Now, where was I....?

Ah, yes.  I had finally made my way away from the beautiful East Coast of Tasmania and into Launceston. The day after arriving, I walked my way down the Esplanade to the Boag's Brewery for a tour of the Brewhouse and Packaging. It was really fascinating. I don't think that I ever really knew how beer was made. After the tour we got a free tasting of 4 of the 6 beers they make. All tasted pretty good, but the best part is that none of them made me sick. Yay, for Tasmanian beer! Next, I was off to the Flying Fox (zip line) about 20 minutes out of town. There were fears that it was going to rain, but the weather stayed beautiful as we made our way through 700 m of zipline that criss-crossed a small creek. At one point, we reached speeds of 70 km/h. This was a definite highlight of the Launceston area. Finally, to end a very busy day, I made my way north to Low Heads.  This is the sight of one of the earliest settlements on Tasmania as it is at the mouth of a river and Bass Strait (the strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania). There is a very cool lighthouse here as well as a semaphore system that was once used to communicate with Launceston (50 km down the river). Also here is a Little Penguin colony.  After sunset, we headed down to the beach to watch the little water birds come to shore.  Very quickly, groups of them were wading onto the beach and up into the bluffs of the beach.  Some of them walked so close we could have touched them. We stayed at the beach for an hour and saw about 50 penguins. They are very, very cute. Amazingly, these penguins stay out in the open ocean from sunrise to sunset and will stray out about 40 km to get their food. They then come back to the beach to feed their young, or at this time of the year, to mate and prepare their nests. Their nests can be located 1500m up from the ocean. Their little legs sure can take them places.

After the penguin show, it was back to Launceston and good night's sleep before heading off to my next adventure.