Kirren had to do an exam in Sydney at some point in early January to get her job interview in mid January. This is the first time they'd ever made prospective opthamologists do this exam and as such it messed up our carefully made plans.
The exam could have been anywhere between the 3rd and 10th of January, luckily she could do it in Sydney so it didn't require us going back to the UK early. Anyway eventually they confirmed that it would be on the 10th, finally we booked our flights and accommodation. Unfortunately most accommodation was fully booked and/or expensive but fortunately my friend Anna who lives in Hobart took us in and lent us her car and tent, and picked us up from the airport. Thanks Anna!
Anna had picked up an Australian accent which took a little getting used to before i started hearing the Leicester accent she has at Uni underneath. Her car is a big red Nissan pathfinder from 1988 (older than kirren but just younger than me). It also lacked a working speedometer (speedo) and fuel gauge. This added an extra level to our game of not breaking down in the middle of Tasmania.
Hobart itself is a charming city, small but well stocked with nice restaurants and shops. Our first day out we went to a food fair in the marina that served lots of delicious seafood, chocolate and wines.
To get used to driving anna's car we drove up mount Wellington which looms over Hobart. The long switch backed road got me used to driving the pathfinder pretty quickly!
Anna her boyfriend took us down to the Tasman peninsular an hour and a half drive from Tasman. There prisoners had been forced to toil surrounded by beautiful scenery. We four took mountain bikes through trails through dense scrub which would suddenly open up at sea cliff ruins on the sea. The views were amazing but the sand and narrowness of the track quickly exhausted Kirren and i. It was a great day though and i got quite dusty in the process.
We also visited some caves down in a town called Hastings which were pretty nice as caves go. On the way we saw black swans which was a nice surprise. We were also going to visit a restaurant called the Red Velvet Lounge, I'd met the owner in a cinema in Delhi and he said to come pay a visit. Unfortunately the website said that it had burnt down and was being rebuilt which ruined that plan.
We visited an art museum called the MONA which had some cool modern art and engineering in it.
Next we set off north east of Hobart to a town called Triabunna where we caught a boat to Maria island and Ile de phoque.
Ile de phoque means island of seals and that's what attracted us to this tour. The Ile is tiny and serves a seal haul-out which is different from a colony as it contains mainly males. We had lunch then i jumped in to try swimming with the seals, unfortunately they had gone on to land during lunch. Only a bit later did the deck hand tell me that you can get great white sharks in those waters. The captain took the boat into large caves in the Ile with amazing colours caused by the rock and the algal growth. At one point on the boat's roof deck we had to duck to avoid ploughing into the cave's roof. The boat's antenna didn't survive the encounter intact.
This island was used as a prison then housed a failed cement factory before becoming a national park. We landed at a small hamlet called Darlington and took a walk to nearby fossil cliffs (we found nothing more interesting than some shells) then took a stroll around through the woods nearly missing our boat.
Back in Triabunna we were tempted to try heading north to Freycinet national park's wineglass bay which is supposed to be amazing, but time was against us so we headed back to Hobart.
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