Saturday 7 September 2024 – With a day at leisure stretching before us, it was obvious that we would go for a walk and Jane had discovered a self-guided walking route for us to follow. Hobart is an interesting city to walk around, as it’s the second-oldest capital city in Australia after Sydney, having been founded as a British colony in 1804 and settled as a penal colony by hard-bitten British and Irish convicts. There’s quite a lot of Georgian architecture from this convict era, and it makes for a very attractive place to wander round.
We are staying at the Henry Jones Art Hotel, more of which in a separate post, but it stretches for quite a long way along Hobart’s waterfront.
Outside it by the water, there are various statues: the “walk to freedom” – remembering the female convicts (and their children) who settled here;
and various references to Australian Antarctic exploration, for which Hobart was a centre.
The chap on the right above is Belgian-born explorer Louis Bernacchi, the first Australian to winter in Antarctica, and who accompanied Scott as chief scientist on one of his expeditions.
As is often the case in waterside cities, the waterfront area is attractive
with a selection of unusual boats, the purpose of which is not necessarily obvious.
The other side of the waterfront area from our hotel was given over, it being a Saturday morning, to the Salamanca street market, which is A Thing.
It is vast
and diverse, with stalls offering fresh and prepared foods, clothes and accessories of all kinds as well as a startling range of niche products.
Models made from ammunition
Meringue specialist
Sock specialist
Fossil specialist
It is clearly very popular – it was very crowded indeed, and so we headed out past it towards Battery Point, which is set on a hill above the city. Its name stems from the fact that the first Battery was built there as part of Hobart’s coastal defences, and well stocked with arms and ammunition which, in the end, were never used in anger, just mainly for ceremonial salutes.
To get there, we passed the old semaphore station
and entered the Battery Point area proper, where there are many styles of colonial buildings, from cottages to grander houses.
One very attractive diversion took us to Arthur Circus, which has several old cottages, originally constructed for the garrison officers of the Battery, surrounding a small park area.
Walking on took us past many more really attractive older buildings, lovely spring blossom, and some great views over the city.
We stopped for coffee
at a place where they had fantastic cakes
(yes, we had some; yes I took photos; no, you won’t see them here) and at least one interesting item on the day’s menu.
Our path took us past St. George’s Church, a Greek revival church built in 1838 to serve the Battery Point residents (the classical tower was designed by English architect James Blackburn in 1847).
Steps took us back down to the Salamanca area, where we found more quirky statuary
It’s entitled “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”
some helpful people,
and, on the lawns outside Parliament House, a Masked Lapwing, a bird we had seen before,
and a Pied Currawong, one which was new to us.
The city has some attractive, imposing and, indeed, historic buildings, too.
The oldest continuously-licensed pub in Australia
City Hall
Post Office Building
The slightly odd bell tower of St. David’s Cathedral
We went into St. David’s Cathedral,
which is odd in that it has a gift shop beside the pews
and it has some lovely stained glass, both classic
and modern.
Opposite the cathedral is a statue of someone or other, but
Franklin, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Actually I do, but couldn’t resist the joke. It’s Sir John Franklin, an Arctic explorer and former Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the convict era.
That was it for our walk around the city, and very pleasant it was, too. We got back to our hotel in time for a tour of our unique hotel, which is what I shall write about next; I hope you join me to read about it.
Friday 6 September 2024 – Our entry to Melbourne was not entirely straightforward. Neither was our exit, which laid bare the sheer opacity of the airline ticketing process. We had been booked on a Virgin Australia flight yesterday morning from Melbourne to Hobart, a relatively short flight of an hour and a quarter or so. When we came to check in online, we found we were not allowed to do so; seats had not been allocated, there were no free seats except extra cost options (extra legroom seats, basically), and when I tried to pay the extra, all my various credit or debit cards were declined on the incomprehensible basis that I was trying to pay in a currency different from that of the original booking. I think it was something to do with it having been a travel agent booking, a suspicion which was reinforced later.
Some moments after failing to check in online, we received an e-mail from VA apologising for changing our flights. Instead of a direct flight at 10.40am, we were now on a 3.30pm flight. Closer examination of the e-mail revealed that the flight was to Sydney, and would be followed by a 5.50pm flight from Sydney to Hobart. None of the options we could explore online revealed that there were any direct flights available from Melbourne to Hobart. So we checked in for our multi-stage flight thinking that VA must have cancelled the original one.
