Tasmania

When Freyja and Simon decided to come for Christmas there was a plan that Simon's parents would come too.  We thought about where we could take them for a little holiday within the holiday and decided on Tasmania.  Neither of Simon's parents had been to Australia at all, so anywhere would be new to them.  And neither Freyja nor Simon had been so it would be another State or Territory to collect.  Then Jetstar offered a deal on flights in December from Hobart to various places, including Melbourne. So I booked the return flights for us all.  I would worry about the outward flights later.

Alas.  Simons' parents, in the event, were unable to come to Australia.  They have deferred their visit to another time.  I assumed that Tasmania was off and that the return flights would have to be abandoned (they were non-refundable, given the cheap fares on offer).

Lindsey said no.  We were definitely going.

So we did.

We left on Friday on a late afternoon flight. It takes just over an hour to fly to Hobart from Tullamarine.  We picked up the car and found the house we had booked for the three days we are staying in Hobart.  We found a shopping complex nearby which has a supermarket, a bottle shop - and lots of other shops which weren't of much immediate interest to us but which might have been if we were staying longer.  I think by about 6:30 or 7 we were sat in our lounge room admiring our beautiful view, sipping wine and preparing dinner.

I woke up yesterday morning and saw this floating past:

We had been intending to head to Salamanca market close to its opening time of 9:00.  It seemed highly probable that at least some of the passengers on the boat would go to Salamanca so we decided to defer our arrival time by about an hour.  Which allowed for us to have a proper breakfast! One of the stallholders later told us that this had been a wise decision. Even so, the market was very crowded.  It was, of course, a pleasant Saturday morning very close to Christmas.  And there were clearly other tour groups there in addition to the cruise ship passengers.  At least two bus loads of Chinese tourists turned up while we were there. It was very productive for us.  We all came away with lots of purchases.  We may have to be more frugal for the rest of the trip!

I have said before that Hobart reminds me a bit of Edinburgh.  So I didn't particularly notice the pipe band providing an accompaniment to our wandering in the market.  Until Jim and I meandered into the park and saw this:

Right.  Lunchtime.  Where shall we go? How about Richmond?  A good place for lunch.  So that is where we spent the afternoon.  The Richmond pub doesn't really have any vegan options, although they did put together a plate of pasta and vegetables for Freyja.  They do have vegetarian options, so Simon was ok.  And Lindsey, Jim and I had the whole menu to play with so we were more than fine.  Although I do think that perhaps if we should find ourselves in Richmond again we should try one of the other eating opportunities.  

We pottered among the craft shops and wandered through their little Saturday market.  Freyja and Simon went in to look at the model village. It was a pleasant afternoon.

Photo by Lindsey

Waiting for Freyja and Simon who are in the model village

Back to the house for a relaxing late afternoon

And Freyja and Simon went for a walk down to to the beach.  We were told before we booked this house that the driveway is very steep.  It certainly is. I'm not sure I could actually have walked up it. Fortunately there are wooden stairs to the side which I can get up.

Night time view:

Sunday morning view: