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After we got back from the penguin & possum hunt, we had a relaxing sleep. We packed up, left our bags at the reception office, and left for the Tasmanian Arboretum in search of our next wildlife experience: platypuses.
The ride to the arboretum was short but challenging with a long steep hill at the end of Devonport’s great bike trail network. The arboretum had a self register kiosk (with wifi), a little bistro, and trees from all over the world separated by region. We walked the trails, and I even managed to get us a little bit lost as I was following the map to the quarry. Turns out there were two quarries. Once we got back on track, we started circling the lake where the platypuses were supposed to be.
It didn’t take long to see the trail of mud that the platypuses leave as nosing for food, and then they surface about every 10 to 20 seconds to breathe. Breathe. But the best part was when we crossed a little dam to see what all the people gathered around it were looking at and there was a platypus grooming itself. Got some great pictures there and a video of the little guy then going and doing his search for food. Pretty cool.
The ride back was much less painful as this side was a gradual up, and we then got to coast down that big hill. Back in Devonport, we explored the paths along the water (that Dana had already visited while I was doing laundry the other day).
As usual, I had enough of riding well before Dana did, so I sat on a park bench while she went off and climbed a hill, eventually returning to the bench. By that time, it was time to retrieve our bags and head to the ferry.
It was a bit easier this time as we were familiar with the process, and the friendly agent that we queried yesterday had all our paperwork ready. In short order, we had the bikes and bags loaded in the van and were climbing the stairs (eschewing the escalators) to our deck.
We headed to the bar for our daily toast, snapped a pic of our hotel from the ship, and watched the sunset. Back in the bar, we made our dinner and washed it down with some more refreshments.
When we got to our recliners, we were nonplused to see a guy in one of our triplet of seats that we booked specifically to avoid that scenario. We quickly learned that he didn’t have a ticket for that seat. He just saw it was empty and decided to camp there. And he was talking on the phone. I asked him if he was going to talk all night, and that pissed him off enough to move. I was not going to have a repeat on the video call night on the way over. When he left, we were able to spread out a bit – and good thing too, as we found the middle seat was broken and wouldn’t recline or keep the foot rest up. A good place to stash our stuff and discourage any more interlopers. We did our best to get some sleep before our 6 AM arrival back in Geelong.
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