Chocolate and Cheese... and penguins

We started our day this morning with a brisk 50 minute walk around Leven Canyon. First we walked up an incline to the highest vantage point of the canyon, then we walked down over 700 steps (I was glad we didn't have to go up that) to get closer to the canyon floor, then we had to walk back up the incline to the car park. It was a nice walk with some good views and a nice way to get the day started.

Then we rewarded ourselves with some lovely chocolate! We went to House of Amver's where they have great chocolate. They even had sample fudge and truffles, and a machine were you could sample each of their chocolate chips: milk, white, and dark. They were all delicious. Obviously I had to purchase a few things.

From there we went to the town of Latrobe, where we ate a picnic lunch along the river and looked for platypuses. We never did see any, unfortunately. Then we went to Ashgrove Tasmanian Farm to check out their dairy products. They had a bunch of cheese to sample, and also had butter, milk, and cream. We really enjoyed the cheese so we bought some of that. 

We moved on to Mole Creek caves and decided to do a cave tour in Marakoopa Cave. It was a cool cave with a couple of rivers running through it, many different types of rock formations, and also glowworms. So essentially it was like combining the last two caves we saw together. So we were slightly less impressed since we had just been in both different types of caves recently, but it was a nice way to combine the two. 

We made our way back to our airbnb for some dinner, then we headed back out to head to the northern coast of the island. We got to Burnie shortly before 8, which was perfect timing to see the small penguins up there. It was at the Little Penguin Observation Center where they just have volunteers come out each night to show and tell people the penguins that are there. It was really cool to see them coming up out of the water and back to their dens. It was also an interesting time of year to go because we got to see a couple of chicks as well as some of the older ones molting. All my pictures are tinted reed because of the lights the volunteers were using; apparently the red color doesn't hurt the penguins' eyes.

On our way back home we got to see a bunch more wildlife! We saw a few more devils and wallabies, and also a few things we were having trouble identifying. So that was exciting! It's amazing how much everything comes alive at night. You really have to drive much slower when it's dark to avoid hitting anything. This was the only picture I got, since most everything just moves so quickly. But these two just hung out in the middle of the road right in front of us. I think the one on the right is a possum, but I'm not sure about the one on the left.