Having got a decent amount of sleep I awoke refreshed and after breakfast set out to discover what the day would bring. What the day brought as it turned out was freezing winds interspersed with showers of equally freezing rain. There had supposedly been a promise of snow for Mt Wellington but mist covered the top of the mountain. It also covered the middle of the mountain and a good deal of the bottom as well. If this was your only visit to Hobart you could be forgiven for thinking the place was built on a plain.
For some reason I had decided to wear a pair of shoes that leaked and my walk around the centre of Hobart rapidly turned into a squelch. Possibly the only good thing about the morning was my adding a Tasmanian devil to my burgeoning collection of plush toys. I sent a photo to my correspondent and she responded by suggesting a mini road trip.
Having set herself the task of entertaining me she now found herself on a windy, rainy, freezing cold Sunday afternoon in Hobart trying to think of something for me to do. A road trip had the joint advantages of keeping us both out of the elements and me away from her children. Oozing icy water from my shoes I hopped into her car where in a burst of extreme generosity she allowed be to use her bluetooth to play music. Strangely she didn't stop me at any point. With the wind howling up the coast she pointed us southwards to enjoy the grey.
And grey it was; the sky was grey, the water was grey and the land was grey, or at least the mist we were viewing the land through was grey. The water was the D'entrecasteaux Channel which is a good example of why we don't name too many things after French people. Out in the grey Bruny Island loomed and the occasional suicidally enthusiastic fishing boat ploughed through the waves. We passed through Margate and then into semi rural land rapidly followed by completely rural land. We went through the small farming locality of Middleton and its fierce rival the small fishing locality of Gordon. Occasionally we stepped out of the car to take a photo of a particularly interesting piece of grey. The wind and the rain drove us back into the vehicle pretty quickly.
Food was promised, I was skeptical. It was now getting close to 4pm on a Sunday in Tasmania and the centre of Hobart had seemed pretty much closed at 10am. The charming little town of Cygnet would have food places I was assured. Indeed it did, they were all closed. Cygnet did have swans though.
"Hey look, swans," I said in some excitement.
"Why do you think it's called Cygnet?" responded my correspondent. I had honestly not made the connection up until that point.
Huonville would definitely have food my correspondent stated and indeed it did. Amongst the sea of closed cafes and restaurants a lone takeaway chicken shop proudly defied convention to give sustenance to those foolish enough to be out on such a day. I'm not saying it was the best dining experience in Huonville but at the time it was the only dining experience in Huonville. Once our hunger was sated my correspondent pointed the car at the mountains to drive us back to Hobart. Shadows were lengthening and at some point her children were going to notice she was missing.
The wind lessened but the rain got more enthusiastic to compensate and by the time my correspondent decided it was time to take me to the airport it was pissing down. I thanked her for her hospitality as swiftly as I could, icy rain was running down my collar and squelch limped to the terminal. A surprise was waiting for me, I went to check in my baggage to discover that I hadn't booked any luggage space. It was my fault, firstly for choosing Jetstar and secondly for assuming that when one bought an airline ticket one naturally got luggage space. This was apparently not the case and I paid an extra sixty dollars so I didn't have to abandon my luggage in Hobart.
Having finished the book I bought in Sydney I bought another in Hobart which turned out to be wise. We got on the plane in good time at which point the pilot cheerfully informed us that one of the landing lights was buggered and there would be a delay while it was removed. We were assured that we didn't need both landing lights and we could still fly to Sydney which begs the question of why it was removed. Presumably airline safety requires that you have a functional landing light or none at all. A goodly period of time later we were informed that the offending light had been removed and now we were waiting on the engineers approval for us to leave the ground. Said approval took sufficiently long to arrive to make at least one passenger nervous about the state of the aircraft generally but eventually the engineers decided that the plane probably wouldn't crash until it reached Sydney which was better provided with emergency services and we were good to go. We had actually been due to land in Sydney about twenty minutes ago by this time so its fair to say we were a little late.
With domestic air travel in Australia having reverted to type after a moment of shining glory on my way down I staggered towards my home which hadn't changed appreciably in my absence. Many thanks to Clare for her hospitality, despite the occasional snarky comment towards my correspondent it was a pleasure to see her in her natural habitat and spend a little time in Tasmania.
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