Well I'll get the worst thing out of the way first: I got a LEECH (for real) ON MY BUTT (I could not possibly be making this up). I won't get into details because I don't want to relive the trauma and it might disturb the squeamish, but if you can imagine a total gibbering idiot hopping around in the woods in the middle of the night throwing handfuls of salt at her backside and gabbling at nobody phrases such as "Get it off me, get it OFF me, where is it?! Die, die, die!!" you won't be too far off. Thank god salt works, and I'm never going to prop myself up on a log to pee ever again in a leech area no matter how convenient it is.
It's probably just as well that happened and brought me down to earth, otherwise I was in danger of getting too blissed out on easy walking, delightful camping spots, and gorgeous scenery - I probably would've walked off the track while watching a bird or a cloud and fallen into a tarn. The Walls of Jerusalem is a low-alpine valley with tarns, scrub, and idyllic pine groves surrounded by peaks that end in sheer rock cliffs. One of the early white settlers went with the biblical name scheme so I entered through Herod's Gate, camped at the Pool of Bethesda, climbed Solomon's Throne, went out through the Damascus Gate, climbed Mt. Jerusalem... the circuit I did is usually a 2-day hike but I stretched it to 3 with my standard mix of gaping, dawdling, digressing, lollygagging, pondering, and napping. NB the leeches were at Lake Adelaide.
I've seen some other excellent spots as well: one little non-touristy nat'l park in the northeast had kangaroos, wombats, wallabies (of course) and a huge stretch of beach with scenic rocks with nobody else on it. I got to see wild platypuses (smaller than I expected) and an echidna and I gave two talks to grade school children about Antarctica (that was connected to the platypuses but it's hard to explain). I like Tasmania a whole lot. There are problems here too: high unemployment, and they're reliving some of our mistakes with clear-cutting old growth. For wood chips, no less. At least they're high-quality, hard wood chips. But darn... the place is still pretty good. It's an island that you can drive south to north in 2 1/2 hours, and I've spent a month here happily. There are a whole bunch of things I've had to skip that I'd like to do, and areas I'd like to explore.
The war is big news here too of course, and maybe I ought to give the Australian perspective on it, but I don't feel like writing about it.
I'll be back in the States next week. Hope you all have been taking good care of it while I've been gone.
Best,
-Sarah