May 9 -- Launceston, Cataract Gorge, Wine Tasting

The start of the Cataract Gorge walk with bridge in the
distance.

Today we got to sleep in a bit before heading out for sightseeing. Our first stop was Cataract Gorge in Launceston, a steep rocky canyon with a river below. There is a park leading to the gorge which had a big swimming pool. Launceston is located at the bottom of a bowl of hills, and in times of heavy rain, can flood badly. Vic said that he had seen situations where the pool was completely under water and it looked like it was already several feet above the river level. We crossed a heavy-duty pedestrian suspension bridge and followed a path along but well above the river. Jim and I took a quick side trip up to a look out point before catching up to the rest of the group. The walk was really quite lovely.

View back to the park. The pool was completely submerged in previous flooding.

View of the gorge from the suspension bridge

View along the walk

Next was a stop at Matthew Brady Lookout. As we arrived at the lookout, a flock of very noisy Black Yellow-tailed Cockatoos arrived too. Brady 'earned' a trip to Australia's prison system, where he  repeatedly escaped and got a total of 350 lashes with a cat of nine tails. I hate to think what his back looked like. After 3 years of this, he was sent to Tasmania (pre-Port Arthur) and he continued his escaping. He finally managed to stay escaped with a group of 13 other 'bushrangers'. He and his posse terrorized the countryside, but he was renowned for his good looks and his courtesies to women. Eventually one of his cronies slipped away and ratted him out, expecting to be rewarded with freedom (he was hung instead), and Brady was captured and hung. His cell was filled with flowers sent as a tribute from the ladies of Hobart. The lookout is a high spot about the Tamar River which would have given him a wonderful view of the river traffic.

View north towards Australia mainland and the Tamar River
at Matthew Brady Lookout.

Two cockatoos fight for dominance of the tree top

Close up of Black Yellow-Tailed Cockatoo

We headed on to the Platypus House at Beauty Point, only a few miles south of the Tasman Sea. They have tanks of platypuses, an interesting video of how the platypus mom tends her young (they used little bitty cameras to sneak peeks into the burrow) and an area for Echidna (pronounced Eh-kid-nah), which sort of looks like a pointy-nosed porcupine. Both species are known as monotremes, which are egg-laying mammals. They suckle their young without nipples when the young stimulate (rub) the milk producing area, which then 'sweats' milk. These mammals predate the standard mammal and apparently would have been out-competed by them except for the isolation of the Australian continent.

Platypus swimming

Platypus digging for food

Echidna exiting his burrow

Stick spider near our bus in Beaconsfield

Beaconsfield Gold Mine -- old and new

After lunch in Beaconsfield (site of a functioning goldmine and mine collapse disaster in 2006 where a mild earthquake trapped 2 men for 2 weeks before they were rescued) we went wine tasting at Moore's Hill Winery. In the interest of supporting the local economy, we bought a couple bottles. We really liked the two varieties we bought, but thought the chardonnay was reminiscent of wet sheep.

Back in Launceston, we visited a design gallery known for their wonderful wood products and saw a number of things we would have loved to take home, especially a coffee table (which we could use) and a hall table (which we couldn't in this house -- entry hall too narrow). Unfortunately, they were expensive to start with and would have cost around $600 to ship home, so I contented myself with a french rolling pin.