Day 58: 20231120 Monday November 20, 2023- Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Shortly after awakening, we were a bit surprised by a knock at the door as the breakfast trolley arrived a bit early. The diminutive Filipino gal who does the breakfast deliveries is so tiny that it is easiest to hold the door open while standing in the space between the closet and bathroom while she walks under your arm to deliver the trays to the coffee table. She doesn’t even need to stoop.
We did need to get up a bit early because it was time for our weekly Zoom appointment. This time, were were able to get all three of our children on line simultaneously with Seattle, Chicago, Paris and Hobart time zones spanning 1pm Sunday to 8am Monday. Our son John has been adjusting to life in France at a remote work site, and is really working hard to hone his high school French skills to be able to survive as a Francophone. His latest challenge though was dealing with an acute bout of food poisoning. Welcome to France.
The approach to Hobart is actually one of the most scenic of the entire cruise because there are several islands and headlands that the ship passes to make its way up the estuary to the port of Hobart. Hobart has a population of less than 250,000, but they appear spread out on multiple hills and valleys that fan out from the harbor.
Tasmania, in general, is quite hilly and mountainous. We were met off the ship in the reception hall by friends from a Viking Ocean cruise we did 5 years ago from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles. They are native Tasmanians. 3 generations back, Greg’s ancestors arrived on the shores of Tasmania as convicts, but they have since built quite the country. Greg and his wife Carol picked us up and took us on a tour of Hobart in their sporty Audi sedan.
Our first stop was a historic fish hatchery ironically named the Salmon Ponds, although there are no salmon in the ponds. In the 1861, the British tried several times to import salmon eggs to create a salmon fishery in Tasmania, but the fish and eggs either failed to survive the trip from Britain on several attempts, or the salmon swam all the way back across the world to their original spawning grounds. But they also tried trout eggs and those not only survived the trip, but proved to be well suited to the local environment and climate. The trout also didn’t have the same migratory instinct as the salmon, so they tended to stick around. This is the oldest fish hatchery in the southern hemisphere and is currently breeding and releasing many species of trout and some eels into the Derwent River which feeds the estuary of the Hobart area.
The success of these trout lead to the expansion of trout introduction throughout Australia and New Zealand. Although run by the government for most of its existence, it has been under private ownership more recently. The grounds contain historic gardens and buildings, but the fish ponds are the main attraction. They hold rainbow, brown and even albino trout. There are also eels raised in a smaller pond that migrate into salt water like salmon.
We got to witness some pretty huge trout churn up the surface of the ponds as we cast fish pellets into the ponds. Some of the rainbow trout are probably in the 15-20 pound size range. It was also eerie to see albino trout, although they still had a hint of the rainbow strip on their sides. The creepiest thing were the eels, which will bite you and draw blood if you let them get too close. They are very curious and will even stick their heads out of the water to get a closer look at you if you lean over their enclosure. You don’t want to be accidentally falling into their pond.
As we drove through the countryside of Hobart, the scale of the agricultural activities is impressive. In addition to huge sheep, cattle and horse ranches extending up the hillsides, there are huge vineyards, fields of hops vines, and most impressively, huge tracts of cherry trees that are completely enclosed with netting for what looks like hundreds of acres. There are so many microclimates in Tasmania that it has many wine grape growing regions to suit many different types of grapes for many different types of wines.
Next we drove through the quaint city of Richmond, which is an ancient suburb of Hobart where the second oldest stone bridge still in use in all of Australia was built in 1823. It looks like it was transplanted right out of Scotland. There is also a historic military barracks and jail that date back to the early 1800’s. These were all built with convict labor. The first thing that was constructed in any new settlement were the military barracks, and the second was the jail.
We then drove up to the top of Mount Wellington for a breathtaking view of the Hobart area and coastline. We were very fortunate to have had perfect weather through out the day with scattered clouds, temperatures in the lower 70’s, and light winds. The prior day, it had been raining pretty hard all day.
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Our last stop were the whaling sheds on the historic Hobart waterfront which were reminiscent of many European cities like Stockholm or Bergen. It was fun spending the day getting caught up with Greg and Carol who were in the midst of a world cruise when the pandemic hit, forcing them off the ship halfway through their journey. Fortunately, they were able to resume their trip after the pandemic, largely picking up from where they were forced to leave off, but nearly 3 years later. It was also hard to believe it had been 5 years since we last cruised with them because it seemed like only yesterday.
We returned to the ship in time to grab a scone and spot ‘o tea before doing the afternoon general trivia. It’s now pretty low stakes since the cruise long progressive has ended. We still managed to get beat by just one point. We did manage to score some coasters though in the Wake show drawings. Every day, Cruise director Josh has a daily riddle. If you can solve it, you enter a drawing for the daily prize. Today’s riddle was “I’m a 5 letter word. If you add two more letters, I get shorter. What am I?” Hopefully, you could figure out that the answer is the word “SHORT”. Add -er to get shorter.
The evening was a triple feature starting with a famous couples trivia. We again lost by just one point. This was followed by a double header with the Scared Weird Little Guys doing a second show of musical parodies and musical gags (again very entertaining) followed by an encore performance of West End musical songs by tenor Paul Tabone (again very good vocals). He closed with a particularly rousing version of We are Australia, which earned him a standing ovation.
We finished up the night with a Cabaret put on by Assistant Cruise Director Sarah Van Der Plank, who has great stage presence and a terrific voice for musical theater. It was a bit of a biographical journey for her from childhood to her ending up working for Princess Cruises. She did earn herself a standing ovation from the audience who have spent nearly a month getting to know her.
Sadly, we received our luggage tags and disembarkation instructions today. We’ll have to spend tomorrow repacking our suitcases once more to prepare for disembarkation in Sydney on Wednesday.