We took a small amount of comfort from the later departure time, were able to have a relaxed morning exiting our apartment, and got ourselves to the airport for about 2pm. At this point, Jane’s caution about the whole thing paid off, as she was concerned about whether our bags would be checked through all the way to Hobart. So we looked around for an operative to help us and, as luck would have it, he, Irwan, was brilliant. He took us to a manned bag drop and started chatting with the lady there; between them, they figured out that there was a 1720 direct flight from Melbourne to Hobart. Irwan then spent quite a lot of screen time basically, we think, getting around all the objections that the system was throwing up against us being allowed on this flight. Again, the fact that this was a travel agent booking was mentioned as a complication. To cut what is already a long story short, he managed to cudgel his computer into allocating us extra legroom seats on this direct flight for no extra charge, proving that he was a Good Man. We had some time to kill before our flight, but would still arrive earlier than VA’s rather eccentric re-routing.
My suspicion is that VA had overbooked all the Hobart flights that day which is why it was rerouting us via Sydney; and further that we were lucky to find in Irwan someone who could get round the technological barriers put in place to make our lives more miserable.
So, we had three hours to kill before our flight. This could mean only one thing.
As it happens, our departure was delayed a further 30 minutes by the late arrival of air crew, but we still got to Hobart
earlier than we would have done had we gone via Sydney.
Awaiting us to transfer us to our hotel was a young Taiwanese chap called Stephen who was very proactive in helping us with bags and so forth, and so we were soon enough at the frankly quite amazing Henry Jones Art Hotel on Hobart waterfront. Only once before had we walked into a hotel which made such a striking impression – the Singular Hotel in Patagonia. The Henry Jones has a unique vibe and quite a history to it and I shall write about it in more detail in due course. For now, suffice it to say that we have a very large and very comfortable room and the lady who runs the bar knows her cocktails.
All that was yesterday. Today, we were booked to go on an excursion to Bruny Island, a very oddly-shaped island south of Hobart.
(By the way, the empty bit shown on the left of the map really does look like that on Google. That’s because it seems to be empty – it’s the Southwest National Park and appears to be devoid of anything which looks like civilisation.)
Our tour was billed as offering “spectacular landscapes and tastings of gourmet local products”, so I thought we were in for a day of mainly majestic scenery. Since it was raining when we were picked up, I also hoped that we would simply be ferried about to gawp at (and, of course, photograph) the views without getting too soused. The day didn’t turn out like that, actually.
Our guide for the day was Alan
who was wrangling a coach and 24 guests. We had a drive to the ferry terminal,
where there was also a marina.
As we crossed the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and looked back, it was clear that the Tasmanian scenery was going to be quite different from almost any we’d so far encountered.
Having expected majestic landscapes on our arrival, I was a bit surprised that the first thing that Alan was talking about was a cheese stop. As we headed there, Alan gave us a few facts about Bruny Island, and it was clear that it was reasonably close in spirit to French Island, where we’d been just a couple of days before. Larger than French Island, its population is just 600. It’s not so off-grid – there’s electricity, for example, and a greater range of retail options than just the one general store – but it’s still mainly national park, state forest and some grazing areas, popular as a holiday location with some surfing beaches.
And so this was our first destination on the tour:
who did a great job of explaining about the company, its products and its ethos, all of which are rather impressive. The cheese business has been going since 2003, after its founder, Nick Haddow, spent 10 years working with specialist cheese makers in many different countries around the world. The milk used is from their own farm, Glen Huon, which is actually on the mainland and which raises three rare breeds. Unusually, it allows the calves to stay with their mothers and drink their milk for several months, which lowers the stress levels for the cows, thus improving the quality of the milk yield. The focus on solely Tasmanian produce shapes the way they make their cheese and what ingredients are used in its production. We sampled four cheeses.
(Apologies for the photo of food, which is normally against my principles, but it is rather the story, here.)
You’ll notice a glass of beer in the photo. That’s there because in 2016 the company also started brewing its own beer, again using only Tasmanian-grown ingredients.
It was clear that there was a lot of passion, dedication and expertise at work. As a result, the cheeses are award-winning.
