Category: Travel

Travelling after a pandemic: Destination Hobart – 3

Hobart in June – Winter – Day 3 – Monday

…

Day 3 – Monday

We agreed not to plan what we were going to do today, but I had this idea we should go north or the opposite direction to yesterday.

That meant our destination, following the hop on hop off bus route was to head towards the Botanic Gardens.

Bur first, Rosemary had expressed a desire to go down to the water’s edge to have a look, giving an excellent view of the coastline at what was called Battery Point.

I tried to get there, but there were no roads that specifically went down to the water’s edge, but we did eventually drive-up Salamanca place, where we had walked a few days before.

It was not the same, but it did give us time to look at the line of sandstone buildings that had been there a long time and had been repurposed as Sn arts precinct.

Of course, there was only one flaw in the plan, Rosemary was not able to walk any great distance, so we were limited to what could be seen from the car.

But…

There was really nothing to see, just cars parked haphazardly on the side of the road near an entrance that led down some steps, or a few cars in a proper car park too far away from the entrance.

I was not sure what to make of it other than it was an exercise-intensive effort just to get from the car park to the gate, and then you had to walk around the gardens.

It was all too much.

Government House was on the same road, but it was not open to the public, nor was it in sight of the road, do no photographic moment there, so we were doubly disappointed.

The next phase of our unplanned tour was to go over the Tasman Bridge, perhaps to see the other side of the bay that we could see from our apartment.

Except…

When we got over the other side we veered left to follow the Derwent towards Lindisfarne where there was a yacht basin and several yacht clubs, one of which promised a view while you drank coffee.

Only problem, no parking spaces.

A good idea, unable to be acted on.

Instead, we drove around the esplanade, and continued on our way to Glenorchy, after not being able to get that coffee with a view.

Back on the main road, we take the Glenorchy exit and doesn’t take long to get there, though, by the time we’ve driven through the suburban area, we’re back on the main Hobart Road.

It was a case of don’t blink or you’ll miss it.  We missed Glenorchy.

Change of plans, looking for that elusive coffee, we head for the center of Hobart shopping, Centrepoint, hoping in that center there will be a coffee shop.  Of course, it’s Queen’s Birthday holiday so it’s possible nothing is open.

In the end, we found a parking space nearby. And a Hudson’s.  Coffee and a toasted sandwich went down very well. 

So, once again, we didn’t get to the places we were hoping to get to.  This is what tomorrow, we’re not going to state a place to visit.

Travelling after a pandemic: Destination Hobart – 3

Hobart in June – Winter – Day 3 – Monday

…

Day 3 – Monday

We agreed not to plan what we were going to do today, but I had this idea we should go north or the opposite direction to yesterday.

That meant our destination, following the hop on hop off bus route was to head towards the Botanic Gardens.

Bur first, Rosemary had expressed a desire to go down to the water’s edge to have a look, giving an excellent view of the coastline at what was called Battery Point.

I tried to get there, but there were no roads that specifically went down to the water’s edge, but we did eventually drive-up Salamanca place, where we had walked a few days before.

It was not the same, but it did give us time to look at the line of sandstone buildings that had been there a long time and had been repurposed as Sn arts precinct.

Of course, there was only one flaw in the plan, Rosemary was not able to walk any great distance, so we were limited to what could be seen from the car.

But…

There was really nothing to see, just cars parked haphazardly on the side of the road near an entrance that led down some steps, or a few cars in a proper car park too far away from the entrance.

I was not sure what to make of it other than it was an exercise-intensive effort just to get from the car park to the gate, and then you had to walk around the gardens.

It was all too much.

Government House was on the same road, but it was not open to the public, nor was it in sight of the road, do no photographic moment there, so we were doubly disappointed.

The next phase of our unplanned tour was to go over the Tasman Bridge, perhaps to see the other side of the bay that we could see from our apartment.

Except…

When we got over the other side we veered left to follow the Derwent towards Lindisfarne where there was a yacht basin and several yacht clubs, one of which promised a view while you drank coffee.

Only problem, no parking spaces.

A good idea, unable to be acted on.

Instead, we drove around the esplanade, and continued on our way to Glenorchy, after not being able to get that coffee with a view.

