Hobart 2 - Sightseeing
Jan 14th, 2008 by Nick
After a week and a half on foot and using public transportation, it’s very different with a car. My flight landed at 8am, and by 9am I had figured out the car and driven to the city to my hotel. The Grand Chancellor is your typical small city primary businessman’s hotel. It looks about 25 years old, Holiday Inn quality in the rooms, a little better in the common areas. Even though the room was not ready, I ditched one suitcase and the car, and set out on foot.
About three blocks away was the tourist information center. And starting a few minutes later was a $39 three-hour mini-bus tour, maximum capacity 28. Sold…. Most of the people on the tour were Americans from a cruise ship that had just arrived from Melbourne earlier that morning. The tour was solid for a small city, with a decent mix of historical sights and various vistas. I thought they stayed too long at most stops, but I was also pretty tired…
After the tour ended, I walked back to the hotel and got into my room. After a few minutes of unpacking, I collected the car and drove to the tourist trap of Richmond. Richmond is supposed to be a quintissential small Tassie town. That’s ok, it was a very pleasant drive past several vineyards, and a solid one-street town with mid-1800s buildings converted into stores and restaurants. I was starving, so I stopped for soup and a ploughman’s cheese platter at a local restaurant, then wandered around and windowshopped. There was an old jail there, but the wait was too long and I had better things to go see.
Having looked at my Tassie map from Hertz, I saw that the street where my hotel is located is Davey Street, one of the main streets in the city. After leaving the city, Davey Street becomes the road to Mount Wellington. Mount Wellington is at about 1250 meters, and is situated west of the city. Once you get to the base of the access road, it’s another 25 minutes to get to the summit. Monday at 3:30pm has to be one of the best times to do this drive, as there was very little traffic on the access road.
The view from the summit was absolutely stunning. There is no way that my camera is going to do it justice. Imagine being three times further up than the top of the Sears Tower. Even though there was a bit of a haze, the view was easily 75-100 miles.
After that, I drove through a couple of areas of Hobart looking for a Westpac ATM. I never found one, but I found a Coles supermarket and stocked up on cheap water and Schwepps Diet Lemonade. Then I came back to the hotel and crashed for about 90 minutes. I decided that I’d better eat something, so I stopped at Mures’ across the street. They catch their own seafood, and have a quick service place on the ground floor and a full restaurant on the upper floor. I had some chowder and a scallops-and-chips from the quick service place - other than bland chips, everything else was fine. I then walked over to Salmanica Place to burn off dinner and look unsuccessfully for an internet cafe. Instead, I’m in the hotel lobby business center, as I did not see the point of paying A$27 when I’m going to be asleep in a few minutes, and an hour from the business center is A$5.
Tommorrow I head to Port Arthur and then to Bichemo, so lots of driving.
Cool — I have a friend near Kingston - so I’ll pretend that you waved at her from the summit.
You can’t go wrong with diet fizzy lemonade!
I think you are supposed to put vinegar on the chips, mate.
K-)