As we trooped back on to the bus and moved on, Alan mentioned the other tastings we would be doing during the tour – chocolate and honey. So it became clear that this was to be a major component of the day.
Our next stop, though, was a scenery stop, with a historical twist. From the map above, you can see that the two major lumps of the island are joined by a narrow stretch of land, which is about 70m wide at its narrowest. We could take the opportunity for a good view over it, provided we were prepared to walk up
some 240 steps. I did this, and the view was, indeed, worth the climb. You can clearly see The Neck, the strip of land that connects North and South Bruny.
The historical angle could be found at the top;
a monument to Truganini, a powerful aboriginal woman who fought for the rights of the indigenous people against the early colonists. She witnessed the murder of her mother by sailors and the kidnap of her sisters by sealers. She formed an association with a lay preacher, George Augustus Robinson, who hatched various plans to relocate those aboriginals who had not been killed of by colonists and their diseases, and enlisted Truganini’s help in executing those plans. The various plans and promises came to naught – it is a depressing story to read, and her treatment after her death reflects even more badly on the colonists. Her life has become representative of both the dispossession and destruction that was exacted upon Indigenous Australians and also their determination to survive the colonial genocidal policies that were enforced against them.
The area around the lookout is also home to Little Penguins and Mutton Birds (Shearwaters), and their burrows can be seen in places, and beside a lower boardwalk in the same location.
The bitumen of the road running along The Neck was changed from black to white
in order that the penguins could better be seen by motorists. We saw no penguins – it’s the wrong time of year for that here – but I did spot a blue wren.
We moved on past the pleasant scenery of the island’s settled areas,
and stopped for a short walk in the Mavista area, where there’s a walking track through rainforest.
It has a very prehistoric feel to it, due to the ferns and moss that dominate the environment.
Our next stop was to be lunch, in an area called Adventure Bay. En route, though, Alan spotted something quite unexpected – a white wallaby.
It was actually nearby another, conventionally grey, wallaby,
and the two of them seemed quite unconcerned by a coachload of people taking their photos; Alan said they actually relished the attention.
The lack of predators, the indulgence of the local people towards their cuteness, and the lack of colour prejudice amongst the animals themselves means that the white wallabies prosper on Bruny. (The jury seems to be out when it comes to deciding whether their colouring is leucistic or albino; whatever, it’s quite striking). It is also the name of a gin which is used as the basis for a local spritzer-type drink
which we drank to accompany our fish-and-chips lunch.
In the same area is the Bligh Museum of Pacific Exploration,
established in 1954 to display historic maps, paintings and other artifacts relating to the landings at Adventure Bay by various famous explorers, such as Tasman himself, James Cook and William Bligh. It’s quite small, but has masses of content
including the very tree stump to which Captain Cook moored his ship, the Resolution, in 1777.
The stump had been left in its original location, with a plaque attached describing its significance, until some utter wanker removed the plaque, leaving the V-shaped gash you can see. At that point, it was moved to the museum for its own protection.
Further up the road is Two Tree point (I’m still trying to work out a gag around one Two Tree, but have so far failed). This is thought to be where Cook’s artist painted a picture, of which a reproduction is on display.
This is my version of it.
You can see a beach there, but the recent violent weather which marooned us on Kangaroo Island and which has made south Australian lives a misery over the last week actually caused much of the sand to be washed away.
All those rocks used to be covered in sand.
Enough of this history; it was time for some more artisanal experience – the Bruny Island Chocolate Company. Actually, we didn’t get sucked into the vortex of possible chocolate purchases, but instead joined Alan and a group of others in exploring the neighbouring gardens of the chaps who have created and run the chocolate company. One of them got his love of chocolate from years of work as a chef; the other is a dentist, which seems rather a neat partnership for demand generation.
The gardens – normally private, but open for our group to visit – are rather lovely.
You’ll notice, in the final picture above, that the cock appears to have, well, a cock. It doesn’t; it’s actually its foot you can see (the one on the right, below).
There’s a lovely globe, made out of bits of scrap from the garage of one of their fathers
and various other nice exhibits.
After this, it was time for our final artisanal experience of the day – the Honey Pot.
