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I left Sydney on 8th May and landed in Launceston in what looked like a field! Launceston has a population of about 70,000. The Arthouse hostel I stayed in during my stays here was lovely. It was an old hotel and had lots of character, though it was very cold! Was a strange day as it started very early for me. I decided to go check out the cateract gorge, Launceston's highlight. It was so nice there, a walk along it and then at the end there was a suspension bridge and a chairlift across the basin. I didn't go on the chairlift, choosing to walk round instead. I took myself on a walk up an empty path and just kept going, ending up in the middle of nowhere, the scenery had changed from green to yellow. I was only about 20minutes away from the gorge but felt like a different place! So by 12.30pm I had left Sydney, caught a flight to Tasmania and walked round cateract gorge, so much! Had some yummy fish and chips by the waterfront. Bit of a shock in the evenings here. As soon as it gets to about 5pm everything closes and the
streets are empty. Coming from 24hr Sydney it was a shock! Saturday I just wondered round the shops and watched a good film on the abolition of the slave trade in Britain at the hostel. Most of the shops on a Saturday close early afternoon, it's so strange!
Monday I went to the Queen Victoria Museum which was really good. They had the modern hand-on exhibits and the art gallery. I learnt about the first railway in Tasmania in the old railway workshop and they had an old blacksmiths in use until about the 70's too.
Tuesday I went to Hobart on the Tassielink bus. The journey took 2 1/2 hours. Hobart was a lot smaller than I thought, even though it was a population of about 200,000. Going from Launceston to the capital city I thought it would be a lot bigger than Launceston, but the inner city wasn't that much bigger. After checking into my hostel I booked a tour up to Mount Wellington, the mountain that looks down onto Hobart. I was going to do the cycle decent down which would have been awesome, but didn't. Went for a look at the waterfront, which was lovely,
while I was waiting for the bus. It was a spectacular trip. Even though it didn't look that far away the climb up there took a while but the scenery was so nice and arriving at the summit was WOW! You could see the whole of Hobart, and islands in the distance. I took about a million photos up there!! There was a funny sign there, which is one of the photographs I have put up, because of the tv station and pylon there, if you park between them the signals may shut down your car's computer system!
The next day was my trip to Port Arthur, a prison for British convicts in the 19th century. It was also the site of a tragedy in 1996. A local man shot dead 35 people. So sad. As we we were coming out of Hobart the driver (from Manchester!) told us about the bridge into Hobart. In the 70's a ship crashed into it and it collapsed in the middle sending cars into the water and one hanging half on and half off. On the way we had a few stops; Richmond was a cute English style village with an amazing bakery
with a haunted bridge, another stop was the Tasman Arch, another stop was at the place where Abel Tasman, a Dutchman landed in 1782 (the French followed, then the English who settled here. About 30 years after the Aboriginal population had decreased dramatically) and a funny town we drove through was Dootown. Most of the houses had Doo in the title so we had; Doo little, Doo Rum, and Didgeri-Doo!
Port Arthur operated from the 1830's to the 1870's. There was everything there, prison, workplaces, church and houses. Some were just were just a shell, others good condition. It was facinating because on the one hand it was harsh, working in chains, solitary confinement for the worse prisoners, but then, if you were good you may be rewarded with better jobs etc. We were given a card each eith a prisoner to learn about and mine was a Thomas Dickinson from Aston, Birmingham! We also had a little ferry cruise round the the Isle of the Dead, where all the dead were buried. They do a ghost tour at night at Port Arthur which I wish I had done.
Got a text from Robyn that day saying that her and
Thomas were getting back into Hobart that evening. They came to Tasmania the day after me and had rented a car to drive round. We met this evening at the hostel and caught up. Then we drove up Mount Wellington, this time in the dark! Was freeeeeezing and very windy up there! You couldn't see much because of the cloud, but it looked good at night-time. They told me about the ghost tour at Port Arthur which they did.
The next two days I did a tour taking me to the east coast and then back to Launceston, but that will be in the next blog.
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Carls
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Fab pics as usual :) Good times! xx