An hour-and-a-half from leaving Sydney we arrived in Hobart, Tasmania. Australia's second oldest city and with only a population of 200,000 it was a bit of a contrast to Sydney. We were greeted almost immediately by Sue at the airport, and within the space of half an hour from leaving the airport we'd drop our bags off and were sat in the Alley Cat pub being treated to a cold beer and pizza!

We had a great evening with Sue and it was the perfect introduction to Hobart!

With Norms house to ourselves it felt a bit like luxury after staying in hostels, but we soon got used to it. We spent the next few days exploring Hobart, from the harbour side to Battery Point to Salamanca Place. It's a beautiful little city! That night we were back at the Alley Cat, this time with Rohan. He took us down to his pub where he works, The Brisbane, had a few drinks there then went with a few of his mates down to the Salamanca lawns to do some fire twirling. They did the fire twirling...we watched! Went to back to Rohans flat and after that my memory is a bit blurred.

Over the next few days we did a lot of relaxing, meeting up with Sue for coffee/beer/bbqs etc and enjoyed having some peace.

On the 24th Norm and Christina arrived back from Bali. We had a nice meal that evening and did some planning for the sights we were to see of Tasmania!

The next day we were up very early...for us, and we boarded Norm's big orange van (aka the deathtrap according to Sue), and were driven to the summit of Mount Wellington, which looks over Hobart its surrounding areas. It was such a clear day that you could see for miles. We then drove to Connningham Beach, our first beach in Australia, and it was stunnning, with amazing clear waters. And we had it pretty much to ourselves! We took the scenic route back to Hobart and had a few drinks at Alley Cat, and prepared for our trip to Bruny Island in the morning.