Where would you go to see some of the most unusual animals, some of the largest trees, beaches and rainforests? Where could you go where stories about pirates are true, and there is a ghost story around every corner? 150 miles south of the main continent of Australia is the Australian state of Tasmania. Tasmania is an island. Not just any island, but the 26th largest island in the world. A drive from the northern tip of the island to the southern tip would take you less than three hours, if you could make it without stopping to look at something amazing. This island’s history goes back 20,000 years and it is a Unesco World Heritage Site. 

The landscape is beautiful. Before the last ice age, Tasmania was part of the continent of Australia but around 11,000 years ago as the Great Ice Age ended, sea levels started to rise. Tasmania was separated from mainland Australia by the Bass Strait. In 1642 Abel Tasman discovered the island but it wasn’t until the 1800’s that Europeans began to live there. The island became the largest penal colony for Great Britain. England had run out of places to put prisoners so they would put them on ships and send them to one of their colonies. More than 70,000 people were sent to Tasmania to jail. The convicts built roads, ships and buildings, farmed and mined for coal.  During the 1920’s, Port Arthur, the last penal colony, was turned into a tourist attraction. Now it is a World Heritage site.

Forest reserves, marine preserves and national parks have been established to help keep this island state unspoiled. Abuse of the land and excessive hunting has already brought about the extinction of the thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian Tiger. The thylacine was the largest marsupial carnivore. They were declared extinct in 1986. Other strange and unusual animals exist in Tasmania that can’t be found anywhere else on Earth, like the Tasmanian Devil and the world’s smallest penguin. Both of these animals are on the endangered list and protected. Other animals that live on the islands are echidnas, platypus, the eastern quoll, and the wallaby.