AUSTRALIA ~ Hobart

Hobart from our cabin balcony.

There was an excellent market, offering many quality handmade items, as we exited the ship.

We were happy to disembark at this tidy working port. The weather was cool, this is a very good thing, we had been worried about high summer temperatures in Australia. It was much cooler than expected, and cooler than usual, our only issue was that we did not bring enough warm clothes. 

There are very few tacky t shirt stores in Australia (at least the few places we got to visit), unlike in Victoria! We did manage to find one, Keith needed to purchase a couple of items for co-workers.

We browsed through lovely Salamanca Square ..

...where Mom and I found a secondhand bookstore.

At a 2nd secondhand bookstore I discovered a book written by Deborah Swift. I just had to buy it and have just finished reading it, 1 week post cruise. 

Mom is all stocked up for cruise reading.

loving the local art

and gardens 

We found that Australians love their roses!

We all climbed an extremely steep hill to reach Battery Point, a large green space with some nice views.

Very happy to find a bench at the top! 

Back to town where we finally found a nice place to people watch and sit down for coffee and a skookum muffin. 

I loved this wee trailer kitted out as a flower stall, made me think of Nathanda and Myki as they would love this.

Too soon back to the harbour and Majestic Princess.

Majestic Princess in the background.

Commemoration to the 13,000 women and their 2000 children that were transported her to Van Diemen's Land between 1803 and 1853. I imagine that many of Tasmania's long time residents are descended from these unfortunate women. 

Australian Pied Cormorant

and my attempt to recreate it with watercolour pencil.

Mom's room was next door to ours. The steward opened the partition between our balconies giving us 1 long balcony. It was also a handy way for us to pop back and forth between rooms.

That evening we elected to watch Downton Abbey which was being shown as "Movie Under The Stars". In spite of wearing our warmest clothes and being covered by blankets, we all froze! The wind was very brisk and cold. W

However we did stay until the end of the movie, guess we were enjoying it. Little did I know that the next day that same movie was offered on our room television sets.... a much warmer venue!