Missy and Emily's Tassie Trip - Launceston

The second day of this Tassie trip was spent in Launceston.  We drove over from Cradle Mountain in the morning and stopped to sample some local cheese along the way.  

Ashgrove cheese for some delicious samples 
After the drive over we were quite thirsty so of course had to stop at a couple local wineries.  Launceston is one of our favourite places to go to stock up the wine fridge and enjoy the beautiful scenery and food along the way.

Josef Chromy Winery for some Sparkling
After lunch we went to Platypus House Seahorse World to check out some of the local critters.  Platypus are really difficult to see in the wild; in the nine years we've been here we've only seen one from far away.  So it was a treat to see them up close and watch them scuttle around.  

Mr. Platypus
The absolute best thing about Platypus House though are the echidnas!  Echidnas are actually the closest living thing to the platypus, though they look far from it.  They are actually nearly identical at birth but evolve in quite different ways from there.  They're quite adorable little critters and we've seen many of them running across the roads in Tasmania and South Australia.




They eat ants and other small bugs and use their really long tongues to scoop up their meals.  After they ate, one of them came over and licked my foot with that crazy tongue!



Next was Seahorse World.  This place is full of tanks growing all different shapes and sizes of seahorses.

These are some newly born horsies.


We also got see these Handfish.  Unfortunately because of habitat loss they are nearly extinct in the wild so it was interesting to see and learn more about these unique fish.

 After the day exploring the local animal life we decided to continue the tour was a delicious fish dinner in Launceston.  I'm not a big oyster fan, but these three were raving about the local oysters.



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