Natural Beauty meets Unnatural Cruelty

A leisurely start to exploring today after a little local shopping saw us retrieving the car from the very top level from what could be Hobart’s tallest building.

20 descending clockwise orbits from Level 10 to street level was doing its best to induce vertigo by the time we were ready to head to the Tasman peninsula for the bulk of the day. After just a few minutes of driving from the centre of the CBD we found ourselves in a rural setting - green pastures, many new lambs dotting fields and intricate waterways mark this as a special place.

About an hour of driving saw us arriving at the Tessellated pavement near Eaglehawk neck. The slightly unpromising looking weather had improved but it was high tide and most of the rock platform was covered, so we decided we’d press on to Port Arthur and revisit the scenic features of this beautiful part of the island on our way back to Hobart in the afternoon. It was almost midday before we arrived at Port Arthur and once we had paid our admission fees, had a bite of lunch on the benches beside the harbour, had a visit to the memorial garden of the Broadarrow Cafe and reflected on those terrible events of 28 April, 1996 - it was time for us to take the 20 minute Harbour cruise out around “The Isle of the Dead” (the name speaks for itself) and “Point Puer” (where the children convicts were incarcerated).

We didn’t feel the need to do a really thorough visit of all the buildings and features of the site as we remembered much of it from our previous visit. However, we revisited the Penitentiary, The Church and a few other buildings. We walked up the hill behind the main attractions to see the Motel we had stayed in 40 years previously and noted that it had been modernised a little.

We headed back towards Hobart and called in to see the various points of natural beauty on this part of the coastline - the Tasman Arch, Devil’s Kitchen, Blowhole and Tessellated pavement. The weather was mild and the scenery stunning.

On arrival back in Hobart, we did 20 anticlockwise orbits of the carpark to deposit the car for the night then strolled down to the Salamanca precinct. Sir Douglas Mawson is prominently featured here as this was his launch point for his Antarctic adventures and we stood at Constitution Dock where the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race finishes.

Back up the hill to Moevenpick for dinner at its attached restaurant (our second Italian meal in 2 days!) and now back in the room noting the late twilight at these southern latitudes..Les mer