Out early and stop off at Banjos St Helen for a flat white and toasty – very yummy

Drive down the coast turning inland at st Mary’s up the mountains through the st Mary reserve and through some of the Silo Art trail

Our destination today: Trowunna Wildlife Sanctuary – need to be there by 1pm for the tour and Devil feeding ????

We make it with 10 minutes to spare, it’s an adorable sanctuary with geese, wallabies, ducks and all manner of animals just roaming free

It was recognised in 1979 internationally for breeding Quolls and Devils

They rehab birds of prey and other animals – ones that cannot be safely returned stayed in the sanctuary

We see a baby Eastern Quoll in our guide’s arms

A variation of Quoll, the Spotted Quoll, are the apex predators in Tasmania – can take down a wallaby 3x their size by climbing trees and taking them down from above

These marsupials only live for 3 years and have litters of around 20 babies after only 18 days gestation – having 6 teets, only this many usually survive

The Spotted Quolls are coaxed out into the light for us to see with cat biscuits

Guide brings out a lovely little Tasmanian Devil having cuddles

They make a lot of noise but are generally peaceful animals – called Devils first by European settlers because of these noises

They had a bad rep because of this as well as farmers mistakenly thinking they were killing the livestock, though they were actually just feeding on the already dead carcasses

These little things can smell up to 20km away and have have strongest bite force to body weight in the world – eat everything including the hair and bones

Pademelons are considered a pest to Tasmania – they’re frequently shot by farmers and are donated to the sanctuary for feeding the Devils

We see some kangaroos, wombats and an echidna and birds of prey

Off to Marakoopa caves to see the glow worms and underground rivers – we get the tickets then drive the little bit to the meeting point

As we’re here early, we take a stroll to see if we can spot any Platypus in the creek – no luck 🙁

Off for the cave tour …

Some facts:

• The most common formation you see is called “flow stone” and when this slows down, it causes “canopy”
• The chemical effect started about 450 million years ago creating this limestone cave formation, which is 30km in length
• Tassie is home to the deepest and most extensive cave systems in Australia
• 30 million years ago is when the caves here were formed – very young cave (compared to the oldest in NSW)
• Stalagmites are landforms of calcium carbonate on the ground and Stalacmites are these on the ceiling
• Limestone is the main ingredient in concrete – clear to see here as it resembles it closely here
• Lots of water erosion and because it’s rainwater, it’s not continuously flowing so makes a variety of inconsistent patterns
• The Fern Glade walking path just by this cave was closed due to damage from the last flood in the area, in 2022 – still not fixed yet!
• We find Short Creek which is ironically longer than the first creek we passed on the way in, called Long Creek
• Glow worms aren’t actually worms; they’re bioluminescent larve which produce the light themselves by manipulating the Carbon, Oxygen and Nitrogen within them
• They light up when they’re full so we see hundreds of little lights but there’s several thousands in many forms up there

Finished, we drive to our stay for the night over in Tullah

Go past Cradle Mountain, stop at mount Raymond lookout, see a lovely little echidna

Checkin to Tullah Lakeside Lodge and dash for some noms here

It is, indeed, lakeside and the views are lovely

Two large pizzas for dinner

After, we have a couple cheeky beers by the lake