World Cruise - Day 43 - Feb 24 - Burnie, Tasmania

I forgot to post one of the pics from the Cruise Choir last night, perhaps my best pic of the evening:

I like the pic because you have David in the foreground and Lorraine, Kay and Shirley (and others) in the background, along with “Pacific Princess World Cruise Choir 2012” on the screen in the background.  There were a total of 62 people singing in the choir last night, 30 will be getting off in Sydney (roughly consistent with 50% of the passengers onboard being segment passengers, 50% are world cruisers).  The choir will be performing up on the top deck as we sail into Sydney Harbor and pass the Sydney Opera House.  We will be berthing at Circular Quay, which is between Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Before we left in January, I did research on all the ports of call to find out the average temps for each day we would be visiting.  Burnie’s average high is 62.  The forecast high for today is 81, although the Princess Patter also says a low of 77 and it’s definitely cooler than 77 outside this morning.  So maybe that will be the low this evening?  Anyway, we are continuing to get a string of good weather on our trip.  The seas are pretty calm this morning as we are now in Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia.  Tasmania is not its own country, but is part of Australia.

There were only a few clouds at sunrise, so this was the best pic I could get:

It’s interesting that you actually want clouds for the sunrise, just not too many.  It’s also interesting how you can see the aurora around the sun clearly in the photo.  That pic was taken at f/8, 1/500 exposure, ISO 100 and a focal length of 160mm.

As we were pulling into Burnie, we saw these birds out on the breakwater:

I cropped in the photo to get a better view, but I’m still not sure what they are?  Maybe fairy penguins, which hang around in this area?  But there are so many of them (far more than I had in the frame above)?  Here’s another pic on a tighter crop:

They look like they have long necks that they are nestling into their feathers?  And yes, that is a normal seagull in the left side of the picture.  Does anyone know what they might be?  Hopefully we will get to see some fairy penguins later today and maybe then can compare pics.

We just got back from our day out in Tasmania.  We went with Terry and Jackie Eckstein.  We rented a compact car from Hertz in Burnie and went up the coast to Penguin (no, there were no penguins there or anywhere else on our trip—the penguins are apparently out fishing from dawn to dusk each day), then along the beach to Devonport, then to Wings Wildlife Park at the end of the day.  LOTS of pics, here are the best of the best:

This was as close as we came to a penguin sighting in Penguin.  All of the penguins were apparently out fishing…

…but Krissie did find this life-sized penguin to hug.

Me doing my best Karate Kid pose on the beach.

Read the signs and then look at Krissie’s gestures.

Cool bird on the beach, although I have no idea what it is.  I risked being bitten by venomous snakes to get this pic.

I love this pic.  I said: “On the count of three, everyone jump!”  Jackie jumped, Terry kinda made a halfway effort, Krissie just stood there.

There were two four-year-old boys playing near the beach in Devonport and I got these two photos of them.

This is the two of them peeking around the corner of the building.  I love this photo and would enter it into the second segment photo contest, but it’s already closed to new entries

This was our view for lunch in Devonport.  Krissie had a lamb burger, Terry, Jackie and I had a fish burger.  Great spot for lunch, couldn’t beat the view.

After lunch, we went to Wings Wildlife Park, which was the highlight of our day.  We saw all kinds of native animals and birds from Tasmania, including:

Baby marmots (I think).

I have no idea what this is, but I know it’s one of the cool native species.  It looks like a porcupine, but look at its head toward the right part of the pic.

Out in the open areas, we got to see several wallabies, including this albino wallaby.

And then, there it was, our first sighting of a Tasmanian devil.  Scary looking little guys, the size of a piglet.  Normally nocturnal, they were pretty active while we were there.

I was hoping to get a photo of a Tasmanian devil bearing his teeth, but this is the closest I got (I think he was yawning).

There are two Tasmanian devils in this burrow in a hollowed out log, one kept looking at me (on the left) while the other one was sleeping.

There were several areas where kangaroos where nearby.

…and emus, we were trying to interest this one in some cracked corn or fish food.

The highlight of the day was getting to see and pet the koalas.  There were two koalas at the park, one of them (the female) was more active while we were there.

They allow you to pet the koala, but not allowed to hold them due to the sharp claws.

Very cute and cuddly.

I had quite a few koala photos, it was tough to narrow it down to which ones to include in the blog.

The koala seemed to be posing for us, moving into new positions for new shots, although not very quickly.

I love the innocent look on the koalas.  I got several pics of Krissie behind the koala, here are the best three:

The one above was taken with the focus on the koala, slightly blurring Krissie in the background.

On this photo I focused on both Krissie and the koala.

I was able to get Krissie to the side of the koala, blurring the background behind them.  I love the look in her face and her cute smile.  Yes, the koala too.

It’s really hard to stop photographing a koala.  I took about 100 pics just of the koala.  Look at his claws as he stretches out after finishing eating.

There was a full grown marmot in the same enclosure with the koalas, where we were able to go inside the enclosure.

Right after we walked out of the koala enclosure, the animal keeper told us to go hard left.  She said she spotted a snake in the enclosure to the right.  She called up another animal keeper to help her capture the snake.  Apparently it’s quite deadly, so I didn’t stick around to photograph the snake, although I did take some pics of them as they setup to catch it.

He has a device to catch the snake.

She is carrying the bag in which to trap it and transport it (I have no idea what they plan to do with it then).

As they were attempting to catch the snake, we went by a different enclosure for more Tasmanian devils:

Yes, you really did need to keep your hands out of the enclosure.  They do bite.

This one got up pretty close to me.  I was hoping they weren’t good jumpers.

This Tasmanian devil is lounging on top of his burrow in the tree, note the other one in the background on the right.

Then the other one came up to the burrow, but the guy on top was still just lounging around.  Note the red ears on them.

There were a variety of other animals and birds there.  Here was some of my best other pics (note that I had to learn how to take some of these pics, including most of the bird pics and all of the monkey pics, through the chain link fence enclosures—you take it with a blur on the fence so that it essentially “disappears” in the pic, leaving the subject.  It worked better in some pics than others.

This emu was interested in what we had to offer.

Terrie was trying to get a close-up photo of the goat  I think the goat was ready to grab hold of his camera strap.

I love the colors on this bird.

Another native bird to Tasmania.

The colors on the local birds are outstanding.

The mountain goat had full run of the surrounding hill area.

I think this is a wombat?

Some type of local raven, note the colors.

More kangaroos.

I’m pretty sure this is an emu.

Ferrets sleeping, I caught one in a yawn.

This golden eagle is at the nature park for rehabilitation, it has a broken wing.

These were three black swans on the pond in the nature preserve.

This is a sort of silver owly-looking bird.

At first we couldn’t figure out why there were rats in the cage below the owly-looking bird, but then it occurred to us, oh yeah, that’s it’s dinner, whenever the owly-looking bird is ready.  Note the other pheasant-like bird roosting right near the rat, neither seemed to be very interested in each other.

Several interesting parrots and interesting colors.

A couple more owly-looking birds.

These look like our barn owls.

I don’t remember what this is, but it is another important local animal.

Another bird with beautiful colors.

They had quite a few monkeys there as well, although they are not native to Tasmania.

There were a couple either young kangaroos or wallabies nearby (not sure which).

Caught this photo of the baby monkey nursing from its mother.

Another photo of the same baby monkey as it emerged from nursing.

I love this cute hugging pose.

Kangaroo as it jumped across the field.

As we arrived back at the ship, the local bagpipe band played to us as we left the port:

What a day!  Tomorrow is a sea day on our way to Sydney on Sunday and Monday.