Heart Shaped Homeland

Trowunna Wildlife Sanctuary

By Tommy Nagle

Trowunna | Tro·wun·na |

noun

Heart-shaped island (home)
A wildlife sanctuary

[see also 'Trowenna', 'Loetrouwitter']

ORIGIN

Aboriginal term, superseded by 'Van Diemen's Land' and later 'Tasmania'

Established in 1979 and thus celebrating its 40th year, Trowunna Wildlife Sanctuary (formerly Wildlife Park) is located in Mole Creek, northern Tasmania.

It's a small operation, but well worth the visit if you're into animals and nature and suchlike. Even if you're not, you should go. You'll learn something and have fun!

Now, a brief aside. Lucy has a habit of gasping things unworthy of being gasped at. I would reserve a gasp for something shocking or life threatening, for example... a truck that's on fire, piloted by a drunk kangaroo, hurtling towards me at 65 miles an hour. That's something I would turn around and gasp at.

Lucy, on the other hand, reserves her gasps for... well, you'll see. As we walked to the car, ready to drive to Trowunna she gasped and grabbed me by the arm. Shocked, fighting a minor heart attack and fully expecting to see an intoxicated marsupial aiming right for us, driving a ute that was all ablaze, I turned around:

"Oooh, over there, an echidna."

- she exclaimed. Totally worth the heart attack.

They're odd little creatures. It (for the sake of clarity we shall dub it Derek) was happy just waddling across the tarmac.

Derek ignored the huge Land Rover that just drove past, as if to say "you're on my land, mate", which I suppose it was. It was either that or Derek's eyes were so bad he didn't notice the Land Rover at all.

Thus having experienced the glory of sighting a wild echidna, we set off for Trowunna.

At the entrance, make sure to spend the extra dollarydoo and buy a small paper bag of beige pellets with which to feed the kangaroos. Said ‘roos mooch around the grounds of the park, generally not bothered at the presence of people, but to someone unfamiliar with marsupials, it’s still strange when a large male sidles up to you.

When they’re not hopping, the way they get around is strangely creaky and arthritic, leaning forward and spreading their front claws out onto the ground, then slowly levering their long back legs under their bodies.

That aside, it turned out that the kangaroos already had troughs full of the same food, but some of them actually preferred your offerings, slobbering over your hands and generally acting like gross stupid dogs. If you haven't done it before, don’t worry about them biting you, holding your hand out flat (just like you would when feeding a horse) is fine, though a lot of the feed ends up on the floor...

Trowunna hold three daily ‘tours’ at 11am, 1pm and 3pm, which include holding a wombat and watching the feeding of the Tasmanian devils.

In case you are unaware, this is what a Tasmanian Devil looks like:

The keeper who led our tour, Ned Sharman, has worked at Trowunna for 10 years.

He certainly seemed the part; uniform well worn and slightly tattered in places, a closely cropped white beard and blurry old sleeve tattoos obscured by tanned skin, he came across as a bloke who’d spent a lifetime outdoors.

Even if he hadn't spent his life outdoors, it was clear that he was extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the animals and their conservation.

When, without a trace of irony, he called me 'cobber', it sealed the deal.

Regarding wombats, the combination of Tasmanian roads and the species poor eyesight means that many of these joeys (the name given to all baby marsupials) end up living at the sanctuary because they've been orphaned.

#HashtagCryingEmoji #RedundantSpellingOfHashtag

The wombat we got to pick up and hold had been trying to escape her enclosure by piling up grass in one corner, instead of burrowing. Ned explained that she hadn't learned that skill yet, and that he and the other keepers have to teach the wombats how to burrow since they can’t be returned to the wild unless they know how to do so.

He also explained a little about their reinforced backside, made primarily of cartilage. (It's the part that's more steeply angled on the photo below.) If faced with a predator, wombats will run face first into their burrows, leaving their rear ends exposed. The angle and the fact that it's made of cartilage means that it's extremely hard for a predator get any kind of purchase or hurt them. Wombats can also be surprisingly vicious when attacked underground. They'll use their backs to crush their attacker into the roof of their burrow with incredible force.

We were also introduced to Margot, an example of perhaps the most persecuted animal in Australia, the Tasmanian Devil.

The antithesis of her species’ name, she was a sweet little thing. So familiar she was with Ned, as he held her up and displayed her to us, she gently gnawed at his finger, even though her jaws are so powerful they could rip it off in a second.

He set Margot down and went on to demonstrate how incredibly strong a devil’s bite is compared to its body size by producing a dead pademelon, donated by a local farmer, from a lidded plastic bucket.

Pronounced paddy-melon, it looked like a small wallaby, and it was indeed very dead. He placed it on the floor of the enclosure, and then called out a few times in a hoarse, guttural bark.

Soon enough, the devils approached.

The pademelon was torn apart in front of us by a pack of ten devils in a matter of seconds.

They really will eat anything. The keeper proved it by picking up a piece of crap from the floor. No, not crap as in rubbish, crap as in shit er, excrement.

"This is your classic devil scat" we were told. Traces of bone, hair, cartilage and God knows what else was in there. I didn't take a photo of that.

There's plenty more to see at the sanctuary, from quolls to lizards, bandicoots to birds of prey, from snallygasters to crumple-horned snorkacks.

But now for something completely different.

Bonus Attraction:

Off a dead end track, with an impressive gift shop featuring all manner of cave-spider branded tat, is the Mole Creek Karst National Park. We took the tour of 'Marakoopa' cave, which means 'handsome' in the aboriginal language. Sadly, it wasn't really that handsome, or worth it.

It's safe and well laid out, but 25 people walking in single file along concrete paths inside a cave doesn't really make for an atmospheric experience. The tour guide, Brian, meant well, but was in the end just a repository of awful Dad jokes. Here's some photographs so you can give it a miss.

We left Mole Creek and headed back to the bright lights of Launceston.

We were glad we resisted the urge to buy any of the cave spider branded crap from the Mole Creek gift shop. We knew our money would be better spent elsewhere.