26th January 2010
Today it’s Australia Day, the day to celebrate all things Australian and a public holiday, and the folks here in Tasmania are certainly flying the flag. Many of the homes we pass on our way out to the coast have their Ozzie flags out and loads of the cars too.
After yesterday’s mammouth trek, a quiet day today with the car taking the strain. We head out to Burnie on the north coast. Burnie is Tasmania’s third largest city and a very industrial area with a large container port. Our first stop was Fernglade, a platypus reserve on a peaceful, forested stretch of the Emu river. A beautiful setting where we saw many birds but unfortunately no platypus, which is hardly surprising as they are most easily spotted at dawn and dusk and we were there late morning.
Next we went onto Burnie’s other wildlife spotting venue, the penguin interpretive centre which we reached via a boardwalk. A long thin building has information on Little penguins who come ashore her in the evening. Unfortunately there was noone at home while we were there.
With it being a public holiday, most of the shops and cafes in town were shut, so we took the scenic coast road onto Penguin where we enjoyed our sandwiches overlooking the beach. Then we continued on this road past the Three Sisters bird reserve.
Our final stop of the day was just down the road from our accommodation at Lake Barrington where the locals with boats were enjoying some Australia Day picnics and the water. There were heaps of craft on the water, most pulling some sort of craft from rubber rings, to water skis and wake boarding. This is obviously their Australia Day tradition.
