Day 35 Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Today we visited the town of Hobart which is in the very south of Tasmania. Its significant geographical feature is the river Derwent which is central to much of the activity. It is the high of their summer which means that the hills were brown due to the lack of rain. We hired a driver for the day who was a great find for us in giving us a lot of local color. As an example while we were waiting in traffic a camper went by and he referred to them as "grey nomads". These are people on holiday or retirees who travel by camper and stay in one of the many camp grounds. This seemed to be quite popular.
We started by visiting Russel Falls which required a short "bush walk" to get to. That was reminiscent of my mother who would always talk about the bush walks she and Dad would take when they were here for a year. From there we went to the town of Richmond which has the oldest bridge in Tasmania. The bridge ( Gaol) was build by convicts who were used as slaves to construct many of the buildings in the area. From there we went to a animal park where we could walk among kangaroos and see a number of other famous Australian animals including the Wombat, Tasmanian Devil, Koala bears, Wallaby and some cockatoos. It was very cool to be able to feed the kangaroos by hand. Then we went to Battery Point to see some of the quaint houses that were built long ago. They were very charming. Then back to the boat.
Throughout the trip we passed eucalyptus trees which are a main source of lumber for this area. It is known as a tough durable hard wood that is great for building. Houses built from it last a long time especially since there are no termites here.
Tomorrow a sea day.

Chris - G'Day! - Paul pretty much covered everything but I'll briefly tell you some of my impressions. The rural countryside was gorgeous with vistas of rolling hills, mostly brown because of it being late summer and then there would be an occasional bright green patch, with the river snaking through the fields. There would be sheep grazing and we saw lots of cows in herds, some Angus and some diary cows. One beautiful sight was all the hops that they were growing where the leaves were was still green and hung in vertical strips. Acre after acre of those strips hanging was really a pretty sight. In September they turn colors and it sounds like the hues would be similar to the colors of our fall trees. Their schools are year round and they have long winter and summer breaks. We went past a school that I noticed little girls in a sandbox playing. They were dressed in long light blue dresses and bonnets of the same color on their heads. I asked if the dress was religious affiliated as they reminded me of our Amish, but he said that all the girls in schools dressed in uniforms like that with different colors of dress signified different schools. The bonnets were called "bucket hats" and were used to keep the sun off their faces. Mt. Field, where Russell falls was, impressed me with it's diversity, from the enormous trees to the massive ferns to the rain forest to the Alpine vegetation. Richmond is a historic colonial, Georgian village with a good number of sandstone buildings built by the convicts. It's known as an arts and crafts mecca. The Battery area was also a beautiful area of Hobart with it's tree lined streets with little quaint colonial houses. All in all we had a very special day. Anytime you can see a wallaby in the wild as we did on our "bush walk" or feed a kangaroo, that's a special day to me.