2018 – Part 23 – Day in Hobart
After getting our rental car, we headed towards Hobart with Mount Wellington set as our first stop. The way up the mountain certainly tests your driving skills. There are no shoulders, a cliff on one side — all the while managing to make sure there is space for vehicles descending and giving cyclists their space. And this was our first stop!
Mount Wellington
Once at the top, the fantastic weather gave us an outstanding view over Hobart and the valley inland. While we were there Amber commented to another visitor about their Toronto Raptors hat, he too was Canadian, and had just finished watching the game where LeBron had single-handedly beat Toronto. Enough about sports, back to the view!
What a great view. We spotted a few areas where controlled fires were taking place.
At the top of Mount Wellington are few communication towers, an enclosed lookout, and two larger lookouts. Supposedly the communication towers can interfere with keyless remotes for vehicles.
Before heading down a few signs inside the enclosed shelter about the location:
After many pictures we headed downhill towards the botanical gardens.
Botanical gardens
Being a weekday, the gardens were not too busy. Most of all it was quiet, and beautiful to take in the many different kinds of plants and trees in the garden.
Situated just east of downtown the gardens were easy to find (once I followed the directions).
We talked with a volunteer upon entering to find out any neat or unique things for us to see. He was well versed in Toronto Maple Leaf playoff performance history and was proud to have put it to use the prior day with a visitor wearing a Maple Leaf jersey. Our walk through the gardens was quite pleasant.
Macquarie Island
The neatest thing, I thought, at the gardens was a recreation of the plants found on the tiny island, between Tasmania and Antarctica. To enable the plants to survive, the building came complete with air conditioning keeping room refreshingly cool as the island is in a sub-antarctic climate.
Also, it’s not everyday you come across a species of tree that has been around since the time of dinosaurs. The individual trees can live so long, that the rings in the tree trunk are used for climate analysis.
We stopped by the sundial for a quick picture while walking the grounds:
From the gardens we heeded the advice of our rental car shuttle bus driver’s recommendation and headed to the Waterfront Hotel in nearby Bellerive.
We arrived late for lunch, but that merely enabled us to almost have the entire patio to ourselves. Portions were generous and the food was excellent. This was the first place that I noticed this located beside the door to the patio:
We had an evening activity booked so we headed to our hotel and had a nap before heading out. What evening activity? We visited Bonorong wildlife sanctuary! This place deserves its own post.
Read more about our trip by clicking here.