Our Day with the Devil

Our last full day in Tasmania we went on a tour to visit some Tasmanian devils and a stop in historic Richmond village on the way back to Hobart. 

Just a short 30 minutes drive out of the city we arrived at Bonorong Wildlife Reserve. Bonorong is a well respected animal rescue sanctuary for many of Australia's endangered animals including wombats and Tasmanian devils. They are also home to koalas, snakes, lizards and kangaroos. The grounds are absolutely breathtaking - beautiful and the surrounding scenery is equally as stunning. However, your attention quickly shifts from the scenery to Bonorong's little residents. 

When walking through the front gate each guest is handed a bag of kangaroo treats and man do the kangaroos know it! The brown paper bag makes a noise when you shake it and it is like ringing the dinner bell for the kangaroos. Watching them jump all the way across the field to you, it is impossible not to smile. 

First, the guide showed us a wallaby. Then, we were introduced to the tasmanian devil and got to see a feeding. As the devil's jaws are extremely strong and can easily chomp through bone, it was highly recommended that we keep our hands out of reach from these little devils.

Before we left Bonorong, we had some time to spend with the kangaroos. Melissa is generally not fond of critters and the kangaroo is no exception, but she did finally find an unintimidating juvenile to hand feed.

If you take a close look at the one I am feeding, you can see she had a joey in her pouch.

Before we headed back to Hobart we stopped at Richmond which is a small picturesque village outside of the city. The village's claim to fame is its bridge which is the oldest bridge in Australia which is still in use. This bridge like many things in Hobart was built with convict labor. It was kind of strange as they kept pointing that out - guess that is better than today where everything is made in China? Before we left Richmond, we stopped at a  nice cafe where I had an authentic Australian meat pie and sausage roll.