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Wombat
(Vombatus ursinus) grazing in a field.
You can also get a
larger version. I estimate, with Mark’s concurrence, that this fellow was about 18", even though Wikipedia claims they can be as much as 40", stem to stern. |
Thursday, 15 November: Lots of sights
| An 18-second clip of the movie I shot of the falls at Deloraine. |
Fairly early, John picked us up for another day of touring. From my journal: «Deloraine, and a folk-art museum. Before the museum, a walk along the Meander River, in the hope of seeing a wild platypus, but no luck. Then to the folk-art and historical museum, really an antiquer’s delight, with rooms furnished mostly in the style of the 1880’s or so.»
separate panels, and close-ups. Note the Tasmanian
Devils in #8, and (I assume) the Quoll (Dasyurus
maculatus) in #9. I don’t know what bird that is.
Note: right in the middle of #4 are two Thylacines,
now regrettably extinct.
My journal continues: «The ladies of the town had gone on a 3-year project, “The Four seasons of Deloraine”, in very large panels of needlework. A tremendous undertaking, accomplished to charming effect. Mostly scenes of earlier life in the town.» The panels are kept in the dark, getting illuminated for only a short time for viewing. The whole thing is in an auditorium, and in the darkened room, we sat through a video describing the achievement, illuminating the work panel by panel. Then the lights came up full so we could stand and get close, to get a close-up view of the work.
My journal continues: «Then outside, lots of old farming equipment and tools from before the internal-compustion engine. I probably took only a few snaps here.» In fact I took no pictures of these. I suppose I should be sorry that I didn’t take any pictures inside the rooms furnished in Victorian style, but nothing there interested me.
We walked about a bit there afterwards, and both of us took snaps of garden flowers. Third in the column at the right is a showy columbine, which would be a McKana if we were at home. It is certainly a cultivar of the Colorado species Aquilegia coerulea, though.
More from the journal: «From there to Cradle
Mountain, where we did a bit of walking about. There were quite a few
tourists, not all Chinese. John found it somewhat offensive that the
only secondary language on the signs was Mandarin.
No Japanese?
No Korean? No European language?
«We had lunch [about
an hour after we had left Deloraine] at a restaurant
there. I was in the mood for ordinary, and got a burger; Mark followed
suit.»
From there, we drove up to Dove Lake. (Mark explains on his page how fortunate we were to be able to do this.) And walked about a bit, taking pictures, a few of which you see below.
Let me take up my journal once more. I wrote,
«Continue by car to the site of Waldheim,
the home of an Austrian immigrant who had arrived 1900 at age 20 or so,
Gustav Weindorfer,
and married an Australian woman who knew and loved these parts. The woods
nearabout were moister than everywhere else we had been, with lots of
moss over everything, and lots of rain-foresty plants. In particular,
“King
Billy Pine”, which I suspect is Athrotaxis
[In fact, it’s A. selaginoides]
, and I spotted an obvious Nothofagus,
whose leaves I got some good shots of.
«We spied a sleeping wombat in these woods, but it was not easy
to see what part of the shadowy brown furry lump was what.
«But! Exiting that wood, and crossing the road, John pointed out
a solitary wombat grazing in the field below. Mark and I both got very
many (too many!) excellent shots.»
Then my journal continues: «From there, on to Sheffield, a town that encourages muralists. Very many buildings in the town are adorned with murals of rather high quality. And the town sponsors an annual mural competition, whose most recent entries are displayed in a public park. I would express the opinion that the murals from the competition were not of as high quality as those on the buildings.»
And that was the end of touring for this last day before we head off to the Tarkine. My journal goes into rather great detail about the rest of this day: «Thence to our Pennyroyal hotel, where we had little time before we went across the street to our restaurant for the evening, Stillwater. We split prawn potstickers, while I chose a starter of abalone, with no main course. We’ll see how it turns out. [I seem to have been writing right there in the restaurant.]
«In the event, the meal was excellent,
[I wrote the next day] with a jolly gay fellow
for our waiter. The
potstickers were not a tiny dish at all, the three for each of us
being just the right quantity. They were stuffed with chopped shrimp,
covered with a sauce that was superb, and they were underlain with a
sort of edible crunchy doily that complemented them perfectly.
«My abalone was sliced super-thin, and though I could not discern
much taste to it, the slight leatheriness, plus the very fine bean
sauce on it made the whole dish simply divine. My asparagus side was
not as perfectly cooked as Holly’s had been a few days earlier, but
Mark declared it rather better than his baked pumpkin.
«The
perfection of this meal more than made up for my disappointment in
the previous night’s meal.»
The journal changes mood: «Not looking forward to the three days of plant-based diet that we will be facing in the Tarkine.»
But you’ll see on tomorrow’s page that it turned out not all bad: the photos were more than decent, and after all, wine is plant-based. Check it out!
| Pictures taken around Dove Lake in the Cradle Mountain National Park: |
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