Tasmania: Hobart

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We left Melbourne and flew to Hobart, Tasmania’s capitol city, in southeast Tasmania, landing there around noon. Tiny airport! We rented the car and drove to Hobart where we were staying for the night. On the way in from the airport I was struck by how this area of the world reminded me of Nova Scotia. The greenery, the rolling hills, and the clarity in the atmosphere reminded me of time I've spent north of Halifax, NS, near the Atlantic.

In the CBD (Central Business District), all the streets are one way, so if you miss a street you have to go around a few blocks before you can turn to make up for it. In this fashion, we saw a lot of downtown Hobart! We checked in to our hotel apartment called The Old Wool Store – the old woolen mill in downtown Hobart. Now fancy and swank (“well appointed,” says the guide book), it still had old pieces of mill furniture and a guide to wool grades in the lobby.

We quickly stashed our stuff and headed to the Salamanca Market – we had two hours before it closed. An amazing street market awaited us when we arrived. Running for several blocks, up one side of the street, down the middle of the street, and up the other, it was the most diverse market I had ever seen. Fruits and vegetables, hand turned wood (bowls, cutting boards, pens -), glass, imports from Thailand and Nepal, cheeses, wool (from sheep to shawl, literally: fleeces, hand spun skeins of yarn, hand knit hats, gloves, and sweaters), Tasmanian brewed whisky (with free samples – go figure!), candy, pastry goods, trucks selling Turkish food, Persian food, and brats. I bought some handspun wool, a hand made stylus made from Tasmanian pine, and some of the best Turkish Delight I have ever tasted.

Because we were in a hurry to get to the market we didn’t stop to eat lunch, and by the time it closed at 3 pm we were hungry and wanted to eat a little bite before dinner. We walked along the wharf and the three of us shared one (huge) order of fish and chips. We made our way back to the hotel and rested, and for dinner, we headed to The Drunken Admiral, a seafood restaurant facing the docks and each had some of the most extraordinary seafood we have ever had (I had a Thai dish with cashew sauce, scallops and prawns; Scott had an amazing salmon steak wrapped in dry cured Tasmanian ham, served with olives, capers, roasted garlic, and a tomato sauce. Our friend had spaghettini with prawns).

The next day our day began with coffee and breakfast tarts from Daci and Daci (pronounced “dotsi and dotsi”), a bakery in downtown Hobart that has been in the same family for generations. It was simply amazing – there I was, on an island the size of West Virginia, with a population of 500,000, in a bakery that puts any comparable bakery in DC to shame. Tasmania is a foodie’s paradise. Despite its small population, it’s access to wholesome ingredients and good chefs rivals anything I have seen in the States. Good coffee abounds in this country as well. A “long black” will get you an Americano, a flat white will give you basically a cappuccino. I generally ordered a latte, which always arrive thick and creamy. With coffee in hand, we began our drive to Port Arthur, to explore one of the remains of one of the original penal colonies of Australia.

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Photos

Hotel
This is were we stayed - a converted wool mill.

For the tourists
I was in Australia for a full two weeks and still never could figure out which way to look before crossing the road. I was grateful for the instructions spray painted on the Hobart sidewalks.

Salamanca Market
The market looking up towards Mt. Wellington.

Salamanca Market
Looking down the other way. You can see the beautiful sandstone buildings that line Salamanca Place behind the vendors' tents.

Fish and chips!
The freshest fish and chips I have ever had.

The docks in Hobart
View from our fish and chips place on the dock.

The dock
Another view of Hobart from our fish and chip place, featuring the sandstone buildings on the opposite end of the docks from Salamanca.

Daci and Daci
This the the generations old bakery where we found our coffee and breakfast our first morning in Hobart.

Inside the bakery
It's really too bad that I can't add the smell of the inside of the bakery to this pic! Or that I didn't take a pic of the long counter to the right of the bread overflowing with croissants, cinnamon rolls, partries...