Devonport is empty. And not that kind of empty as the Northern Territory countryside where the streets were simply wide and the houses sparsely located. No, it is full of homes; one-story English countryside buildings shoulder one on another with only narrow stripes of clean-cut lawns in between. There are just no people on the streets. Like someone constructed a pretty model town with all the facilities and forgot to put the people in it. But compared to the ultra-modern Sydney suburbs, this place has more colour in it, is less artificial. Brick houses with lemon trees out front. Occasionally a dog looking longingly out of a curtained living-room window. The signs of an aging population. Clean, tidy, sleepy. The most exciting event this town can fabricate is a meagre sandcastle competition for Australia Invasion Day on January 26th, loathed by the younger city generation, as an emblem of this country’s underlying and never-overcome racism, prided by the older countryside folks as the memory of their victory over the ‘unsettled wilderness’. The usual rift. Here in Tasmania, lacking any larger cities, the latter still set up memorial plaques, reminding everyone of the first (white) settlement of Perth, not the capital of Western Australia but the tiny hub in eastern Tasmania. As if there wasn’t anyone here before. Disregarding the hypocrisy of a celebration, expectations towards the beach-experienced Aussies constructing glorious sand-monuments were cruelly liquified upon realization that the most creative artwork that this day would produce was a flat-lying algae-bearded swagman in reference to the traditional bush song ‘Waltzing Matilda’ where the girlish name actually refers to a swag (sleeping bag). Since the town really has not much to offer in urban aspects, the countryside has to counterbalance Devonport’s attraction. Alas, not disappointing at all. Just a few minutes to the west, Lillico beach tempts with Little Penguins. The tiny fluffy creatures become active at dusk, waddling and arguing passionately in the red light of the volunteer rangers, to the complete amusement of the crowd of animal-loving tourists, packed in coats and blankets to withstand the icy winds coming in from the coast. Curiously, the only reason penguins are thriving so well on this island is that the common pest, the European fox, hasn’t made it over the channel yet. Let’s hope it stays that way. Next on the list of fauna are the elusive platypus. A collection of vague hints, both orally and online, leads to a forest reserve a few kilometres south of Latrobe. Luck and patience make it possible to spot the little flat-snouted swimmers in the diffuse light during dusk paddling happily back and forth. What a spectacle. The advantage of having landed in the north of the island, instead of the southern capital Hobart, is the proximity to Tasmania’s most prominent national park, Cradle Mountain. It takes only an hour and a few fast-flying minutes of driving in the lush-green countryside to arrive at the Visitor’s centre, where everyone has to take a shuttle bus into the park itself. The challenge of exploring Cradle Mountain is certainly not its dimension, with less than two thousand meters on its highest point, but rather the unpredictable weather. As the locals say, they’ve got ‘four seasons in one day’ here and the mountainy national park seems to attract the rain more often than any other place on the island. Two consequences follow immediately. First, to see the vast forest, bushland and paddocks, spiked with lakes and ponds and puddles in every corner on a sunny day, is almost equivalent to winning the lottery. Second, it’s unbelievably green. All shades of green. The wombats grazing between grasses and shrubs, the moss-covered fairytale forests with fast-rushing creeks and waterfalls, the thin films of rainwater covering leaves and needles and rocks and glittering in the light of the occasional peaking sun, the rocks and cliffs showing up unexpectedly through the dense fog, the cut-clear air and the absence of humans creates an almost drug-like effect on the city-burdened senses. A trance or bewilderment and excitement, wide-opened eyes and never-closing mouths, unbelieving the possibility that something so beautiful can actually exist. Despite the constant rain. Despite the icy winds. Despite the difficult hikes and climbs. It’s actually so mesmerizing that leaving Cradle Mountain comes with withdrawal symptoms, a painful longing to go back, to just drop life in civilisation and start living in a tent between the honeyeaters and currawongs, taking baths in the chilly mountain lakes and never talk to a human again. Not sure how realistic that is though.