That's bish-en-no for the westerners. It's a little town on the east side of Tasmania. Not many services really, just a handful of restraunts, a kick ass backpackers hostel, and a dive shop. All the essentails really. Here's a pic of me surveying the coastal landscape while finding my first Australian geocache.

But really the best part about Bicheno was the incredibile scenery nearby! Check out this great view of a vineyard in the foreground and the Ferycinet Nat'l Park in the background. Yeah Bicheno!

Another really cool feature of Bicheno was the Penguin Night tours. So there are these little penguins called Fairy Penguins that come out of the ocean every night and waddle up onto shore to lay their eggs. We went on the tour, which entails of a group of 20 folks and a few flashlights wandering around the coastline. Turns out, there were freakin tons of penguins - wait until you see the video (will post that another day).

After leaving Richmond (driving on the wrong side of the road mind you) we drove up to the Bonorong Wildlife Park to get some nature up in this trip. We were not dissapointed. They had these free-roaming kangaroos and you are given a bag of 'roo food' along with the park entry pass. You can feed the roos and pet them and everything.

Check out those crazy emus! They're like giant ostritches if you've never heard of them before. Those things were getting a little too close for my comfort.

Of course a trip to Tasmania isn't complete without checking out the Tasmanian Devil. These little guys are packrats that don't hunt or kill anything - they just scoop up roadkill (which is quite plentiful on the island - ask Ryan about the Possum sometime...) Anyway, they really aren't that tempramental - but i did catch one baring its teeth at me here.

And of course, every aussie tourist needs a picture with one of those cuddly koala bears. I did learn one interseting fact about them though - they eat only eucalyptus leaves which are generally toxic to most animals. however, the koala adapted to digest these leaves, though really it consumes a lot of energy just to digest the little things. so the koalas developed smaller brains that work on less energy. they are not, in fact, high all the time; as some people along the way in life have lead me to believe.

After arriving to Hobart, Tasmania late in the afternoon, we ended up forming our plan. Rent a car nearby and go on a driving tour of the east coast of Australia's biggest chunk of preserved national park land. We started off with a nice lunch in Richmond...