Short cruise

Above:  “Organ Pipes” which are striations (dolerite columns) on the cliff-like crown at the top of Mt Wellington, seeen from the Salamanca area.

Having pushed myself a little yesterday in anticipation of deteriorating weather and despite the early wake-up for the flight, I have a relaxing day today.

I didn’t even leave my room till 0930.  I had planned to take the walking route given by an old guidebook but it turned out I had done much of it through my random explorations yesterday.  So, I went to the places I hadn’t been, starting with the suburb of Battery Point, which is the priciest in Hobart.

Here there were many old homes, some in sandstone.  The route took me back down to Salamanca.  Well, the walk only lasted about 30 mins as everything was actually closer than it appears on the map.

I wandered to the opposite edge of the city and went up to the Cenotaph before returning to the centre for lunch.

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Back in the room, I had less than a couple of hours chilling before doing the 1h Hobart Historic Cruise.  This cruise does two routes, the northerly one heading into the river and the southerly one out towards the sea a little.  I did the latter, having booked it from a site called bookme.com.au at a discount.

Apart from the captain, the crew and ground staff appeared to be all Chinese and likewise, most of the customers.  I wonder if it was Chinese company.  They certainly can’t be making any money from the few passengers they were carrying.

We headed to the eastern bank of the Derwent River (it’s pretty wide so it looks like a bay) near Howrah and then crossed over to the opposite bank.  We saw the Wrest Point Casino, the first in Australia before returning to the pier.

It was a mildly interesting cruise, OK for the price I paid.  It wasn’t overly scenic on an overcast day.

I got real value out of my room at the YHA by spending more time in it before wandering out in to cold for dinner.  I had my heart set on a Vietnamese vermicelli salad from the place I ate at yesterday.  Being the cheapest and nearly the nearest, I might eat all my meals in Hobart there.