The honey made here comes from bees which are moved around the island, following the nectar flows so that they can create their honeys from a variety of flowers. One can taste them, so when a coachload of people turns up, there’s a bit of a feeding frenzy.
We were given some honey ice cream and a taster pot of our choice to take away with us.
That was it for the tour – we headed back to the ferry
and thence to our hotel, after a day which was very enjoyable but nothing like what I had expected. We have no formal programme for tomorrow, bar a tour of the Henry Jones Hotel, but I expect that the obvious thing for us to do will be to go for a walk. Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to report about it here, so do please keep in touch to find out how the day unfolded.
Tuesday 3 September 2024 – Today’s excursion involved a couple of ferry journeys, and so we were very pleased to note that the high winds of the previous days had dropped. The forecast for the day was reasonably good – some sunshine and no rain. Our target for the day was a pair of islands south of Melbourne – French and Philip Islands – and we would be part of (yet) another “small group” tour. We hied ourselves to the designated pickup point at the appointed hour – and waited for just long enough to be worried that Someone Had Blundered. Some 20 minutes later than our appointed pickup time, we phoned the organising company who reassured us that we were in the right place, just that the traffic was bad.
A few seconds after ringing off, a man came for us. He was called Bill (photo later) and was in charge of a 20-seater bus which was going to be full. So, a “fairly small” group tour, then. The traffic was, indeed, pretty bad as Bill wrangled his bus through interminable queues and waits at traffic lights with only the odd acid remark about the driving ability of the other motorists. As well as that, he managed to engage us, and all the others he picked up, in conversation, and did a very skillful job at it, too – he could chat about any number of sports, political situations, a smattering of science, and he was very engaging. He also managed the very fine trick of being laconic and talkative at the same time – no mean feat.
The ferry to French Island leaves from Stony Point, over 80 km south of Melbourne, and Bill had a lot of pickups to do and a target of 1150, which was the time the ferry would leave – with or without us. He made it with seconds to spare and basically bundled half of us on the the ferry with instructions to meet (a) Scott, the catcher on French Island and (b) him later on (after he had taken the remaining passengers on a different tour), at about 3.30pm in the pub by the jetty on Philip Island. And so, come about 11.15, we were met by Scott
and his transport for the day for us.
This is an OKA, built specially for taking tourists round potentially tricky terrain. It makes few concessions to comfort inside
and has quite the control bunker behind the wheel.
Before we set off, Scott briefed us on French Island, which is a very unusual place. 75% of it is National Park and officially a biosphere reserve, and 25% is settled.
The island has 110 inhabitants, no running water, no electricity. No rates, no police, no roads (just dirt tracks). There’s a single general store, which is also the post office and the fuel station. There’s a primary school, which has six pupils and two teachers. Some of the inhabitants are farmers, and there are sheep, horses and beef cattle on the island – no dairy farming, as it would be too expensive to deal with the milk.
The first thing we did was to go for lunch to meet Lee and Celia, a couple of inhabitants, at their smallholding, Mandalye Park Homestead.
There was a bit of a distraction as we exited the OKA, as, by the gate, there was a koala in the tree – and she had a young’un with her, which caused the usual ripple of excitement.
Scott estimated the age of this baby to be about five months. Koalas were introduced to the island over 100 years ago and have been so successful that they now have to be controlled as a population; they are so dim that they will simply eat a eucalyptus tree to death by consuming all its leaves. The Kangaroo Island koalas came originally from French Island, apparently.
Eventually we trooped inside the farmhouse for a fairly basic, but very pleasant lunch
and a chance to chat with Lee, who had been there on a permanent basis for about seven years, having started out as a weekend visitor to the island. We were nearly joined by a peacock, which caused a bit of a stir,
and outside one could see the evidence of how strong the winds had been over the recent days.
From talking to Lee, it was clear that the island’s appeal was very niche. Life is entirely off-grid: his water comes primarily from catching rain, although he has a borehole which is only slightly brackish, so livestock will drink it and it can be boiled for human consumption; electricity is from solar panels and battery with a generator backup; sewage is based on a septic tank; mobile coverage drifts over sporadically from the mainland; vehicles can only get to the island via a barge (see later) which can take a couple of cars or a truck and is very expensive. It’s a strange life, but our chap wouldn’t now exchange it for anything else.
