Platypus World and Cataract Gorge

The second reason for coming to Low Head was Platypus World (the first being penguins). While I have looked for platypuses in the wild I haven’t seen any. This was the next best thing. It’s a rescue centre for monotremes. I learnt quite a bit about platypuses. Their food needs to be alive for them to find it as they close their eyes under water. It’s extremely difficult to breed platypuses in captivity. We saw one male and several females.

The echidnas were very cute. It’s hard to tell the difference between the sexes and when Eddie and Edwina arrived they got it wrong. So Edwina is male and Eddie is female. The third echidna is a male Thomas. We saw them have a meal of bugs. I didn’t realise they had such long tongues (about 20cm).

From Platypus World I could go north east along the coast or down to Launceston to see Cataract Gorge. I chose the later. After a quick lunch on the river I did a boat cruise on the Tamar River/Cataract Gorge. The Tamar River isn’t actually a river, it’s an estuary which means it is tidal and has tides of 4.2m. We went down the Tamar river and then up the Cataract Gorge as far as we could go.
From there I went up to the first basin which is a lovely area which a chair lift and suspension bridge. I did the basin walk which took me over the bridge.

Next up was Trevallyn Dam which is on the same river system. The South Esk river is home to eels who migrate between it and Queensland. An eel bypass has been added to the dam wall to try and prevent the eels being caught up in the dam turbine although there is debate as to how well it works.

A nice drive on the east of the Tamar river bought me back to my accommodation.Read more