Hobart: Mt Wellington + Long Beach + The Taste Festival

We arrived back in Hobart on yet another beautiful day and the receptionist at our motel (St Ives) recommended it would be a great day to go up Mt Wellington, the huge mountain in Hobart.

It was a 20min drive from our motel to the Summit and the road was quite narrow at times.  Once at the top we were rewarded with magnificent slightly hazy views and a very rocky precipice.

We then ventured along to Long Beach for a casual lunch at a bakery where we each had salads and cold ice-cream based drinks.  The beach area has a lovely promenade from where we saw some of the Sydney to Hobart yachts arriving.

The Taste Festival is an event run each year in Hobart and this was the next stop on our journey.  This is a Food, Wine & Beer festival with a variety of entertainment that runs for 7 days and nights with superb food and beverages.  Very enjoyable.

From Hobart to Coles Bay

We got a rental car in Hobart and headed up the East coast towards Coles Bay on the Freycinet Peninsula along the Tasman Highway with the help of our trusty GPS.  It is worth noting though that once out of Hobart, that many of the smaller roads in towns up the East Coast were not covered by the TomTom maps.  This wasn’t a problem due to how few streets there are in some of these towns but does make the GPS a little less useful.

Along the way we stopped at Spring Beach which is just out of Orford which was a beautiful beach busy with families today.  Actually, on either side of the shot taken here it was a lot emptier on the beach.  The temperature at this point was about 24˚ Celcius and it was about 11am.

Our next stop was about 10km south of Swansea at Spiky Bridge, a convict built construction.  One look at the bridge and it’s not hard to see where the name came from.  We were initially looking at heading down to the beach on the other side of the road but the temperature was getting a bit too warm.

We stopped a few kilometres up the road at Kate’s Berry Farm. Whilst the cakes and jams looked nice (and I think I saw some ice-cream too), there were literally only two punnets of raspberries and one punnet of strawberries to be seen and it appeared to be a tourist trap with a lovely building and outlook so we escaped.  There were lots of other tourists there on a bus that weren’t so lucky.

Nine Mile Beach just North of Swansea was our next stop along the way, and this beach had significantly more drift wood on the shore than Spiky Beach and did not appear to be as friendly for swimming at but was nice all the same.  It would however be nice if some of these beaches had some sun shelter.

Coles Bay (or to be more accurate Swanwick), our destination was basically at the end of Nine Mile Beach, however there is a little stretch of water at the end without a bridge which means that a 60km (or thereabouts) long drive is required to drive around the bay.  The view from our unit at Freycinet Beach Holiday Apartments is absolutely beautiful and it is lovely listening to the waves arriving on the shore.

For lunch we went to the Freycinet Bakery Cafe in Coles Bay and I had a Curried Scallop Pie which was okay (but the scallops, as expected in a pie, were overdone) and Jane had a Seafood chowder that she enjoyed.  I then went to the Bottle Store at the back of the local Bar and bought a couple of local wines to enjoy over the next couple of days.  We also bought a couple of other bits and pieces at the local store for breakfast and snacks and then returned to our apartment to find a Snake on the driveway.  Thankfully the snake moved and we were able to park the car but it was a little scary.  Unsure of the protocol re snakes, we have been reading a few little bits in some of our guidebooks but without the Internet readily on hand it’s a little hard. Apparently there are four Snake varieties in Tasmania and all are venomous so we are keeping our distance! It does look like he might live in our garden though.

Our first morning in Hobart

I woke up early this morning and went out for a walk along the waterfront in Hobart.  It was a nice start to our trip away and a magnificently sunny day.

Hobart is so picturesque and has many buildings that have been there since the settlers arrived in the 1800’s looking for the next penal settlement after Sydney.  

Salamanca Place has a number of cafes, bars and shops and this morning when I ventured out many appeared to be just opening up around 7:30.  I can imagine that this area will be buzzing later and there will be lots of people lingering around.

 

 

I bought some supplies at the Salamanca Store and then found that there was free Wifi available in this area for up to 5MB download per day so quickly checked Twitter, posted a Twitpic and checked out some emails.

I then went back to our Hotel (Zero Davey) and Jane & I ventured out to breakfast at The Timeless Way.  We started with some excellent (build-your-own Latte’s) out the front, but it got a tad too chilly so we ventured out the back to a lovely atrium to eat the mediocre breakfast that was made up for the fact that the Waitress was friendly, the food arrived in a timely manner, and the aforementioned coffee.

Relaxing Saturday

Its very late on Saturday evening after Earth Hour 2009. We've had an easy day today. Had to try really hard not to laugh at the cat who fell out of bed this morning then just kind of stayed where he fell for several seconds before realising he was looking undignified and high-tailing it out of the room. Then a late rising, just in time for me to leave Simon at home while I picked up a girlfriend and went out for a very leisurely lunch. Even the waiter commented as we left the courtyard 3 hours later 'you've had a lovely sojourn haven't you?'. Well indeed yes, we most certainly did!

Simon and I headed up to Browns Bay with the primary purpose of checking out Janssens butchery - they make (?) continental style (and South African) sausages. We ended up buying quite bit actually! (oh, they do other meats and deli goods as well, but the sausages were what brought them to our attention).

Before we got there though, we tried to find a cafe to have a late afternoon tea. Hmm, not a successful mission I fear, so we ended up in Starbucks. (Which I won't call a cafe, but they do make good fruppucinos I will concede (shame about the coffee)).

I renewed my artistic license and took some questionable photos. I had fun though.

(in case you're wondering, its Simon's hands. he's turning pages in the newspaper)

Then this evening, we turned out the lights for earth hour, again I took a few more gratuitous photos and then we looked through the photos of our nieces' (yes, 2 of them, twins even) 2nd birthday party.

A very uneventful blog post for a very relaxing, chilled out and pleasant Saturday. Hope yours was a good one!

Obviously Simon took this photo of me watching stars during Earth Hour.:)