Tassie Trip 2015
Day 12
Hobart - Salamanca Markets - Telegraph Hotel - Shot Tower - Rivulet Walk
Another night of battering from these fierce winds and rain. Another morning waking up to view the carnage. Our clothes airer tried to fly at about 1.30 last night. It tried a second time just before dawn at first light....but our last day dawned sunny at least....for all of about 20 mins.
This park is full of ducks and I mean full of ducks. You cant walk 10 metres without running into whole families. They have lived every minute of this foul weather, splashing about in puddles and chasing everything in sight. Duck poo everywhere mind you.....
We breakfasted quickly and set off for the day at the famous Salamanca Markets. Finding a park a few streets away we walked in the rain (this time it was more like sleet. Corinne was adamant it was in fact snowing) to the markets. We wandered there in rain and full sun and more rain and gusty winds for the whole morning. We bought a beautiful wooden cheeseboard handcrafted from Tassie Oak and Blackbutt and a hand made cheese cleaver to go with it.
By lunchtime we'd had enough of the markets and the fluctuating weather and so wandered the waterfront and Constitution Dock looking for a nice spot to eat. Trouble was everyone else decided to as well. We decided to seek respite in the local pub the Telegraph Hotel and we had a great hour or so drinking beers, playing pool and eating burgers and pizza! Awesome! Corinne and Cayden beat Cayla and Chris at pool while Cobes hoovered the lunch we couldn't fit in.
Whilst we could have settled in to pub life all afternoon, the sun came out for a bit and we decided we'd drive to the Shot Tower. Built in 1870, the tower is 48m high and was purpose built to make the shot pellets used for rifles. They melted down lead and arsenic and the hauled it up to the top of the tower, re-melted it and then poured it into a tray with specific holes in it to create the shot and it fell the 48m down the middle of the tower into cooling water to complete the process. Just for the record there were 318 steps up the tower!
From there it was onto the Hobart Rivulet walk. This Rivulet runs all the way from the Cascade Brewery into Hobart Town itself. Peter Degraves must have walked this with much delight in then choosing his sight for his timber mill firstly and later his brewing location. It's a fascinating walk with places to indicate what I used to be like. All crowded in now with urbanisation.
We left our walk to head back to camp via Woolies for our last shop and fuel.
Tomorrow it's an early start as we pack up and drive almost 300ks to the West Coast and to Strachan. I'm sure we will stop at lots of interesting places along the way.