Hobart Interlude (a.k.a. Kara is put to work)

 

Sunday 7^th November, Grenada, West Indies.

Woohoo, I'm back in Grenada! In stark contrast to Hobart the daytime high is 29 degrees, overnight low 25 degrees, I'm buzzing around on the back of the moped, I've exposed my shiny white Tassie skin to daylight for the first time in months and have completely abandoned shoes and socks again. I am horribly, horribly jet-lagged though. Those of you Aussies who are lamenting your recent loss of overseas travel beware – I guarantee you, you have forgotten how disgusting a decent jet-lag is. And it's not getting any better with age.

After my epic Hobart-Perth-Doha-New York-Grenada flight sequence I had one night in quarantine and have been on the loose for the last few days. Karl's even put me to work painting antifoul on Gráinne. We did the pilgrimage to the microbrewery yesterday to celebrate the completion of the antifouling and this afternoon I get to have my first experience of Sunday afternoon at the gorgeous Aquarium restaurant on the beach. Curfew here has been getting later and later to the point where it's now irrelevant (midnight) but there's still no live music so I think the Sunday afternoon won't be quite as much a party as I've heard about (edit: there was live music!).

So I was in Tassie for four months in the end, longer than the original three months Karl had imposed on me, due to some passport postal dramas (did you know the post doesn't work anymore? It doesn't. Nothing goes anywhere quickly and things languish for weeks in dark, dusty corners of airports. And now Ireland has “closed its borders to post”, seriously, it's a real thing.), sigh. But it was mostly grand.

Famous Hobart thing number 1: the judges box at the Sydney to Hobart finish line.

Famous Hobart thing number 2: Errol Flynn.

Famous Hobart thing number 3: The Cascade Brewery (Australia's oldest continuously operating brewery).

Back in July I was released from my two week hotel quarantine in Perth straight into a covid outbreak and a lockdown, yay. So instead of a wine cruise down the Swan River we walked laps and laps around our 5km permitted radius. Thankfully our 5km also included a nice stretch of coastline. And because of the outbreak Tassie closed its borders to Western Australia so I had to apply for an exemption as an “essential traveller” and agree to quarantine for another two weeks on arrival in Hobart. Aaaaaaarrrrgh. Thankfully a couple of days after I got to Tassie the outbreak was declared over, Tassie re-opened their borders to WA and took the risk of releasing me into the community.

Lockdown walks near Scarborough, WA.

Hobart, “Gateway to Antarctica” (an interesting boast, while technically true it's completely irrelevant to about 99.9% of visitors), Tasmania. Funny little spot, Tassie. It's almost, but not quite, completely unlike Australia.

Winter in Hobart is cold and dark. Coooooold, and daaaaaark. I left the house in the morning in darkness, I arrived back in the evening in darkness. My first morning at work I stumbled out in the dark to find my car covered in a strange, cold, white substance. Frost. I'd forgotten about frost. My recipe for surviving a Tassie winter consists of the Hobart Aquatic Centre (for morning gym - outdoor exercise not being an option - and evening pool sessions in my ongoing quest to conquer the freestyle), the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (I went to every single one of their concerts), Bruny Island and MONA (David Walsh's Museum of Old and New Art).

The beautiful Bruny Island

The fun starts before you arrive at MONA - on the ferry.

View of Mt. Wellington from the roof of MONA. I spent many happy Sundays enjoying lunch and live music on the lawns before having a wander around some art. And it's free for Tasmanian residents!

I had my little house in the 'burbs with a lovely view down the Derwent towards Bruny Island. I was able to watch the sailing fleet out for the weekend and midweek regattas. There was a local yacht club (Bellerive) to make me feel at home but it took a while to get used to the insanely steep streets, every walk home from the bus-stop was a major workout. This is absolutely not a cycling town. My weekday routine was fairy dull – Aquatic Centre, work, Aquatic Centre, home (sometimes supermarket first just to change it up), dinner, wash-up, bed, repeat. The main challenge was trying to stay warm on the couch in my layers of thermals, hoodie and blanket. My favourite feature of the house was the Tassie style louvred window in the toilet. “Tassie style” meaning the louvres don't move, they're permanently open. All winter. Just to toughen you up.

Home sweet home.

My view down the Derwent to Bruny Island.

And sometimes this view.

And my view of Mt. Wellington.

Weekends were adventure time. Well, Saturday mornings were housework time. After that weekends were adventure time. I thought I was going to be exploring the whole island but quickly realised that everything is much further away than you think and usually at the end of narrow winding and maybe unpaved roads that are dark a lot of the time. And once it gets dark there's the dusk-to-dawn 45km/h speed limit that really hinders progress. So I stuck to adventuring in the southeast corner, usually balancing my weekend by combining a “cultural” (music, art, cinema) activity with an “outdoor” (inevitably a walk, Tassie has some gorgeous walking tracks) activity. And found lots to keep me occupied.

Remarkable Cave. It's "remarkable" because the opening at the far end is the shape of Tassie.

A beautiful walk on the Tasman Peninsula. A big peninsula with a tiny neck and so perfect for easily guarding the prisoners at Port Arthur penal colony back in the day.

A wander up to the Cape Bruny lighthouse.

The view from the top of the Cape Bruny lighthouse. Close to the most southerly spot in Australia and the next stop south is Antarctica.

A walking track on Bruny Island. I love Bruny Island.

Sadly, due to border complications, all my threatened visitors from interstate chickened out except the old reliable Western Australians. And good old Hobart treated them to a spot of snow. And rain. And some sunshine.

Looking down towards the city from a snowy Mt. Wellington.

Lunch at the Bruny Island Cheese and Beer Company. They make cheese, they make beer, it's on Bruny Island - could it get any better?

We braved a bar themed around fossils and skeletal remains, all genuine.

And then shortly before I left Hobart, just to poetically bookend my visit to Australia and not to be outdone by Perth, they had a 3 day covid lockdown.

Working from home in lockdown.

The obligatory microbrewery photo. I found five in Hobart.