Tassie is one of my favorite places that I’ve visited on this year-long journey. This small island south of mainland Australia is loaded with national parks, rainforests and wildlife. It’s cool temperatures and sea breezes are a welcomed change from the heat that I left in the Outback.

For being a small place, there is a lot to see in Tassie. The most popular attraction is Port Arthur with its 200-year-old prison and its beautiful grounds where the prison personnel and their families lived. In the 1800s Britain sent its most hardened criminals to Port Arthur. It was the Alcatraz of its day. The prisoners served long sentences and did hard labor. Few if any escaped. It’s said that many of the Tasmans today have an ancestor who was a prisoner.

On the way to Port Arthur I stopped in the small town of Richmond, checked out Pirate’s Bay Lookout and saw Tasman Arch.

I also spent a day in Mount Field National Park, one of my favorite stops, where the scenery is beautiful. I saw Russell Falls, Lake Dobson, and a wildlife reserve with koalas, platypuses and Tasmanian Devils. I finished the day looking out on to Hobart (my base city) from the top of Mount Wellington.

I also traveled up the east coast to Freycinet National Park. There I hiked to a lookout where I saw Wineglass Bay. I also saw the rocky shores of Honeymoon Bay and Cape Tourville. I finished the day with some tasty ice cream at Kate’s Berry Farm.

On my last day of touring in Tassie, I hiked around Cradle Mountain. It was a gorgeous day and I couldn’t have had better conditions for my four-hour hike. Along the hike I had some good views of Dove Lake and I visited Gustav Weindorfer’s restored chalet. Weindorfer saw to it that the mountain and surrounding lands became a national park. I stayed the night in Launcestor which is about two and a half hours north of Hobart.

Tassie with its abundance of natural settings is my favorite part of Australia.

I returned to Hobart on January 26 which is Australia Day. It’s a national holiday similar to America’s Fourth of July celebration. Aussies took the day off for barbeques, cricket, and festivals of all kinds. Everyone wore green and gold, the Aussie colors. Australia is just now starting to feel the pinch of the global financial crisis. It took that long for it to make it here. The Australian economy is tied in to the Chinese economy since China buys about a third of its raw materials from Australia that are used for Chinese exports, and as I mentioned before China has had less demand for exports which has resulted in a drop in purchases from Australia.

The unemployment rate here has traditionally been low but it’s on the rise. The Aussies are taking it in stride and they are upbeat that the economy will turn around sooner rather than later. I’ve watched the financial crisis spread slowly throughout the world over the past several months. It’s amazing how one tic in the U.S. economy affects the whole world.

Next stop: a month in New Zealand

                Ninety percent of success is just showing up.

                                    -- Woody Allen