Tasmania, part one
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Anne
09 Juli 2014 | Australië, Hobart
Hi everybody,
Sunday morning I flew to Hobart, which all went fine. I had arranged for a shuttle bus to take me to my studio and I was lucky that my room was already cleaned. What a luxurious place! Very spacious, clean and well-equipped. Through the rain I went to the supermarket and when I came back it started to clear up. It was time to check out the city, so I walked down to the harbour. Hobart is the 2nd oldest city in Australia after Sydney, but there they knocked most of the old buildings down and you here they didn’t. All the buildings look historic and amazing! I took a walk through the Domain, which has all sport facilities and the Royal Botanic Gardens. The gardens were very beautiful and I even got my cappuccino for free :) On my way back to my studio I walked through the historic Battery Point, which has the famous Salamanca Markets and it is the place where originally the ammunition and guns were kept to protect them from the invaders (who never came…).
Monday I went on my first tour with Chino as my guide (“Because I drink a lot of coffee”) and 7 Asian travel companions from China, Korea and Singapore. First we went to Richmond, which is a really old quiet town. The oldest bridge of Australia was made by convicts and it said to be haunted, but I was fine when I walked over it ;) Then we moved on to the Tasman Peninsula, where we passed Doo Town. All the houses have names there with ‘doo’ in it, like Just Doo It or Didgeri-Doo or Doo-in Time; hilarious! We went to see the Tasman Arch, which used to be a cave but the roof collapsed to now there is just an arch left and the sea was really rough so it was rushing through the arch, which gave a nice effect. We did a walk next to the cliffs and the look-out points were amazing. Afterwards we travelled on to our main attraction: Port Arthur. This used to be a convict jail from the British Empire, where the bad boys from London were brought to. Often it was just for stealing money, food or cutting wood in an illegal place. They were treated really badly, first by physical punishment as whipping and later on with mental punishment, where they were kept in total solitude without seeing or hearing anyone and no sleep. No wonder the mental hospital was build right next to this prison! I mainly walked around with Kai, a meteorologist from Korea, and we did the tour and a cruise and explored the buildings. On our way back to Hobart we stopped at the Federate Chocolate Factory where we sampled some chocolate and the Eaglehawk Neck, which the small place that connects the peninsula with the main land. Originally 18 dogs were placed on this neck, so none of the inmates could escape. We watched the night light of Hobart from the other side of the river and then returned home. The group was really nice and I had a great time!
My tour group on Tuesday was really different, Australian and Scottish people and quite a bit older than me but real nice anyway :) We went to Bruny Island, which is a big island just of the coast below Hobart with about 650 permanent residents. There’s a northern dry part and a southern wet part, which are connected by a narrow neck where the little penguins live (but they are nocturnal, so we didn’t see them). We had a drive around the island and went to see the white wallabies. The island is the only place in the world where they have them in the wild, but because they don’t see very well we could get quite close. Their grey cousins were all around them and hopped off more quickly if they noticed us. After some morning tea with a delicious muffin, it was time to visit the light house. Only people of this tour get to climb it and the view is just amazing! We then went on to have lunch, which started with a tasting platter of all locally produced goods. The island doesn’t have a supermarket, so historically people grow/make all sorts of food: beef cattle, sheep for the wool, cheese, oysters, wine, olives, fudge, chocolates, jams and chutneys. It’s been the first time since I came here that I tasted some good cheese, instead of that cheddar stuff they have here. Apparently the guy went over the Europe to learn the skill and brought it back to Tassie. Some of the others loved the oysters so much they decided to buy a box on the way back.
I'll tell you all about the rest of my trip next time :)
Anne
Sunday morning I flew to Hobart, which all went fine. I had arranged for a shuttle bus to take me to my studio and I was lucky that my room was already cleaned. What a luxurious place! Very spacious, clean and well-equipped. Through the rain I went to the supermarket and when I came back it started to clear up. It was time to check out the city, so I walked down to the harbour. Hobart is the 2nd oldest city in Australia after Sydney, but there they knocked most of the old buildings down and you here they didn’t. All the buildings look historic and amazing! I took a walk through the Domain, which has all sport facilities and the Royal Botanic Gardens. The gardens were very beautiful and I even got my cappuccino for free :) On my way back to my studio I walked through the historic Battery Point, which has the famous Salamanca Markets and it is the place where originally the ammunition and guns were kept to protect them from the invaders (who never came…).
Monday I went on my first tour with Chino as my guide (“Because I drink a lot of coffee”) and 7 Asian travel companions from China, Korea and Singapore. First we went to Richmond, which is a really old quiet town. The oldest bridge of Australia was made by convicts and it said to be haunted, but I was fine when I walked over it ;) Then we moved on to the Tasman Peninsula, where we passed Doo Town. All the houses have names there with ‘doo’ in it, like Just Doo It or Didgeri-Doo or Doo-in Time; hilarious! We went to see the Tasman Arch, which used to be a cave but the roof collapsed to now there is just an arch left and the sea was really rough so it was rushing through the arch, which gave a nice effect. We did a walk next to the cliffs and the look-out points were amazing. Afterwards we travelled on to our main attraction: Port Arthur. This used to be a convict jail from the British Empire, where the bad boys from London were brought to. Often it was just for stealing money, food or cutting wood in an illegal place. They were treated really badly, first by physical punishment as whipping and later on with mental punishment, where they were kept in total solitude without seeing or hearing anyone and no sleep. No wonder the mental hospital was build right next to this prison! I mainly walked around with Kai, a meteorologist from Korea, and we did the tour and a cruise and explored the buildings. On our way back to Hobart we stopped at the Federate Chocolate Factory where we sampled some chocolate and the Eaglehawk Neck, which the small place that connects the peninsula with the main land. Originally 18 dogs were placed on this neck, so none of the inmates could escape. We watched the night light of Hobart from the other side of the river and then returned home. The group was really nice and I had a great time!
My tour group on Tuesday was really different, Australian and Scottish people and quite a bit older than me but real nice anyway :) We went to Bruny Island, which is a big island just of the coast below Hobart with about 650 permanent residents. There’s a northern dry part and a southern wet part, which are connected by a narrow neck where the little penguins live (but they are nocturnal, so we didn’t see them). We had a drive around the island and went to see the white wallabies. The island is the only place in the world where they have them in the wild, but because they don’t see very well we could get quite close. Their grey cousins were all around them and hopped off more quickly if they noticed us. After some morning tea with a delicious muffin, it was time to visit the light house. Only people of this tour get to climb it and the view is just amazing! We then went on to have lunch, which started with a tasting platter of all locally produced goods. The island doesn’t have a supermarket, so historically people grow/make all sorts of food: beef cattle, sheep for the wool, cheese, oysters, wine, olives, fudge, chocolates, jams and chutneys. It’s been the first time since I came here that I tasted some good cheese, instead of that cheddar stuff they have here. Apparently the guy went over the Europe to learn the skill and brought it back to Tassie. Some of the others loved the oysters so much they decided to buy a box on the way back.
I'll tell you all about the rest of my trip next time :)
Anne
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