Tasmania : Animals and Architecture

Peacocks everywhere!?

     Tasmania has some gorgeous vistas, but as I review my photos of our recent trip there I noticed that a lot of animals and structures keep popping up. Clearly it all made an impression so I'll share.

Cape Barren Geese

You know all the usual OZ animals but what about these birds?  The Cape Barren geese with their fluorescent green noses reside on Maria Island.  Peacocks seem to be everywhere. Somehow I have always thought of them as rather exotic but  one sees them strolling along so many places in OZ it is no wonder that natives don't give them a second thought.

       What you don't expect to see is a Tom Turkey overseeing an Evandale pub's backyard.  Who shipped turkeys into OZ? Why do I keep thinking of Benjamin Franklin whenever I see one?  What is that poofy white chicken doing in a pub yard, also?  And finally, after spending an hour watching the tom turkey strutting and preening to a supremely disinterested hen,  don't guys ever take the hint and give up?

Echidna

beer swilling pig

 Enough birds.  I was thrilled  to catch an echidna by the side of the road. Those spikey quills stopped me from touching.  I'm thinking maybe pigs do fly, especially Priscilla, the beer swilling mascot at Pub in the Paddock, after a few obliging guests have come around.

Pyengana dairy line-up

Mooooove on, Elsie

 Down the street from Priscilla in the beautiful valley of Pyengana, is a small fully automated dairy. The cows have learned to follow the queue into the milking area and are free to do so 24 hours a day. Milk production is up 20% since this was instituted.  The cows are happy. There is a treat waiting for them at the mechanized milking station. And you can see the massaging brush they can walk through after milking.   This cow really loves this part. Eventually the cow behind her head-butted her out of the way. No need to be a pig about it.

Port Arthur

Bridge in Richmond

Isolated even in prayer at P.A.

 Gotta love those convicts. Built their own prisons and the escapes for everyone else.  This convict-built (who else?) bridge in Richmond is one of the oldest bridges in the country and is still used today. Want to buy a convict-built structure?  Cough up 
big bucks, friend, even for the most simple and derelict of buildings. Heritage comes at a price.

Launceston convict church

We toured a lot of churches. These two are churches for convicts.  Attendance was mandatory and a very different experience depending on where you were. In Launceston, you would sit next to other inmates. In Port Arthur, everyone stands in isolation in their own cubicle.  The ones I feel sorry for...the poor chumps in the microscopic cells underneath the church in Launceston. Coffins for the living, I'd say.

Launceston door knocker

Queen Victoria Museum restroom

   And these last two shots just because I like them.  This is the mother of all door knockers. You can hear it throughout the building and half way down the block. Doubtless the inspiration for Dickens and his Jacob Marley ghost.

   This sink in the ladies restroom was the coolest thing ever.  Hard to see the angle of slope on the bottom marble but there is no splash, no dripping anywhere just a super high-end version of a playground washing station that adds to the Queen Victoria Museum experience.  

   And no, this employee didn't mind washing her hands for me.