Carnivorous Nights_ On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger - Margaret Mittelbach [72]
We showed James a map of the Southwest and pointed to the place we intended to hike, the South Coast Track. He gave it a glance and said simply, “That's hopeless.” Though it was in one of the least developed parts of Tasmania, with 5,300 square miles protected in national parks and world heritage areas, it had never been rich in animals.
James pulled an old map out of the box and gave it to us. On it, Tas-mania's rough coastline was surrounded by blue ocean. Inland, there were probably ten blue rivers for every yellow road and highway. And range after range of broken hills. James pointed to the place along the Arthur River where he had heard the tiger calling when he was thirteen years old. We marked it with a little blue X.
“What you need to do,” he said, “is go south of the Arthur River, find a high ridge, and just sit there after dusk and listen.”
14. FISHY FEAST OF THE FAIRIES
After saying good-bye to James, we found ourselves driving once again along the narrow peninsula that led to the stark-walled Nut. It was still long before sunset and the road was blissfully clear of animals. We had agreed to meet Dorothy and Chris in Stanley, where they had rented a cottage for the night.
“What do you want to do tonight?” Alexis asked.
“We were thinking of going to see the little blue penguins.”
“I've seen those before.”
“Where?”
“At the aquarium in Sydney.”
We tried to ratchet up his interest level. “They're the smallest penguin species in the world.”
“Yep, I know.”
“They're also the only blue penguins.”
No response. The extreme animal thing wasn't working this time.
We hadn't really had a chance to look at Stanley in the rush of our last visit. We'd been too rattled by our run-in with the suicide hen. Stanley turned out to be a historic fishing village of just a few winding streets. Its snug one-story, dormered houses—built when the town was founded in the mid-nineteenth century—now served mainly as restaurants, shops, and B&Bs. Though the human population of Stanley was stable at around six hundred residents, the village had undergone some demographic changes. Specifically, the local penguin population had skyrocketed from twelve to two hundred over the last six years.
Historically, little penguins had always nested on the shores of the Bass Strait, but as coastal towns like Stanley developed, fewer and fewer penguins came ashore. At one point, Stanley was down to just a few straggling penguins that were forced to reside under people's beachfront homes and beneath the tombstones at the town's seaside cemetery. To give the penguins better digs, Stanley residents built burrows on the lower slopes of the Nut, just a few hundred feet from the edge of town. As a result, Stanley's penguin population began to thrive.
We got the phone number for a penguin tour service from a flyer on the window of a local restaurant, and when we called, a cheery woman said a penguin van would pick us up at nine-ish. This was going to be another nighttime operation.
In the meantime, we decided to look around the town. Signs in pastelpainted tearooms and food shops offered Devonshire tea, abalone cakes, crayfish sandwiches, and fresh whole fish. At a shop called Hursey Seafoods, the fish were more than just fresh. Hursey's was more like an aquarium than a fish store. All kinds of fish—including tropical ones— were darting around giant Jacuzzi-sized tanks filled with seawater. A handwritten sign read, “BEWARE!! Please do not put hands in the tanks.” While we were ogling the swimming seafood, Chris walked in. Earlier, he had stopped by Hursey's and ordered two dozen Tasmanian rock oysters and a live fish called a bastard trumpeter. The proprietors had asked him to come back in twenty minutes. It would take them that long to net his purchase.
Back at our motel, a cottage called the Pol and Pen,