The Peterson Pack on the Move

We took an amazing surf lesson.  We were traveling in the Bay of Fires area of Tasmania.  We stopped at a beach called Dark Hollow Creek.  We met our instructor, Gary. The 42-South Surf School is a great place to learn how to surf. The first thing you do is change into a wet suit.  It's really hard to do. It's so tight!  Second, you carry your boards down to the beach.  It's kind of a long walk. We got our first lesson, which started on the beach.  We practiced laying on the board, popping up and where to put your feet.  It's challenging to learn to get on your board and how to stand up properly.  After that, you go out on the water and try to get up onto a wave and stand up.  Next, you get coaching on getting up on the board but this happens throughout the lesson. I did not catch a wave on my first try:). It was very, very tiring getting out to the starting point.  There was a strong current pushing me back towards the beach. ...

 A few days ago my family and I were lucky enough to visit a wildlife sanctuary on our way to the town of Bicheno. It was certainly different from Alaskan sanctuaries: kangaroos lounged all over the place, echidnas waddled around in their enclosures, and Tasmanian devils raced around behind fences. We were actually encouraged to feed and pet the kangaroos, but we had to be careful not to let the wombats or Tasmanian devils get too close to your fingers—they bite (even if the wombats do look like walking ottomans). The animals in the sanctuary were extremely different from the ones we were used to. Many are endemic to Australia, and some are found only in Tasmania. Australia is home to a very select breed of mammals, a group called marsupials. You've probably heard of them—the funny little guys with pouches? Some of the better-known marsupials are kangaroos, wombats, possums, and Tasmanian devils.  Another unique group of animals found in Australia are monotremes, which are egg...

        While I was writing my last science blog post, the one about Australian Animals, I realized that I was rambling on and on about echidnas. I was trying to keep to relatively short (at least for me) descriptions of each animal, and echidnas were clearly a flaw in that plan. Seriously, I love these little guys, and when you combine that with my tendency to ramble...well, you get the picture. So I decided to give them their own blog post. For those of you who read about them in the previous blog post, you might end up hearing a few repeats.    Echidnas are an  incredibly  interesting animal. They're adorable, like a cross between a hedgehog and an anteater, and they look so funny when they waddle around, snuffling at the dirt to look for their favorite foods: ants and termites.     One of the most interesting facts about echidnas is that they are monotremes, which are egg-laying mammals. There are only five species of monot...

 We have been in Tasmania almost a week, exploring Hobart and the east coast of the island. Here are some highlights: Tassie has some of the “best beaches in the world”. We agree the beaches here are perfect. We also agree that making lists of the “top 10 best beaches” or any other natural formation is ridiculous and only diminishes the experience.  The colorful rock lining the shorelines is amazing.  We haven’t seen a live wild kangaroo or wallaby, yet. (Though we have seen dozens as road kill).  We did get some quality time with this mob (or troop) of Forester Kangaroos at a wildlife sanctuary.  The maritime culture of Tasmania, especially in the area around Hobart, is pervasive.  There are distilleries sampling their creations everywhere, in the outdoor markets, at the ferry dock, on main  street.  Fruit grown and sold locally. This is 8 kg (17 lbs) that we bought at an orchard for $5 US. Four days later we are almost through all of it.  W...

     The city of Hobart is an interesting place. It's very old, the oldest settlement in all of Australia. The houses are predominantly variations of cozy brick cottages with little lawns full of rose bushes. The city itself spans several hillsides, and many houses have retaining walls because of the steepness of the land they were built on. The harbor is full of the masts of sailing ships and, as I write this, many businesses are closed for the Royal Hobart Regatta, which is a public holiday in the southern portions of the state. This all adds up to a very picturesque scene. But, at least to me (and I think you'd agree, too), Hobart holds something far more interesting than sailboats or cottages.      The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is the largest privately funded museum in the Southern Hemisphere. It is accessible by either a twenty-minute drive from Hobart or a short ferry ride up the river. The museum is situated on a point formed by a curve in the...

We have now landed in Tasmania, the largest island but smallest state of the largest island nation in the world. Located off Australia's southern coast, Tasmania encompasses about 26,000 square miles, making it the 26th largest island in the world. Like the rest of Australia, this island has an interesting history, full of convicts, prisons, and disease. Fun times. This story starts,  like my last history lesson, with a colonial superpower. Well, it doesn't really start there. The British weren't the first people to arrive in Tasmania. Native Tasmanians, who called themselves Palawa, had been there for tens of thousands of years prior. The Palawa were a subset of Aborigines, the native people of Australia.  Aborigines first came to Australia around 50,000 years ago, back when Australia and Tasmania were connected by a land bridge. Some of them made their way to Tasmania and settled there, still coming and going from mainland Australia whenever they wanted. But, around the ...