For over 70 years the island’s economy was dependent upon chicory – cultivated for the root, not the familiar salad leaf. The root has long been cultivated in Europe as a coffee additive or substitute, it was, inter alia, the basis for ersatz coffee such as Camp Coffee. It was introduced to the island in 1895. The site had an old chicory kiln, used for drying the roots.
After lunch, Scott bounced us around the island in the OKA, with occasional stops. From a wildlife point of view, we saw a couple more koalas, any number of purple swamp hens,
Cape Barren geese (here with their goslings),
black swans,
and, excitingly, an echidna, an animal Jane was very keen to see. This one was a short-beaked echidna.
This is also known as a spiny anteater and, like the platypus (which I am very keen to see at some stage) is a monotreme, meaning it only has one bank of oars is a marsupial mammal which lays eggs but suckles its young. They are normally very shy, so we were lucky to get such a decent view of one.
As well as the wildlife, we saw some tamelife: beef cattle
and horses.
We also saw some sheep, which were being guarded by an alpaca, but sadly whizzed past them before we could get a photo.
Not all life is welcome on the island. It has a problem with pests such as rabbits and, increasingly, deer; but the real demons are feral cats, which they are trying to eradicate because they cause such havoc among the other wildlife which have no defences against them. There are cat traps across the island
(apparently KFC is the bait of choice) and motion-sensitive cat-cams such as this one.
Yes, there it is. There.
We passed the island’s fire station
with its indicator of likelihood of bush fire;
the school, and the general store.
Approaching the coast, we passed mangrove swamps
and reached the barge which enables vehicular access to the island.
Apparently it costs about Aus$900 to use the barge – a very expensive way of transporting anything.
The principal roads across the island are high-quality dirt tracks, but Scott took us off these on to rougher trails
which run through the National Park, showing how densely scrubby it is, as opposed to the open spaces of the settled portion of the island.
Then it was time to return to the jetty
and await the ferry
which would take us on to Philip Island. It was clear that A Lot Of Shopping had been done on the mainland.
We speculated that this might possibly be stock for the General Store.
And so we said goodbye to French Island – a funny old place, with a funny old lifestyle. I dare say we could have seen a lot more of the allegedly diverse birdlife on the island, but to do so would have taken a lot of time.
Although it’s smaller than French Island, it’s immediately obvious that Philip Island is more conventionally settled.
Amusingly for us Brits, one lands on the north of the island at a place called Cowes; but the island, although it also has a place called Ventnor, is much smaller than the Isle of Wight.
We settled down in the Philip Island Hotel for coffee and beer whilst we awaited Bill. He came along and we rejoined his bus for a trip out to the area where live the animals that have made Philip Island famous – Little Penguins; the island supports a colony of some 40,000 of these, the smallest known penguin species. En route, we noted that penguins weren’t the only wildlife to be seen.
Although the island is noted for its penguin population, it is also home to short-tailed shearwaters (commonly called “mutton birds”), fur seals, wallabies (like the one above) and eastern barred bandicoots. We’d hoped to see one of these last creatures, but failed, sadly.
We eventually reached the western point of the island, where the penguins make their burrows. The westernmost point is marked by The Nobbies
where there is a visitor centre and a boardwalk along which one can walk to examine the various burrows of the Little Penguins.
Bill
walked us around the boardwalk, pointing out penguin burrows both natural
and man-made.
At one stage, people lived in the area and this threatened the penguin population; so the people were actually moved away and these man-made burrows created to help re-establish the penguin population. It’s now self-sustaining so there is no need for more man-made burrows.
A couple of the burrows had, we thought, got penguins inside them. It was difficult to be sure, though.
There were cape barren geese here, too
along with their goslings
and I caught sight of a white-faced heron among the rocks.
The general view was quite striking
with lots of breaking waves
contributing to the general mistiness of the air. As we got towards sunset, the area became very popular
as people gathered for a daily event for which Philip Island is widely-known – the Penguin Parade. There are even signposts to the Penguin Parade Centre and Car Park, such is the popularity of this fairly unique phenomenon. After some time at the Nobbies, Bill took us to the Penguin Parade Centre which is quite gob-smackingly big.
When I saw this, my heart sank, as I envisaged the ruthless monetisation of some poor unfortunate penguins.
