Today is Friday 27 Jan 2006

   This morning we had breakfast , packed our car and said farewell to Port Arthur and headed down the Tasman Highway to Hobart for a two day stay to let us take in the sights of the City, Huon Valley, Richmond and into the lower central part of Tasmania.
    Arriving in the city of Hobart we had realized before we left home that this part had so much to see and undoubtedly time would not allow us to see everything we wanted to. We found out that a visit to Cascade Brewery and Cadburys Chocolate factory were out of luck as no available spots during our stay which was bit of a let down really but we accepted that fact.   To waylay the hurt a bit we did visit the Cadbury Factory shop to buy a ' truck load' of goods that took the disappointment away.
    We arrived in Hobart about 9-30am and drove across the city to Wrest Point Casino Complex to book into our billet for the next two night, our room was in the motel part of the casino and was very up market type with an excellent ocean view over Sandy Bay. After being allocated our room and settled in we left to go downtown and look at what the city had to offer, Hobart being an old colonial type of city it has many heritage type facade buildings with great shopping area with good transport for the people .
  Later after a bit of shopping we walked down to the waterfront and looked around places like Constitution Dock, noted for the finish line for the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, lots of eateries selling great seafood meals, also the overseas passenger terminal where the liner Dawn Princess was in berth. Back up into town and walked down to visit Arthur's Circus which is area of the city that has early settlers homes dating back to the convict days, next stop was at the Shot Tower and a little further on to the Anare Antarctica Research Base and just to top of a good morning of sightseeing we drove up the narrow paved road to Mt Wellington to view the city and suburbs and view was magnificent. The drive back down to the motel was a little easier than going up.
      During an little lunch break and to refresh we decided to drive out past Cadbury factory and onto Richmond to look around.   This town had a distinct link with Port Arthur during the convict era in relation to its gaol which was actually built before the Port Arthur, one cant recall actually but believe about 1832, Richmond like Hobart is also steeped in history and colonial buildings which makes it also a must to visit. One feature located in town is a miniature village depicting what the life and times were like back around 1825 in Old Hobart Town, again a visit I feel is a must to see all the creation work put in to re-create to a close to reality as possible.
   Then after a pleasant little afternoon we drove back to the motel feeling a little worn out but glad after a full day of sightseeing, we both had a little nap for around a hour then got our glad rags on to go and dine in the Casino restaurant then go and spend a few dollars to try our luck on the machines. Having stayed for about two hours and winning a small amount we retired for the night and looking forward to Saturday and what its going to bring.