When I got to Australia, Tasmania wasn’t super high on the list of places I wanted to visit. But I’m super glad I went! My friends and I decided to do this pretty last minute; we booked our flights on Monday night and left for the weekend the following Saturday morning. When we landed, we hopped in our rental car and started driving towards the southeastern part of the island. We spent about an hour or so driving through rural countryside before arriving at our first stop: the Tasmanian Devil Unzoo.
An Unzoo is a place where humans can interact with flora and fauna in their natural habitat with minimal barriers. Fencing is natural and hidden, and animals are allowed to come and go from their enclosure as they please. The first animal we saw at the Unzoo was its namesake, the Tasmanian Devil.
After we watched the Tasmanian devil for a few minutes, we moved on and saw pademelons and kangaroos. We were allowed to go into the kangaroo exhibit and actually feed them out of our hands! There were a couple of baby kangaroos as well, and I was able to get a photo of one with its mom.
After we finished up at the Unzoo, we headed toward Tasman National Park. We stopped on the way to get some lunch, and I can honestly say the place we stopped had the best fish and chips I’ve ever had. After lunch, we made it to Tasman National Park and did a short walk to see the Tasman Arch.
We stayed at the arch for a few minutes before taking another short walk to Devil’s Kitchen, where we saw some pretty cool cliffs that made up the coastline.
Afterward, we stopped at a nearby beach. The water was chilly and the waves were pretty strong, but overall I still really enjoyed that time I spent with my friends. After the beach, we headed back to Hobart, where our hostel was, and spent the rest of the night walking around the city. We woke up the next morning and headed north, where we stopped at Mount Field National Park to see a waterfall. When we arrived, we walked for about 15 minutes to Russell Falls, and the view was amazing.
As we walked back to our car, we noticed a sign pointing out glow worms, which are bioluminescent worms that can only be seen late at night. We thought they sounded cool but didn’t think anything else of it.
We got back in our car and headed north to Latrobe, which is also known as the platypus capital of the world. After we stopped and got pizza, my friends and I headed towards the Warrawee Forest Reserve to see a platypus. After about 10 minutes, we saw one pop up out of the water, and we watched him play in the water for a while.
We started walking back, and as we were walking back, we saw three more platypuses! They were a lot smaller than I thought they would be, but still really cool to see nonetheless. We got back in our car and were going to head back to Hobart, but we decided to go back the way we came and see the glow worms at Russell Falls.
After driving a few hours through the mountains, we made it back to Russell Falls. When we found the sign about glow worms, we turned our lights off and saw over a dozen glow worms. I got one decent photo of them, but I kept my phone down for most of the time because I wanted to have the memory.
The next day, we flew back to Sydney, but before we left, we stopped at Seven Mile Beach because it was right next to the airport. We walked down the beach, and right before we left, we saw a shark in the shallow water.
Finally, we got in the car and went to the airport. Tasmania was honestly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, and I hope I get the chance to go back!
Jake Reeves, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is studying abroad in Australia with TEAN.
