Thursday 8 January 2015
On waking, my ankle was quite swollen and a lovely
shade of pinkish purple. We all have
some sunburn from yesterday, despite having applied sunscreen multiple times –
it shows just how strong the sun is in Tasmania, despite the temperature (or
lack thereof).
Today we visited Mole Creek Karst National Park and
took a tour of Marakoopa Cave seeing the glow-worms and Great Cathedral. I
found the glow-worms quite difficult to see and after speaking to Drew and
Hayden I gather I could only see the brightest ten percent or so compared to
what others could see – very similar to when looking for stars! The cave had a great variety of interesting
features and the guide was very informative.
He explained the differences between flow stones, stalactites and
stalagmites. Flow stones is formed from
flowing, as opposed to dripping, water.
When it is still an actively growing flow stone it has a sparkly
surface; when it is old and inactive it has a duller appearance. All stalactites form initially from a “straw”
which is very fragile, being hollow with walls only 1mm thick. The Great Cathedral was a very large chamber
with many different formations including shields, stalactites and stalagmites.
https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=3530
https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=4648
We stopped for a picnic lunch and then went to
Trowunna Wildlife Park, where with great timing we immediately joined the
beginning of a tour. First, we got to
pat a ten month old wombat that was found in the mothers pouch after a road
hit. The zookeeper fed a group of six
Tasmanian Devils with a section of wallaby, complete with skin and bones. It is pretty gruesome, they really do not
waste anything! The devils fight each
other and “talk” a lot while eating. It
is a full contact activity! Apparently,
a Tasmanian Devil can eat up to one third of its body weight in food in one
sitting and they will eat as much as opportunity presents, as in the wild, they
do not know when they will next eat. We
had the opportunity to observe, but not touch, a Spotted Tail Quoll. The mainland has very few quolls of any type,
left in the wild.
http://trowunna.com.au/
We took Hayden to World of Marbles in Sheffield, where
he bought some very cool marbles. They
had musical marble tracks – one with a glockenspiel and one with wooden
“leaves” of changing pitch. They also
had some incredibly complicated and interesting to watch marble tracks. I watched a video of how the various styles of
marbles are manufactured from glass.
Lastly, back to our accommodation to tidy up a bit
in preparation for moving on tomorrow.
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