Apparently in Geeveston in the Huon valley, just an hour southwest of Hobart. Not that this place had anything else to offer though. ‘A hidden gem’, some would call it, ‘still undiscovered’. Two semi-full caravan parks along the Kermandie river without any facilities are the sleepy town’s only approaches to attract tourists. The local gas station closes on the weekend, the IGA-express already at seven in the late afternoon, hours before the sun sets during the long summer days of Tasmania’s south. Perhaps to give the employees a chance to observe the dusk-active Platypus in their prime time. The hotspot is just a walking distance away. Where ‘hot’ is clearly the wrong adjective, considering that any number sighting larger than zero creates pure excitement in the evening visitors. Word of mouth travels fast along the kilometre-ish long riverside walking track. The only question, ‘have you seen any’, answered by pointing fingers either south or north depending on where a bold Platypus decided to have his evening meal. Quick feet hurry along the path to join the handful of people watching in amazement the little brown creatures, smaller than anticipated, with the duck-like beak, scurrying between the rapids of the river, munching algae and plankton, diving down for twenty seconds into the knee-deep water to scout the riverbed, coming back up with their glistering brown fur like little logs drifting in the water, sometimes so itchy that it has to get scratched with one of their webbed hind feet. On a really good day, there is more than one. Honestly, it’s still not a lot. Though, many more than anywhere else in Australia, so many indeed that the locals jokingly complain the Platypus would drive away all the fish. As well-respected as the Platypus are, other members of the native fauna are handled rather more carelessly. Some parts of the main highway resemble a battle field. Corpses of Pademelons, wallabies, wombats and echidnas are sprinkled on the shoulders like confetti on a six-years-old birthday party. It is truly gruesome to watch. The only place in Tasmania with virtually no roadkill is Bruny Island. Only a short one-hour drive to the ferry passing the apple orchards of Huon valley, visiting seems to require some purer intentions, some fascination for nature and the urge to preserve rather than to destroy. With the local population stubbornly campaigning for safe driving, the life expectancy of wildlife seems much higher. It’s a wallaby-and Pademelon heaven. They are everywhere and so plentiful that the rare albino wallabies are quite easy to spot. A narrow neck connects the northern part of the island, where the ferry lands, to the southern part with its national park, campgrounds and hiking trails. The campgrounds are full with weekend-getawayers but otherwise the island is empty. One hub in the central east coast contains all the infrastructure; apart from that it’s ‘bring your own water’. The beaches are with clean yellow sand perched between rocky patches and cliffs, the sea calmer on the west, the channel between Bruny and mainland Tasmania, than on the east where it looks out into the open south-Pacific. Or is it already the Antarctic Ocean? The borders get blurry here, the waters icy. Snorkelling is still possible, there are stretches of perfect visibility, clear blue along rocks, but apart from the odd rock cod and some gobi, underwater life is restricted to paddocks of sea-grass, human-size kelp gardens flowing like gigantic linguini in the waves and rocks covered with small black and large grey oysters. Occasionally there is a tidal pool filled with multi-legged, chubby starfish clinging to the edges like sea urchins or corals, perched between red, jelly sea anemones. And still not a single Tasmanian devil.