The whole Penguin Parade thing is a well-oiled machine, with people turning up in their hundreds as the sun goes down, all to see these penguins making a dash from the sea to their burrows on land.
We were actually booked to be part of a premium group – a ranger-led viewing of this parade and prime seating. Our guide for this was a nice lass called Annie
who explained at length and with great enthusiasm about the penguins, their life cycle and what was going to happen. She also explained that photography was forbidden, something I found very frustrating. I had read that the flashes on cameras and phones were distracting and stressful for the penguins and so I thought that meant that a lot of care would be taken to avoid flashes going off. But no, all photography was forbidden. I can understand the reasoning behind this, but that doesn’t stop me from being annoyed that I was penalised for the stupidity of others who simply don’t know how to turn off their cameras’ flash functions.
Anyhoo…
Having carefully briefed us and equipped us with binoculars and earpieces so that we could (almost) hear her commentary, Annie led us towards our prime viewing spot, via a couple of displays in the centre, such as this rather cute one,
which looks rather cute and pointless, but actually portrays something valid and important – helping penguins after oil spills. When these happen, volunteers seek out penguins who have been affected, and put them in these jackets (knitted also by volunteers) to prevent them trying to clean themselves and so ingesting the oil while they’re being transported to somewhere where they can be cleaned off before being released back into the water. We particularly like the jacket on the left, which is a nod to a certain publisher.
There’s also a display of a fox with a dead penguin in its mouth. Foxes have been a huge problem on the island, as they don’t just take one bird but can kill several dozen in a frenzy. There has been a fox eradication programme on the island over the past quarter-century, and they can now declare the island fox-free. Just one problem, though; there’s a land bridge over which foxes could make their way on to the island, so there’s a motion-detecting camera by the bridge to alert people when a fox comes over. This way it can be tracked and eliminated.
We joined the crowds heading towards the beach
and took our reserved seats in a brand-new grandstand which offered us a, well, grandstand view. The sun went down, and the only light came from some orange and yellow lamps illuminating the area; apparently, penguins don’t see well in this part of the spectrum, so it doesn’t affect or distract them.
The penguins’ main predators are hawks and other large birds. Their strategy therefore for getting from the sea across the exposed area of beach to the safety of their burrows in the dunes, involves a) waiting until after dark, and b) making a run for it in sizeable groups where there is safety in numbers. In almost complete darkness, it was difficult to see clearly what was going on. They must have emerged from the sea, but it seemed that groups of penguins just materialised and started making their way up the beach on their penguin highway – the path that they take time after time as they leave the water and head to their burrows, which might be quite some distance away. I was a good boy and didn’t try to take photos; OK, officer, it was too dark, really. The centre is good enough to provide some, like this one, which shows the penguins leaving the water.
There’s also a YouTube video showing what happens
though Jane found something which is far more fun – an Andrew Cotter commentary special, done in his own inimitable style.
The whole penguin journey is, indeed, hugely commercially exploited. But Annie pointed out that the centre is entirely and only paid for by visitors, and their contribution enables research into these penguins and funds conservation and protection for them. And it is rather well done; tightly controlled so that crowds don’t distract and distress the penguins, and ensuring an environment that means the penguins can survive and thrive.
In theory, we might have seen a bandicoot, but I think the darkness, the noise and the crowds make it near-impossible to see a live one. The best we could do was one in a display case.
The final thing Annie showed us was an artwork made entirely out of the detritus found on the beach and in the water. She asked us to guess what it was that the seals were made out of,
and no-one got it right: cigarette butt filters. That was a sobering message to leave us with.
By this stage it was about 7.45pm and we had a two-hour journey back to Melbourne, so it was very late by the time we arrived back at the apartment. However, we hadn’t got an early start for the next day, the main feature of which was going to be lunch with friends, so that wasn’t a problem. The morrow would be our last full day in Melbourne, but unlikely to feature anything particularly worthy of comment; so it’s likely to be a couple of days until I next update these pages. I hope you’ll be here to read them when that happens.
* For those giving the title a blank look, this is a reference to a 1970s advertisement for a chocolate biscuit bar called a Penguin. The voice over was done by Derek Nimmo, an actor who achieved wide recognition for his ability to portray posh people who had a stammer.
It’s entitled “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”
