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Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Friday - February 22, 2008 - Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

We arrive in Hobart, Tasmania, which is actually still part of Australia. I wasn’t aware that Tasmania was part of Australia because it is a separate island about 200-300 miles from the mainland. We had a nice breakfast in the dinning room. We met some other folks from Colorado and their youngest son, who now lives in Queensland, Australia. Nice folks – they have done a great deal of traveling.

Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania in 1642 and called it Van Dieesnon Land and claimed it for the Holland. He also discovered New Zealand and Fiji for the Dutch East Indian Company.
The original inhabitants of Tasmania were members of the semi-nomadic Mouheneener tribe. A series of bloody encounters with the Europeans and the effects of diseases brought by the settlers forced away the aboriginal populations, which were replaced by free settlers and convicts. The island state was founded as a penal colon in 1803; it is one of Australia’s oldest cities. The first settlement began in Risdon Cove on the eastern side and was later moved to Sullivan’s Cove. The city was named after Lord Hobart the Colonial Secretary.

In the morning, we met up with Tom and Connie to grab a taxi and travel the island to sight see. By the way, the driver’s name was Bob, with not a whole lot of personality but we finely got him laughing by the end of the day. His wife was a horse person and one of her horses still holds the record at the local race track in Hobart!

We started the day with a trip to the top of the Mt. Wellington. This is about 4,000 feet up, with 180 degree views of the city below. We could also see the river and harbor. You could see the cruise ships in the harbor, and of course we took lots of pictures, beautiful area. It was also amazing to watch the cloud cover come in so fast. Within minutes we couldn’t see a thing, but by the time we finished our day and drove back by the top of the mountain, it was bathed in sunlight again. It was amazing to watch the speed of the changes.

Then we went on to Bonorong Wildlife Park for more kangaroos, wallabies koalas, wombats and Tasmania Devils. Most were just babies and had been raised by the young men and women in the park. What a special treat it was to see these babies up close and personal. We ran into everyone else from the cruise ship, either on their own tour or on a bus tour. Funny isn’t it. It was fantastic to see the baby Tasmania Devil’s just playing and snuggling with their adopted Mom and we could get so close to them. That was extra special.

From there we went to Richmond for lunch, it was originally started by convicts about 150 years ago. It was an interesting town. We would have liked to have spent more time there. We also saw the bridge and church that the convicts had build. They are the oldest in Australia. We found a great tavern for lunch; it was really good food and lots of it. We all had several drinks and a brief walk through the town.

From there the taxi took us to a winery. We decided not to do any tasting, since we had already too many drinks with lunch and really didn’t want to end up buying any wines. As we were walking around the winery we did get a chance to see a flock of wild cockatiels on the wing. It was a special treat but they were too far away to take any good pictures of them, even thou we did try. Really haven’t seen many wild exotic birds except in the zoos and sanctuaries.

On our way back we went around the harbor and took some pictures of the boat yard that builds the large catamarans. Some are built for our own US Navy.

From there Bob took us to see Australia's oldest brewery, the Cascade Brewery. We then went into a quaint part of the town, which had really neat houses of all size and building types.

After that it was back to the ship. The day started out cold and windy, but ended up warm and sunny. It was a very good day and we got to see a lot of things that we really enjoyed. As we were departing Hobart, a band of bagpipers bid us farewell and happy cruising!