Back on the main road, we take the Glenorchy exit and doesn’t take long to get there, though, by the time we’ve driven through the suburban area, we’re back on the main Hobart Road.

It was a case of don’t blink or you’ll miss it.  We missed Glenorchy.

Change of plans, looking for that elusive coffee, we head for the center of Hobart shopping, Centrepoint, hoping in that center there will be a coffee shop.  Of course, it’s Queen’s Birthday holiday so it’s possible nothing is open.

In the end, we found a parking space nearby. And a Hudson’s.  Coffee and a toasted sandwich went down very well. 

So, once again, we didn’t get to the places we were hoping to get to.  This is what tomorrow, we’re not going to state a place to visit.

Have you ever tried writing on a bus?

It’s amazing how quickly you discover the imperfections of road makers.

As odd as that sounds, a recent trip on a bus, actually earlier today, in fact, got me thinking about just how bad some of our roads really are.

As any writer will tell you, that half an hour or so on the trip to work or home, is just waiting for a few lines to be written, on your phone, or on your tablet.  I venture to suggest a laptop computer just might be a little difficult, and prone to stray eyes from the people sitting or standing near you.

And the tightness of the space available to you.  I know, I’ve tried.

But, if you’re not in the mood to research, I did a little of that too, by the way, the desire to write is tempered by the movement of the bus and your ability to type coherent words on a small keyboard in a very large, rocking, metal thing.

I have to say I have a large streak of jealousy for those people who can hammer out large texts to their friends while riding the bus, and in the most awkward of conditions, using both thumbs, and carrying 26 bags of groceries and dry cleaning, as well as having a full on political discussion with the person sitting/standing next to them.

Even when the bus hits a pothole, does a sudden lurch that sents the unsuspecting sprawling.

With my interactive word completer turned on, it is astonishing what words finish up in my small attempt at writing as my fingers fail to find the right letters, and creates what only could be described as the ramblings of a madman.

Perhaps I might have better luck tomorrow.

 

 

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 4

This is

A rainy day.

Not much of a revelation when it’s winter, but why is it when you have to go somewhere in a hurry, the universe knows, and tries to throw everything at you so you don’t get there on time?

I like to be punctual.

I’m one of those people who leave home to get to the airport hours before I have to because I know, from past experience, that if you leave at the time where you’d make it with an hour to spare, you would get stuck in the mother of all traffic jams.

I know this to be true.  It’s happened more than once to me,

If you’re not in a hurry, you get the best run you’ve ever had.  I know that’s true too, because that’s what happens most times.

It’s like when at work you’re in a hurry to get a photocopy.  The machine knows if you’re stressed and picks that particular moment to break down.  That use to happen to me more times that I’d had hot dinners.

Sorry, I needed to use that expression, which generally means a lot.  That photocopy machine, back in the days when they were huge and almost a new fad, my task every Tuesday was to copy a 3 page shipping report, 300 odd times.  Not once did I get a clean run, not in the two years it was my job.

But…

Back to the weather.

My day to pick up one of the grandchildren from the railway station.  It’s not far from our house, on any other day it would take about ten minutes, but since this is after 3 pm, I have the other school traffic to contend with, the tradies going home, and late afternoon shoppers getting dinner.

It never used to be like that.  The road was a single lane that used to be blocked by floods when it rained, there was no shopping centre, and no new estates.  In 30 years everything has arrived, the road expanded to two lanes either side, and almost continual traffic jams.

There’s a story there somewhere, but for the moment I have to take on the traffic.  Maybe once I get to the station I might have time to consider it.

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium

And probably would be, if I was away on holiday in Europe, simply because I’ve always wanted to be in Belgium on a Tuesday just so I could use that line.  Not going to happen in the immediate future, but maybe next year sometime.

By the way, that line is out of a movie, but I’m not sure which one.  Obviously, it wasn’t that great if I can’t remember it.

But…

Searching for locations for my stories takes a lot of time and effort, using Google Earth and other means like street view.  Finding houses, or apartments required a great deal of real estate research, almost to the point of buying a property.

Is there any better way to see the street it’s in, the neighbours, the neighbourhood, and inside the house and gardens?  Almost as if you lived there, which of course you do in the story.

