Tasmanian Wilderness and Wildlife

 

Most visitors to our island have Tasmanian Wilderness and Wildlife high on their ‘must see’ list.

 

Truffle Lodge is a proud Land for Wildlife sanctuary. Pademelons, wombat, echidna, possum and native birdlife abound. There are sea eagles nesting nearby and a family of kookaburra call us home. (I know that kookaburra are not native to Tassie, and they eat the native lizard, but our guests and we just love them.)

 

We know that we also have wombat. While seen infrequently, the burrows of these secretive little fellows are scattered along the river bank of ruffle Lodge. And their peculiar square scats are everywhere as evidence if you know what you are looking for.

 

Then within two weeks of each other we had two exciting revelations. Firstly a wildlife expert identified the scats of Tasmanian Devils on the property. Then a journalist, staying in the property left her tent open at night, and a baby Tassie Devil came to visit.

 

After that, EVERYONE wanted a night visitation!

 

 

This is what one guests wrote:

 

We were told to make sure we always zipped up our tent when we left, especially at night. This was because sometimes local wildlife might like to come in and make themselves at home. Only a couple of weeks before our stay a journalist had forgotten to zip up her tent at night. She was awoken at 5am  by a noise, and founda cheeky Tasmanian devil under her couch

 

Well, that’s not really the right story to tell someone who loves a wildlife encounter is it?! We both immediately had the thought that a Tassie devil sneaking into our room might actually be quite exciting! Maybe we should leave our tent open a little and see if anyone comes to visit…

  

In fact, lots of different wildlife consider Truffle Lodge their home. If you’re lucky you might get to see wallabies, wombats, Tasmanian devils, kookaburras or even platypus around the property. There are often platypus splashing around in the river right in front of the lodge, in fact, this is one of the best places in Australia to see them in the wild.

 

There is a nice small deck sitting along the river, perfectly set up for two people to enjoy a wine or beer as the sun goes down. Platypus can often be spotted swimming around the reeds and shallow water. 

 

We kept our eyes peeled for wildlife as we made our way back to our tent for the evening (fingers firmly crossed for a wombat sighting), but the grounds were completely quiet. Unfortunately no Tassie devils hiding anywhere around our little spot.