It looks cold doesn’t it? Well believe me, it was! We spent the long weekend at a B&B in Geeveston (Bears over the mountain). It was a great location in the wilderness of Southern Tasmania. The landscape was breath-taking. It really felt like frontier country. And it felt just a wee bit cold to us.
We travelled to the ‘end of the road’. We were at the southern most tip of Australia. We were now closer to Antartica than to Cairns. And that’s what it felt like. The water was crystal clear but looked positively freezing. The bays were protected and peaceful. Lots of (clearly very tough) families were having their last bit of the summer holidays camping down in this stunning countryside, gathered around roaring camp fires…and then we spotted…a little girl trotting across to the beach in her swimmers with a boogie board under her arm (??really!) and low and behold an ice-cream van! Even if we hadn’t just been sailing the Queensland coast I would still thought it was a tad chilly for swimmers and a dip in the waters of what is basically the southern ocean. That aside it was a magical place.
The whale sculpture is in recognition of the whaling history. During the 1830s there were 4 whaling stations at Cockle Creek. During the 1840s the Crown granted seven leases for the establishment of bay whaling stations in Recherche Bay. But whales had been hunted with pregnant cows and calves indiscriminately slaughtered. They apparently slaughtered the calves first so that the cows would wait around the bay and cry for their young, and then be slaughtered too. Tragic – but a beautiful sculpture.

Joy! We arrived in Hobart and took ourselves off to our accommodation. There was the incident at the airport where I whinged about the car that the rental car had arranged for us, and then negotiated a bigger car, probably won the award for the customer from hell for the day, and basically embarrassed poor Gerhard – but I’ll gloss over that. Oh, and poor Hugo picked up the bug that Oscar had had a few days earlier and (without exaggerating) vomitted from Mooloolaba to Hobart. Poor child.
All that aside…it was a great day. We arrived at our quaint cottage, installed the boys on the pull-out settee infront of the television and popped off to the gorgeous Italian around the corner, walked around the streets overlooking the harbour (so quiet we literally whispered as we walked so as not to disturb the peace) and fell in love with Hobart.
We watched the sun set on Mount Wellington, and the early morning light on the mountain from our kitchen window. It was spectacular.
We spent our time in Hobart finding our bearings and visiting Hobart and a really very good museum – at least, I think we did…Hugo’s bug got me too. Next man down. However, I was back on form for the Saturday morning markets at Salamanca – a must when in Hobart.