying to do!

There were a couple of things I noticed about kangaroos – one was their claws!!  They are incredibly long and seemed really thick.  I have heard of people being killed by kangaroos, when the kangaroos felt threatened and used their back feet to lash out.  Can you imagine the damage getting kicked with those back feet?  Thank goodness, these kangaroos know they are safe and don’t feel threatened in any way.  The other curious thing is how they drink – if I were to try to drink from a pond (not that I would do that), I’d tumble in in about a minute…..or less!

I decided to include this image just because I really like the reflection of the kangaroo in the manmade pond in their home area.

Isn’t this little guy just the cutest thing?  Regardless of how we’re supposed to scratch them, it was all I could do to stop myself from trying to hug this little guy!

Jeff got some food and went up to the little guy to see if he wanted to eat, and of course, he did.  Check out how small this little guy really was!  And, Jeff said when he was feeding him, the little guy kept patting his hand, as if to tell him he was doing a good job!  So cute!

The kangaroos weren’t the only animals to see, tho!  If we looked up, we could see some very colorful wild parrots!  There weren’t any in the sanctuary, but abundant in Australia, are white cockatoos!  They are all over the place – almost like pigeons back in Chicago!

Here are the next two animals that we came across – the emu, which I’d heard of before, and the Tawny Frogmouth, which I’d never heard of before!  Turns out, the tawny frogmouth is only found in Australia, and is somewhat related to owls.  They are carnivores, and are considered pest control birds, as they eat moths, spiders, bugs, etc.

And, get a load of this little cutie pie!!   Koalas generally are asleep most of the time - about 19 hours per day, which leaves only 5 hours per day for eating and everything else.  But, this little one woke up long enough to say hi to everyone!

And, I got my wish!!  We did see some Tasmanian Devils!!  I was getting really disappointed, as we’d been thru almost the entire sanctuary, and didn’t see any.  The enclosures we expected them to be in were very quiet, with them in hiding there.  However, there was another set of enclosures, closer to the top, and the ranger was in one of those and the Devils were out!  For reference, they are about the size of a not-overweight pot-bellied pig.  I would say it might come up to my mid-calf in height.

And, contrary to the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, they are not really mean, vicious critters.  In fact, they are quite shy, and frequently will hide if humans are around.  Even if we had come across them in the wild, odds are we wouldn’t have seen them, as they would have seen us first and ran and hid.  This little one was barely peeking out from her hiding place, a hollowed out log.

And, altho they are considered nocturnal animals, the ranger said that they also love to lay in the sun.  And, if you’re wondering how such a sweet looking little thing came to be called a Devil, the ranger said it was due to 2 things.  The first is that if they lay in the sun, sometimes their ears will appear to glow red, and they sort of look like the horns of a devil.  The other reason they are called Devils are that they are known for making an absolutely horrible, screeching, guttural type of noise.  But, they don’t do that all the time – only when they are angry, afraid or having sex (hmmm….let’s not go there…).  And, when that happens, their ears take on that red glow, as the increased blood flow changes the color of the inside of their ears. But, during this visit, there was no sex, so Celina was a  safe and happy little Devil!

The last animals that we visited were Toby & Millie, the wombats.  Toby was with his friend, the ranger, and was quite shy, hiding his face in the ranger’s arm.  And, Millie was a little baby wombat and was wrapped up in an appropriately pink blanket and held by a volunteer.  That’s why I was able to get such a close-up of her sweet face.  I wanted to pet her, but that’s not really acceptable, so once again, I had to restrain myself!  Millie was fairly new to the sanctuary, and was still getting adjusted to living there and feeling safe.  By the way, all the animals (not birds) in the sanctuary are considered marsupials.  A marsupial is an animal that carries their young in a pouch or on their backs, etc. until they are old enough to be on their own.

Enjoy!

Tidbits from Tasmania

Our last port of call in Australia was in Hobart, Tasmania.  Tasmania is an island about a 10 – 12 hour fast ferry ride from mainland Australia.  Lonely Planet rated Tasmania the 4^th best place in the world to visit – my guess is it’s one of the least known of those places, as I know I hadn’t much thought about it before this cruise!

We arrived early in the morning, which is typical for this cruise, as well as the others we’ve been on.  The sky was very gentle and the water in the harbor matched it.  It was sort of a nice way to ease into the day.  Tasmania is about the size of the state of Rhode Island, and about 40% of the land is set aside for parks, public lands, etc., so it’s a great place to explore nature.

Hobart is the largest city in Tasmania, with a population of about 200,000.  The entire island of Tasmania has only 500,000, so the majority of people live in Hobart.  It’s interesting to note that Hobart is sort of a retirement city, with most of the residents retired.  We’d been told that retirees like it because it has a much more relaxed pace to it, and a sort of small town feel to it.  

This is the main bridge in Hobart, and we crossed it twice going to/from our excursion here.  There is an interesting story about the history of this bridge.  It was opened in the 1960s and about 10 years later, there was an incident.  A large cargo ship, much like the one in this image, was heading out and needed to travel under the bridge.  The captain of the ship traveled the river often, and felt he didn’t need a tug boat and/or pilot boat to keep him on track.  Well, that might have been true for the captain, but he left his second in command in charge of getting out of the harbor, which included passing under the bridge.  Too late, the second in command realized he wasn’t headed for the center part of the bridge (where the cargo ship is in the image).  Instead he was headed for a pylon off to the right of center, where the black star is in the image.  He tried turning on the back thrusters to stop the ship, but that only succeeded in turning the ship sideways, and it crashed into the pylon that used to be where the black star is and took it down, along with a chunk out of the bridge.  Interestingly, it didn’t knock out the entire portion of that bridge, so the other half of the roadway was deemed safe to use while the bridge was being repaired.  You will notice that the pylons are not evenly spaced on that side of the bridge, however.  Due to the weight of its cargo and the weight of the pylon and concrete from the bridge that fell onto the ship, the ship sank right there, under the bridge.  Apparently, the waters of the bay are very deep, so it was determined that the ship, pylon and bridge portion would just remain there.  We didn’t hear that any of the crew’s lives were lost, so our assumption is they all got off the cargo ship ok.  And, regulations were put in place that require a tug or pilot ship accompany a ship wherever it crosses under the bridge. They aren’t visible in this image, but they were there with the cargo ship!

More about our day in Tasmania in my next blog post! 

Enjoy!