Tasmania 1
Last time we took the ferry we had had to catch it from downtown Melbourne but it has since conveniently moved to geelong.
Thursday around 18:00 we boarded the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. I think the company runs two ships both by the same name and according to a promotional video seen on board plans to expand to Spirits of Tasmania 3-5. Not big on creative ship names it seems.
Food in the buffet on board seemed like it would have been good if it wasn't all barely lukewarm.
We occupied a table just near the back windows (on deck 7 of 10!) and watched the city of Geelong recede behind us, with the refineries and big ship docks to its right (from our perspective). Though with the sun setting right behind the city and glare off rain drops on the windows it was a bit hard to see. The skyscape was a somewhat picturesque combination of bright golden glow where the sun was shining through and dark storm clouds dropping walls of water here and there and threatening to overtake us. Meanwhile to our left, ship's starboard, rolling green hills of the Bellarine peninsula slid past.
My parents went to bed around 21:00, we had to get up around 04:45 to begin disembarkation after all. I really wanted to feel the sea beneath my feet so I stayed up reading (this book i really highly recommend about WWI in East Africa, "African Kaiser") until we crossed "the rip" at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay (around 22:15) and immediately the deck began lurching. The captain had actually taken to the intercom earlier to advise that this would be a stormy passage with 35 knot winds out in Bass Strait. It brought a smile to my face to feel the deck swaying beneath me again and i walked a lap of the ship to enjoy it before going down to our cabin (this time we had our own cabin, quite nice little space, though it was in an internal space w no porthole).
Around 06:23 we disembarked the ferry into the foggy dim pre dawn light. There were some cafes open early just off the ferry no doubt for the ferry passengers but we chose to put a few miles under us first. Fog was so thick we could only just see the car in front of us on the highway. Google maps on my phone seems to be a bit quirky and several times i caught it about to send us on a wild goose chase. Definitely blindly following the map wasn't a thing to do.
Stopped for breakfast at a nice little Cafe in the middle of countryside called Elizabeth Town Cafe (ETC). Then we made a second attempt to visit a visitor information center but as with the earlier attempt it wasn't open yet. But Google maps from here routed us on a different route to Hobart, the A5 through the central highlands rather than the A1. We'd taken the A1 before and while still very scenic its also the major thoroughfare and busy and straight. The A5 wound through forests and mountains and was very pleasant.
Stopped at a short (400m) hike hike near the highest point on the road, along a boardwalk through highlands heath and some fun bog. It was very cold and there was actual ice on the boardwalk where it was in shadow.
Coming down the other side of the highlands we stopped in a little town called Bothwell full of cute little circa 1850s stone buildings. It could be used as a set for a movie. Finally got into a visitor information center, it was a combination "golf museum" since the "oldest golf course in Australia" is right there. I'm not into golf. I walked through this museum portion and found it to be comprehensively boring.
Information center attendant was very friendly but informative on nice walks seemed to be an particular blind spot to him. He couldn't think of any, though everything I've heard is that Tassie is chock a block with nice bush walks. Finally he directed us to take a scenic back road (the c179) which we did and it was kind of fun to see a bit of rural off-the-highway Tassie. Remote modern farm houses with solar panels, falling down old farm houses, lonely chimneys marking former farm houses.
By and by we reached Hobart (or as i keep calling it just to be silly, "Hobert"). Hobert is the capital and biggest city of Tasmania. Something like 40% of the population of the island live in Hobart. It's the second oldest city in Australia and is picturesquely wrapped around both sides of the Derwent estuary and various islands therein. It only takes about three hours to get across the island if we'd hurried. As it is we arrived at our airbnb literally two or three minutes past our 2pm check-in. And I'll make another entry about Hobart (-: presently on the Mona Ferry.
Also, much later i realized i forgot a small but crucial thing in our cabin on the ferry. My wall-socket-to-USB plug. So now i have to borrow one from my parents when they're not using it. Fortunately it's usually free overnight but for example tonight (adding this Monday night) they've already gone to bed and i hadn't gotten it from them yet so i guess i can't charge anything overnight tonight and will be mostly phoneless (ie camera-less!) tomorrow.😭