Travelling Hopefully - Birthday Edition Part 2

 After a refreshing hour and a half's sleep I rolled out of bed.  Fortunately the floor broke my fall.  I belly crawled to the bathroom and snaked my way into the shower.  Somewhat later breakfasted, dressed and showered (although not necessarily in that order) I set out to face the day.  The day seemed somewhat surprised to see me.  Mount Wellington loomed over Hobart (not that looming over Hobart is difficult.  I could probably do it myself if I stood on a box) and posed obligingly for photos.

Mount Wellington in full on loom mode

Since my hotel was conveniently close to the docks I wandered across there and took photos of fishing boats and a starfish.  I always associate starfish with tropical waters which Hobart harbour most definitely is not.  Once my starfish fetish had been very temporarily satisfied I wandered along to Salamanca Markets.  I did this largely to cement my tourist credentials, my correspondent had already told me she wasn't intending to go near the place.  Stall followed stall, most of them appeared to be selling the sort of clothing you buy so that you can say you bought it at Salamanca Markets.  Aside from that the principal attractions were various sorts of refreshments.  Having decided it was too early for lobster or home made gin or whisky I settled for grabbing a coffee.

Boats, fishing for the purposes of

The starfish appears to be trying to escape

With caffeine nobly staving off sleep deprivation I wandered down to the fish punts where my correspondent had promised to collect me so that we could get up close and personal with Mt Wellington.  As I may have mentioned in the past my correspondent is a keen bushwalker.  I would consider fifteen kilometres a decent days walk.  My correspondent would agree but she would do it up the side of a cliff in a snowstorm before settling down to a refreshing meal of whatever she had caught and killed along the way.  Sadly my knee which has been the subject of a number of self pitying diatribes on this blog was not in a condition to do very much of anything really.  Walking along a flat surface in the city it twinged just enough to let me know that if I did anything silly I would regret it.

No problem announced my correspondent once we met up.  There were apparently gentle walks that could be done which would at least allow me to set foot on Mt Wellington and get some views while not disturbing my treacherous joints too much.  Without further ado we jumped (well I hobbled) into the car and set off in the direction of Hobart's most famous mountain.  About ten minutes later we arrived, it really isn't that far.

We set off along a path which my correspondent assured me followed the contour lines and therefore didn't have much in the way of up and down.  It did have a fair bit in the way of trees, and boulders and mushrooms.  My correspondent teased me by pointing out the ones that were probably hallucinogenic and absolutely guaranteed that she hadn't boiled any into the tea I had before we started.  I didn't pay too much attention, I was more concerned with avoided the giant six legged gerbils that were crawling out of the forest.

Once I had returned to something approximating sanity we continued through  mixture of somewhat charred mountain forest and (in the damper bits) temperate rain forest.  We were heading for a lookout so that I could see something more than trees, rocks and fungi.

We had been walking for thirty seconds and I was already lagging behind

A gate blocked our path to the lookout.  Parks officials had locked the gate to prevent people falling off the edge of the cliff.  Since the gate was a good twenty metres from the edge of the cliff the only thing it would prevent was you getting a good run up.  Fortunately the gate wasn't actually connected to a fence so we just went around it.  The promised views were produced and I made appropriately impressed noises while my correspondent tried to keep the disbelief off her face.

Actually the views were quite impressive

And then there was this

Once views had been appropriately gawped at we threaded our way past the gate and resumed our walk along the path.  I had no idea where we were going but my correspondent knew, or at least gave the impression of knowing, every inch of the ground and talked knowledgeably about other paths that connected, some which were dedicated to mountain bikes and others that were deemed too steep for a semi cripple such as myself.  I smiled and nodded and took photographs of random rocks.

Random rocks

After a not particularly strenuous walk we wound up in a picnic area occupied by ravens and a group of middle aged men on mountain bikes.  My correspondent pointed out that they were e-bikes and thus "helpful" to aging muscles attempting to persuade themselves they were as young and vigorous as they ever were.  Any pretensions I might have had to that condition myself were banished by the ache in my knee.  I took a series of photos of a raven none of which turned out particularly well.

A not particularly good raven photo

Once the raven opportunities had exhausted themselves we retraced our steps back to another picnic area where my correspondent had left the car.  The walk in total was only about seven kilometres and was essentially flat and I managed to complete it without completely crippling myself.  Also check out this for a fungus.

The fungus is so big it has lichen growing on it.

My correspondent dropped me off at my hotel so I could get an afternoon nap before the festivities of the evening.  Before I did so I took a final photo of Mt Wellington.  It would be the last time I would see it this trip.

The sky above gives a hint as to why this was the last time I saw it

That evening I put on clothes I considered respectable and, after lengthy consideration, reluctantly left my new but already much loved ugg boots in the hotel and attended my correspondents birthday celebration.  It was a low key affair, various relatives were introduced to me, there were people wearing horns and the police wrestled some man to the ground and bundled him into the back of the world's smallest paddy wagon.  For a while it looked like he wasn't going to fit.  Drinks were drunk conversation was had and at a time that was not early but not too late I took my leave and limped back to my hotel.  My correspondent promised to call me at some time the next day once she'd woken up.