In reality, I’m in Canada on the trans-Canada highway heading towards Banff, on icy roads in winter.  Yes, that’s where we were a few years ago in early January, getting a feel for the place, the roads, the weather, the people, and the places.

Cold, yes.  Atmospheric, yes, exciting, double yes.  Sometimes research is really fun, well, I don’t call it that, otherwise everyone else will think it was not the birthday treat that it was meant to be.

And was.

My wife’s 65th birthday was one she certainly will never forget.

So…

Writing is proceeding better now that I’ve knuckled down.  The Trans-Canada experience has been translated into a story attached to a photo and has been posted.  It will also become a new episodic story, and will start now the helicopter crash story has ended.

The treasure hunt has taken shape, and there are lots of twists and turns, with people yet to show their true colours.  It always seems that way when there’s a fortune at stake.  Evil lurks behind and under every rock, and people who were thought to be untrustworthy suddenly change for the better, and those whom you thought you could depend on, well, you know what happens when a fortune is involved.  It ended on both a high and a low.

A simple surveillance task turned into a full-blown espionage story, and like all good spy stories, people are dying, and the guy trying to figure it all out is being led down more than one literal garden path.  But, he’s getting there.

My other story, in wartime Germany and Italy, is humming along, but it is about to hot up in the castle.  Our defector is yet to get there, but, by the time he does, our hero is going to have to clean up both the rogue resistance and treasonous soldiers.  Sounds easy, but in reality, it’s going to be a lot tougher.

We shall see.

Then, of course, I have gone off on a complete tangent and wrote a space saga.  I guess it’s come from watching too much Star Trek, but I always wanted to head out into outer space.  At the moment the ship is outside the orbit of Pluto, and encountering the first alien life humans have seen.

Or have they?  there’s a few interesting twists and turns in this story.

And the Being Inspired series just got to 151, and is nearly ready to be published.

Getting there is only half the fun.

Travelling after a pandemic: Destination Hobart – 2

Hobart in June – Winter – Day 2 – Sunday

…

It is not raining when we woke, but it had been most of the night.  After a cold start, the weather, seems to have improved, if only for the time being.

Today’s expedition is the Cascade Brewery, which doesn’t have tours at the moment because of staff issues with Covid, but does have a bar and restaurant.  There is also a historic site, an old women’s prison, and botanical gardens.  I’m not sure how far we’ll get in the gardens, but the bar and restaurant is looking good.

We get there and decide on lunch first then a visit to the women’s prison.

Fail.  The bar and restaurant are packed and there are no tables left.  Time for a photograph of the old brewery, and move on.

Instead of going to the prison, just down the road, we go off in a different direction, to Mt Wellington, thinking it might give excellent views of Hobart.

Only a sign says the road is supposed to be closed, but it is not, so we and a dozen others are venturing up the road towards the summit.

The road was probably opened temporarily, but it is getting more treacherous as the snow appears and the road is wet.  We make it about 2km before deciding it’s unsafe.

The adventure continues because at the bottom of the hill we decided to go to Huonville, hoping to chance upon the apple orchards and all things apple.

It was an immense letdown.  There was nothing, except for one innocuous building with a sign out front saying it was open, but for all intents and purposes looked like it was completely empty.

Until you drove around the back to the carpark where there were hundreds of cars, and inside, totally packed.

It’s where everyone in Huonville had gone.

And not where we were going to get a distinctly Tasmanian meal.

We had to settle for another pie from Banjo’s in Sandy Bay.

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium

And probably would be, if I was away on holiday in Europe, simply because I’ve always wanted to be in Belgium on a Tuesday just so I could use that line.  Not going to happen in the immediate future, but maybe next year sometime.

By the way, that line is out of a movie, but I’m not sure which one.  Obviously, it wasn’t that great if I can’t remember it.

But…

Searching for locations for my stories takes a lot of time and effort, using Google Earth and other means like street view.  Finding houses, or apartments required a great deal of real estate research, almost to the point of buying a property.

Is there any better way to see the street it’s in, the neighbours, the neighbourhood, and inside the house and gardens?  Almost as if you lived there, which of course you do in the story.

