Tasmania is an island south-east of the Australia mainland. This will be our cruise’s first port at an Australian state, as Norfolk Island is considered an external territory. To add a twist to my story, I didn’t even bother to arrive with the ship, as I flew in from New Zealand after my overland trip to the south island. And this is the first thing I saw coming thru the Hobart international gate at the airport: a bronze statue of Tasmanian Devils all over the luggage. I like it here already.

I was a bit tired out after the four days of travel and tourism, but I felt I could do a simple bus tour of the city of Hobart. Tasmania has around 580,000 inhabitants and about half live in the city. They claim to have the world’s second deepest natural port, but I have no idea how that is measured.

Ironically, I did not see any Tasmanian Devils during the bus tour, but I did see the occasional wallaby dash across the road (it would take me some time to get used to seeing wallaby hopping about as normal thing). The town was fine but nothing really stood out. We then took an hour to climb Mount Wellington, which overlooks the entire city. There was a 15 degree drop in temperature and a constant wind on the summit. A tourist building shared the mountain top with two large towers – I was told one was for radio and the other TV.

In the tourist building was a information plaque about Clement Wragge, and early meteorologist. Seems he started the trend of naming hurricanes (“cyclones” in the Southern Hemisphere). Often he choose names of politicians he didn’t like. While funny, I can understand the need for a less… personal system.