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Friday was my wife's birthday and we wanted to do something special. So, we decided to fly over to Tasmania and go to a place where they let you pat and feed native wildlife. That part will get its own entry.

The cost of flying there isn't too bad if you go early in the morning. So, Thursday night we went to bed before the sun was down so we could get up very early.

We flew Jestar, which I guess is a lower cost airline. They have this thing where they don't tell you the gate until 15 minutes before boarding and it is an 8 minute walk to the gate...

Given that I ALWAYS like to be early, I'm not very big on this concept.

We did learn than "Go to Gate Now" really means it. One guy was late and it was "too bad for you". The woman with him got off to wait for some other flight with him.

We talked about how it was like it used to be when we were young. No ids checked. Go through a normal metal detector. Walk out to the plane.

It really was like that in the 70's....

About dawn it was off to Tasmania.

Above the clouds it was sunny...

An hour later we were landing at Hobart Tasmania.

I thought the airport benches hilarious.

And, the airport sculpture too.

With 11 hours until our wildlife sanctuary tour, we said "let's drive off and see other things." That is so like us...

It really is a beautiful place. My wife said "it's live driving through a movie set."

There was a FANTASTIC overlook to "pirate's bay".

You could see interesting islands out there.

Are these skelligs?

A nice looking beach.

All that in one view.

Then leaving the fantastic view behind, we went on to Port Arthur.
http://portarthur.org.au

It was a prison. The folks there hated it. They tried to, and sometimes did, escape.
I totally get that.
But, now more than a century later, it looks beautiful to me...

It's right on the water, with islands and mountains.

I understand it is a place where a lot of sad things happened.
But, I had trouble getting over the beauty.

As the guide put it "Folks were transported here against their will from across the sea, so we MAKE everyone take a boat ride while they're here as part of that."
It doesn't take much to get my wife and I on a boat.
So, we headed right over to the dock.

The water was crystal clear. Actually I've known a lot of crystal not as clear as that water....

My wife likes looking at the fish.

No, not like that!

There were lots of small to medium fish that weren't virtual.

As we were getting on the boat I saw something strange in the water.

It was a massive ray. It must have had a wing span bigger than me.

I've seen small rays before, and we did at the same spot.
But, never one that big in the wild!

The boat ride went around the island in the harbor. To do that, it had to get a little bit more south than we had been.
This is the farthest south my wife and I have ever been, and are ever likely to be.

You could see out of the south side of the harbor. Nothing that way until Antarctic...

After that, we headed north again.
Not too far from there is the Unzoo.

The peninsula/artificial island where Port Arthur sits is cut off from the rest of Tasmania by a canal. So, when the contagious cancer began sweeping through the Tasmanian Devil population 20 years ago, that section was the only place to remain cancer free.
They care for some of the devils there and monitor wild ones in the area to make sure it doesn't reach that area.