In reality, I’m in Canada on the trans-Canada highway heading towards Banff, on icy roads in winter.  Yes, that’s where we were a few years ago in early January, getting a feel for the place, the roads, the weather, the people, and the places.

Cold, yes.  Atmospheric, yes, exciting, double yes.  Sometimes research is really fun, well, I don’t call it that, otherwise everyone else will think it was not the birthday treat that it was meant to be.

And was.

My wife’s 65th birthday was one she certainly will never forget.

So…

Writing is proceeding better now that I’ve knuckled down.  The Trans-Canada experience has been translated into a story attached to a photo and has been posted.  It will also become a new episodic story, and will start now the helicopter crash story has ended.

The treasure hunt has taken shape, and there are lots of twists and turns, with people yet to show their true colours.  It always seems that way when there’s a fortune at stake.  Evil lurks behind and under every rock, and people who were thought to be untrustworthy suddenly change for the better, and those whom you thought you could depend on, well, you know what happens when a fortune is involved.  It ended on both a high and a low.

A simple surveillance task turned into a full-blown espionage story, and like all good spy stories, people are dying, and the guy trying to figure it all out is being led down more than one literal garden path.  But, he’s getting there.

My other story, in wartime Germany and Italy, is humming along, but it is about to hot up in the castle.  Our defector is yet to get there, but, by the time he does, our hero is going to have to clean up both the rogue resistance and treasonous soldiers.  Sounds easy, but in reality, it’s going to be a lot tougher.

We shall see.

Then, of course, I have gone off on a complete tangent and wrote a space saga.  I guess it’s come from watching too much Star Trek, but I always wanted to head out into outer space.  At the moment the ship is outside the orbit of Pluto, and encountering the first alien life humans have seen.

Or have they?  there’s a few interesting twists and turns in this story.

And the Being Inspired series just got to 151, and is nearly ready to be published.

Getting there is only half the fun.

Have you ever tried writing on a bus?

It’s amazing how quickly you discover the imperfections of road makers.

As odd as that sounds, a recent trip on a bus, actually earlier today, in fact, got me thinking about just how bad some of our roads really are.

As any writer will tell you, that half an hour or so on the trip to work or home, is just waiting for a few lines to be written, on your phone, or on your tablet.  I venture to suggest a laptop computer just might be a little difficult, and prone to stray eyes from the people sitting or standing near you.

And the tightness of the space available to you.  I know, I’ve tried.

But, if you’re not in the mood to research, I did a little of that too, by the way, the desire to write is tempered by the movement of the bus and your ability to type coherent words on a small keyboard in a very large, rocking, metal thing.

I have to say I have a large streak of jealousy for those people who can hammer out large texts to their friends while riding the bus, and in the most awkward of conditions, using both thumbs, and carrying 26 bags of groceries and dry cleaning, as well as having a full on political discussion with the person sitting/standing next to them.

Even when the bus hits a pothole, does a sudden lurch that sents the unsuspecting sprawling.

With my interactive word completer turned on, it is astonishing what words finish up in my small attempt at writing as my fingers fail to find the right letters, and creates what only could be described as the ramblings of a madman.

Perhaps I might have better luck tomorrow.

 

 

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 4

This is

A rainy day.

Not much of a revelation when it’s winter, but why is it when you have to go somewhere in a hurry, the universe knows, and tries to throw everything at you so you don’t get there on time?

I like to be punctual.

I’m one of those people who leave home to get to the airport hours before I have to because I know, from past experience, that if you leave at the time where you’d make it with an hour to spare, you would get stuck in the mother of all traffic jams.

I know this to be true.  It’s happened more than once to me,

If you’re not in a hurry, you get the best run you’ve ever had.  I know that’s true too, because that’s what happens most times.

It’s like when at work you’re in a hurry to get a photocopy.  The machine knows if you’re stressed and picks that particular moment to break down.  That use to happen to me more times that I’d had hot dinners.

Sorry, I needed to use that expression, which generally means a lot.  That photocopy machine, back in the days when they were huge and almost a new fad, my task every Tuesday was to copy a 3 page shipping report, 300 odd times.  Not once did I get a clean run, not in the two years it was my job.

But…

Back to the weather.

