Hobart - Home of Two Tasmanian Devils...

...the four-legged one and the Tasman Sea.

Our wishes for a repeat of the crossing from Auckland to Sydney did not come true. Our route from Sydney took us along the coastline until we turned south to cross the Bass Strait and run down the east coast of Tasmania. The captain, in his pre-sailing announcement, told us that we would be sailing at 17 knots into winds of 40-50 knots with gusts as high as 60 knots. As a knot, or nautical mile, is 1.15 statute miles, the equivalent land wind in the face of someone standing on the bow would be as much as 88 miles per hour, which is a low hurricane force. Add to that waves in the order to 6 to 10 feet and we were in for a rocky ride.

Needless to say, everything on the outer decks was tied down, and not long after dinner we started to feel the waves and the wind. But Crystal Serenity is made of pretty stern stuff, and she got through the night just fine. Things never seem quite so bad in daylight but we were still in some rough seas and many people decided to avoid the upper decks where the motion feels greater. Here are a few photos; please forgive the salt spray on the windows!

    

In the late afternoon we reached the lee of Tasmania and the wind and waves reduced considerably. Neverthless, there was most likely a fair group of people who were happy to see Hobart when we arrived yesterday morning.

The city of Hobart, home to more than three quarters of the population of Tasmania, was established in 1804, after the first settlement at nearby Risdon Cove was found not to have a good source of fresh water and was moved. It is the second oldest city in Australia, after Sydney. We were last here in 2004 and it is amazing how much the city has grown since then.

We are here overnight, leaving at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, so we decided to do our touring on Monday. Our excursion took us to the Georgian town of Richmond and then on to the Bonorong Animal Sanctuary before returning to the ship.

Along the way our tour guide, Veronica, provided us with a wealth of information about Tasmania. It was easy to tell she had been a schoolteacher - she knows how to keep the information interesting without talking too much, as many guides can do. She told us about the mass exodus of young people in the 1990s when there didn't seem to be much future on the island: 'I used to tell my groups that our biggest export was young people, and our biggest growth industry was old-age homes'; but in the last 20 years things have turned around as Tasmania has reinvented itself. Now there is not just a booming IT sector, but agriculture - soft fruits, berries and many crops we grow in Canada, as well as vineyards - has really taken off. Although their winters don't get as cold as ours in the lowlands, the higher elevations and western mountains offer skiing in the national parks. Tasmania is really quite the tourist destination, despite being so far away. We heard something quite funny in the afternoon. We had been sitting out on our verandah when one of our neighbours came out and commented on the rain shower we were having. 'Well, it's not the end of the world', she said....We guess that depends on how you want to look at it - it IS really almost the end of the world here in Hobart.

Views across the Derwent River to Hobart from
Posny Point

Here are some photos of Richmond. The Bridge here is the oldest one in continuous use in all of Australia. It was completed in 1823, built by convicts, of course. And the church in the background dates back to 1837. Richmond had been an important little town before the train took over from carriages and wagons, and was ignored for about 150 years. In the late 1980s it was rediscovered as a piece of Tasmanian history and has had a resurgence since then. Now house lots are quite expensive, and new builds have to fit the architectural style of the rest of the town.

           

St. John's Church built in 1837

No longer used as a church, this beauitiful
building is now a clothing store

The Richmond Arms; the metalwork on the railings
is beautiful. It would be great to sit there
having afternoon tea.

One of the houses on  a side street;

Richmond is in the Coal River Valley, and we discovered there is a huge wine industry here. There are many small wineries just here in the valley, and the whole east coast of Tasmania has good terroir for producing a number of varieties of both red and white wines. We wandered into a shop in Richmond and found that some wineries were even producing ice wine!

After spending some time in Richmond, we went to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. It is one of the few sanctuaries with a medical centre on the island, dealing with about 8,000 cases a year. Along with the kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, koala bears and birds, they also have under their care a few poisonous snakes and the star of the show: Fred, the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, who will be celebrating his 105th birthday in May. He even got a letter from the Queen for his 100th birthday in 2014!

Fred, posing for his close-up!

              

A little Echidna

A few of the kangaroos

What a cute koala

Monica gave one of the 'roos a snack

One of the lorikeets. Aren't they pretty!

               

There is an annual Wooden Boat Festival held in Hobart's harbour, and this was the last weekend for the exhibition, so we had lots of beautiful boats sailing around in the area. Here are a few photos:

The sun made the sails glow after a rain shower

One thing we discovered that nobody had mentioned - Hobart seems to be the rainbow capital of the Australia! We had a couple of rain showers in the afternoon, and after each of them we saw some really nice rainbows.

We had dinner with Terry and his wife Kerry in the Churrascaria. Larry and Terry have been corresponding on Cruise Critic for a couple of years and finally met on this cruise. The Churrascaria is one of the new dining concepts in Serenity since the drydock, and we found the experience to be just like at the Copacabana Brazilian restaurants at home. Just as for Silk, there were people on Cruise Critic who didn't care for it, but we found the food to be excellent, right down to the cinnamon roasted pineapple and fresh made churros (doughnuts) for dessert!

The beef, grilled and delivered on
a skewer

A small selection of salads along with
a slice of beef and a sausage

Larry, one of the servers, a few
shrimp and a very, very sharp knife!

Grilled pineapple with a cinnamon coating
for dessert.

        

We didn't plan much for this morning, and it was a good thing as it has been rainy and cool while Monica wrote this post. We'll see what the captain has to say about our next sail in the Mighty Tasman and through the Roaring Forties into the Indian Ocean. The Roaring Forties are named by the 40 Degrees South latitude where the seas are known to be changeable, sort of an equivalent to the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica. We have this afternoon and tomorrow at sea before arriving at Kangaroo Island. Wish us luck!

Everything on the outside decks is tied down in
preparation for some rough weather

Just as this post was finished, the captain announced that we would be sailing into 4-15 foot swells from tomorrow afternoon....lots of people are probably already nervous about that!