Wildlife Warriors

When you head to a place like Tassie, with all it's National Parks and World Heritage areas, you expect to see a few possums or a kangaroo or two. But when Luke and I decided to head over to Bruny Island, off the coast of Hobart, for a night, we had no idea that we were going to have that many animal encounters, that we may as well have bought two tickets to the Irwin's Australia Zoo on the Goldcoast.


Bruny Island is made up of two islands, joined by a sand road or 'neck' where a bunch of penguins and shearwater birds nest each and every night (of course!). A $25 return ticket for all three of us (the two Tonkins and kombi Jefro) and we were off on a 30 minute trip on our second car ferry in a matter of weeks. Oh, didn't you know? Hanging out on car ferries is very now, darrrling!

Anyway, back to the wildlife wonderland we were about to encounter... so, where was I? Yes, Bruny Island is made up of two islands - there's a really cool lighthouse at the end of the South Island that overlooks the Great Southern Ocean (if you took off in a dingy from the beach below, you'd be in Antarctica in a couple of weeks or months or maybe you wouldn't make it in a dingy at all, but it's out there, trust me...), but the roads on the islands are a mix of tar and dirt, so pack your patience and a pack of panadol in your backpack to help you survive the bumps.

When you get into the main little village of Adventure Bay, skip the first caravan park and go straight to the end of the road, as far as you can go, to the Adventure Bay Eco Village. A cool little park, with powered sites for campervans and basic on-site cabins, the emphasis at this place is on living in harmony with nature and the environment. This means compulsory recycling, short showers that cost $1, an organic on-site cafe and animals sharing your campsite. And not just ANY animals, but more on that in a moment. There are wood ducks with their babies...

Aww... cute! There were random pink looking jelly fish in the ocean, bush hens wandering around the toilet block, but the thing that most campers come to see, is the white wallabies. Yep, white.

Apparently, these little guys have an albino gene and because they have no natural predators on Bruny Island, they've been able to interbreed and now they hop freely about the Eco Reserve. We weren't lucky enough to see the white possums (expect for one road kill which was too sad) and 'blondie' the resident white echidhana that roams the grounds (I'm seriously not lying - these creatures exist here!) but seeing a white wallaby up close and personal was enough to get us excited. Gee, with this kind of scenery, $20 for an overnight spot is a bargain!

But the excitement (or the animals) didn't stop there. Grab some red cellophane from the park office and head 20minutes back out to the 'neck' and join the rest of the campers to watch the local penguin colony as they make their nightly stroll up the beach, back to their nests. This is really an amazing experience and not one you get to do for free in anywhere else I know of in Australia. There's a National Park ranger on duty each night at the 'neck' boardwalks, who'll tell you all about the cute little critters who mate for life and take it in turns to hunt each day, while their partner looks after the nest and egg. Perhaps we humans have something to learn from these clever birds? Huh? But for now, Luke and I are content to watch and listen to these little guys in the darkness. Our Tasmanian wildlife quota is maxed in just one day.

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette