Took a week's R & R in Tasmania recently. 4 nights in Hobart, the state's capital, and 3 nights in the Freycinet National Park, overlooking Oyster Bay and Moulting Lagoon. Time to be lazy: reading, walking, dining, drinking, sleeping. (Loved the restaurant at The Edge of the Bay in particular.)
It was our first time in Tassie and we found it to be a spectacularly beautiful island. Apparently, it's roughly the same size as West Virginia or Scotland, but only has a population of 500,000 (compared to West Virginia's 1,800,000 and Scotland's 5,168,500). There's a lot of unspoiled countryside there and beaches that seriously compete with those in my neck of the woods.
However, the road signs suggested that their kangaroos were forces to be reckoned with and I'm glad I didn't go head-to-head with one in our little hire car. In Victoria, our roos will stand at six foot and can do serious damage if a person or a dog is silly enough to corner them, but apparently a Tasmanian roo will not only stop a car in its tracks, but will lift it up too!
The wallabies weren't too scarey though. While on the Freycinet peninsula, we were visited by a couple. (Shortly after taking the above photo, a pod of several dolphins swam across the bay, leaping through the water, so it all got very Disney-esque for a minute or two... but no Bambi.)
And just to prove how friendly the beaches are, the second pic is of yours truly enjoying the aptly named Friendly Beach.
