Persian Poet
I write to you from the unlikely setting of a French chateau located in a beautiful valley in an area of rolling hills. We are guests of Elizabeth and Gilles, friends of Sarah’s and this is very much a working farm. I have made acquaintance with a number of interesting creatures as well.
Pictured here is no less than the pig used in the movie “Babe”, yes, I travel in high circles. We have been working in the garden, tending a sick goat, as well as visited a national park, a world heritage site, called Cradle Mountain. Cradle Mountain is where we picnicked and hiked around a lake that has an alpine type of setting. I saw my first wombat, a casually strolling kind of furry creature, pictured here. Wombats have no less than square scat which they leave to demarcate their territory on top of logs and rocks.
We also have seen more Echidna and Sarah is teaching me that when they are threatened they curl up in a ball and put down a muscle that makes them impossible to pry loose from the ground, much like a limpet to a rock. Sarah also says that she knows of two reports where the Tasmanian Tiger has been sited although the Tasmanian Tiger is considered extinct. This animal looks like a chesty large dingo with stripes and no mane. I have yet to see a Tasmanian Devil. The devils feed on road kill and are nocturnal. There are pockets of them in certain areas that are still not affected by the disease that is killing them. Sarah has worked with the devils in a conservation site and really likes them. Here where we are staying there are kookeburras and when they get going in unison they sound like laughing hyenas. We are getting ready to leave these good people who have been wonderful hosts. Next we travel to a very beautiful national park called Freycinet Park to the east.