Van Diemen's Land

I have only been to Tasmania once before, but instantly fell in love with the place, so much so in fact that we seriously considered emigrating to Hobart instead of Melbourne.  Needless to say Melbourne won out for one simple reason, it is bigger.  The fact Melbourne is bigger gave us a better chance of being able to find work.  Melbourne also provided us an advantage with travelling, as it is impossible to fly out of Hobart to anywhere without an extra stop-over in Melbourne or Sydney, greatly increasing the cost and time needed.  With my fathers declining health, the ability to get back to the UK at short notice is very important to me.  We may still move to Tasmania one day, once we've retired possibly.

In the meantime knowing how much we loved Hobart, Barnadi's boss Sam and his partner Saf took us on a trip to Hobart for my 30th Birthday.  The night before my birthday I wasn't feeling particularly well and after getting home from a late night at work I was about ready for bed.  I was about to go and leave Barnadi to watch his German film on SBS about killer bees, when he brought out a bottle of champagne and a small chocolate cake complete with number 30 candles.  So we ended up staying up and finishing off the bubbles with Gemma and Dan, and made a good stab at the cake too.  By the time the last of the German killer bees had been incinerated however it was time to go to bed, after all I did have to drive to the airport in the morning.

The next morning we got up early and picked up Sam and Saf on our way to the airport.  The traffic wasn't too bad for a change, (the Tullamarine freeway usually being reminiscent of the M25), but finding a parking space in the long stay carpark was a challenge.  Sam kept wanting to start the champagne early, at the airport or on the plane, but we reminded him how early in the morning it was and eventually convinced him to wait until lunchtime.  When we arrived in Hobart the weather wasn't the greatest drizzly rain interspersed with the odd sunny spell.  It seems that changing my Birthday from Autumn to Spring was not enough to avoid a rainy birthday.  We picked up our hire car from the airport, a little blue Suzuki Swift, which we all squeezed into before heading to our first stop, the MONA gallery and winery.

View from MONA, Hobart

One of the degustation courses

The MONA gallery is meant to be very impressive and is possibly the reason Hobart has now made it into this years Lonely Planet's top 10 cities to visit (the only Australian city to do this).  Sam and Saf are not big fans of art galleries however so we didn't visit the gallery, famous for its controversial installations such as the 'Wall of Vaginas'.  Instead we came for the food and wine, and had lunch in 'The Source' the very expensive and pretentious restaurant located upstairs.  For lunch they provided a Degustation menu of 3,5,7 or 9 courses, you don't get to see a menu but simply get bought the requested number of courses selected at random by the chef.  We opted for the 3 course option, but even that sets you back $75 per head.  Sam finally got to order his champagne, a local brut prepared at the vineyard on site, the wine was certainly better than the food.  The 3 courses we received were an Asparagus jelly, Steamed ling and a 'deconstructed tiramasu'.  The biggest problem we had with the restaurant was it seemed more focused on the presentation of the food than the actual flavour (or indeed quantity).  The restaurant and gallery must be doing well as they seem to have a deal with a local tour guide operator, as several helicopters arrived during the time we spent there dropping off new guests every 5 minutes.  We took a stroll around the grounds after lunch to take in the views.  The views by far being the best thing we had sampled so far, surrounded by mountains and water, every direction you looked was stunning.

After lunch we checked into our hotel, the Grand Chancellor, right on the harbour front.  Sam and Saf booked the hotel which like the restaurant we went to for lunch was seriously over priced.  Over $200 a room, and that doesn't even include breakfast!  Barnadi and I took a walk around the harbour while Sam and Saf slept.  We found some nice shops in Salamanca and found a few Christmas presents for people back home in the UK.  Then for dinner Sam and Saf took us out again, this time to the revolving restaurant on top of the casino.  They had an ulterior motive for this choice as they planned a night in the casino.  We almost convinced them not to gamble and come out for a drink after dinner instead, but this is Hobart on a Sunday and nowhere else was open.  So we got a lift back to the hotel with a crazy taxi driver and left Sam and Saf to loose all their money in peace.

The next day Barnadi and I got up and had a big breakfast in a cafe on the harbour, before taking the hire car on a drive down to Port Arthur.  Sam and Saf stayed behind to sleep off the night before.  It must have been a cold night as there was snow on the top of mount Wellington, but it turned out to be a beautiful warm sunny day.  The drive down to Port Arthur is absolutely amazing, the guides say allow an hour and a half to get there from Hobart, but I say allow for 3 hours as there are so many amazing places to stop and admire the view on the way.  We first stopped at a viewpoint that overlooked Pirate Bay, a stunning piece of coastline, then at the bottom of the hill we stopped again and walked out to the tessellated pavement, a rocky piece of coastline that due to the natural erosion by sea salt has formed a regular tile shapped pattern that seems almost man made in its regularity.  Our next stop was at the blowhole where we also found breathtaking cliff top views, at this point I was beginning to think we would not actually make it to Port Arthur after all.  After a quick lunch of half a dozen fresh oysters we continued on our way and eventually made it to Port Arthur.

Tessellated Pavement

Port Arthur is a world heritage site, and the location of a famous penal colony.  We only had half a day there so purchased the bronze pass which costs $37 per person, but as well as entry does include a walking tour and a harbour cruise.  The site is a mixture of preserved ruins and house museums spread out over a vast site.  Port Arthur was designed for repeat offenders as a 'machine to grind rouges into honest men' and was in some part successful.  It closed its doors as a prison however when the population of convicts changed from young able bodied men to the older, infirm and unemployable men, making it unsustainable.

We headed back to Hobart and had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Salamanca before heading back to the hotel for a nightcap.  The return flight was later than I had expected and so I ended up having to drive straight to work from the airport.  Even then I was an hour late for work.