Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary

Stuart and I woke up to brilliant sunshine on our first morning in Tasmania, so to celebrate we sat out on our patio with a nice cup of tea to watch the sun slowly rise. We had stayed the night on the outskirts of Richmond, a quaint village who's claim to fame is having Australia's oldest bridge. We walked around the town looking into the individual arty shops (even a christmas shop) before heading to look at the star attraction. The bridge was lovely, built across a small river with sloping grassy riverbanks on each side home to an array of ducks and willow trees. On the hill behind the bridge, overlooking the town was, what we later discovered after a look around, Australia's oldest catholic church. The church was stunning with huge stain glass windows letting in the morning sun with great views across the village. After our adventures we headed back into town for a bite to eat and stumbled across a lovely cosy teashop which did homemade scones with homemade organic jam and cream along with a fantastic tea selection. As we were in Tasmania we opted for the 'Tassie Devil' tea and were not disappointed. 

After our relaxed morning around Richmond we headed west to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, a rescue and rehabilitation centre for injured animals. Upon arrival we were given a bag of kangaroo food to feed the kangaroos in the centre but were warned to watch where we held the bags as the roos knew exactly what was in those brown bags. We were only a few minutes behind an educational tour so we hurried to catch up and found the tour at a tasmanian devil enclosure. The keepers gave an amazing account of everything you could ever want to know about the animals and had great relationships with the longer term residents. In the photo is Jaz the wombat, who was rescued as a baby after her mother was hit by a car but will be released back into the wild once she is fully grown - which can be up to 40kg in weight. We discovered from the keeper that so far the centre has recovered and released over 8000 animals back into the wild, which is a spectacular achievement.

After the tour we were free to wonder the grounds looking at all the unique and strange wildlife. The centre had kangaroos, wombats, koalas, enchidas, numerous cockatoo's, snakes, lizards, emus and many smaller marsupials. A notable resident is Frank the cockatoo who is over 100 years old and who has a signed letter from the queen congratulating him on his 100th birthday. It was amazing to see all the Australian wildlife so up-close and so well looked after, we didnt want to leave. We fed the kangaroos who really were smarter than they looked and then headed towards Lake St Claire National Park. The drive was lovely first heading through wine country before then making our way through more rugged wilderness. On the way we saw our first wild kangaroo and stunningly coloured eucalyptus trees. We got to the national park late and found the last remaining room at the hotel which thankfully had a roaring fireplace as the temperature had dropped below freezing.