My day to pick up one of the grandchildren from the railway station.  It’s not far from our house, on any other day it would take about ten minutes, but since this is after 3 pm, I have the other school traffic to contend with, the tradies going home, and late afternoon shoppers getting dinner.

It never used to be like that.  The road was a single lane that used to be blocked by floods when it rained, there was no shopping centre, and no new estates.  In 30 years everything has arrived, the road expanded to two lanes either side, and almost continual traffic jams.

There’s a story there somewhere, but for the moment I have to take on the traffic.  Maybe once I get to the station I might have time to consider it.

Travelling after a pandemic: Destination Hobart – 1

Hobart in June – Winter – Day 1 – Saturday

…

Overnight the rain began and hasn’t stopped.  It is cold, and the heater in the room is not quite adequate for the space it has to heat up.  Fortunately, the bed has electric blankets, and it was warm, lying wake listening to the raindrops.  That warmth makes it difficult to get out of bed, but this is a holiday, and we have to get motivated.

We have a balcony, and from there the bleakness of the early morning is stark, but at least the rain is light if not a fine mist.

Worse, it alternates between this fine mist and a short downpour, which means the umbrella goes up and down until you give up.  Later, the rain is not heavy, and just tolerable.

We head off to the Salamanca markets, happening only on Saturday morning.  Unable to walk long distances, we drive, about four minutes from our apartment, but miss a turn, it takes 10, then and 5 to assess the parking situation which, in the end, was the easiest part of this expedition.

The hardest part, walking among the very large crowd of people defying the rain and cold.  I can tolerate large crowds but today, they seem to want to stop suddenly, and just stand and talk in the middle of the walkways making it difficult to impossible to maintain any sort of continuity.

There were hundreds of stalls, the most predominant, micro distillers for some odd reason, selling expensive spirits for about $90 a 700ml bottle, which I regard as overly expensive.  My son has made Bourbon some years ago and it cost him about $10 for 4.5 liters, so it must be a lucrative sideline, even after you’ve added the excise.

There were a great many food stands, and choices, one of which was a curly potato skewer, which was interesting to say the least.  On a meat pie quest, we found a stand that sold pies, but they were warming a new batch, and the waiting line was about 50 or 60 people long.

I went back a half-hour later and they had sold out.  They must be one of the highlights of the market to be so in demand, and that people would stand in the cold and rain just to get one.

Having been defeated by aches and pains, the cold and rain, as well as the large crowd, and the absence of anything we wanted, it was fortunate that time had expired on our parking space.

We had contemplated finding a restaurant to have lunch, deciding it was time to have a proper meal rather than a snack, there didn’t seem to be any places open, and the cafes were packed.

This sparked off an odyssey to find a decent restaurant.

After leaving the markets, we find a road that follows the coastline.  Aside from houses either side, and at one point a marina and the Wrest Point casino, which was not a place we intended to visit, the further we went, the less chance it seemed of finding what we were looking for.

But we did find a tourist attraction, a shot tower, and a museum.

And a tea room that had afternoon tea.  Not exactly what we were looking for.  That said, and feeling like going any further would not fix the search parameters, I go to Google maps and search for restaurants near us.

There’s a Vietnamese restaurant, 6.1 km back the way we came, and being the best choice out of five or six others, we go.

And here’s the thing, it’s just around the corner from where we’re staying.  Go figure.

 But, there is a twist, we drive past one of the hotels that were recommended to us back at the apartments, so we go there, the Hotel Doctor Syntax.  We figure we’re more likely to get the vegetable component there than the other place.

It turns out to be a master stroke, getting steak, pork belly, roast potatoes, gravy, asparagus, and seafood on the side.  All having generous servings as one would expect from a hotel bistro.

The food must be great because they were full and had to turn people away.  We were very lucky to get the last table but one, and that one didn’t last very long.

After a long, leisurely lunch surrounded by warmth and atmosphere, we had one more stop.  Coffee and cake at Daci and Daci, a café recommended to us.

It was worth the experience, although it took some fortitude to fit it in after such a large lunch.  I suspect before we go back for a second visit, yes, it was that good, we will make sure we are less full of lunch first.  The cake I had was delicious but very filling.  The coffee?  Excellent.