Sorry this isn't of the absolute highest quality, I wrote it while I was still laid up sick and it seems a bit incoherent to me. That being said the ever triflin Dr. Stanley demands a blog post, so, a blog post he shall have!
Hi Everyone,
Well we've been in Hobart a couple
weeks and the deal I made with the devil has come to fruition. If
you'll remember I was very worried about getting sick on the plane
ride. In lieu of this feeling I made the passing remark on more than
one occasion that I would be happy if I was sick once I was here. I'm
now on day five of the most annoying stomach virus that I've ever
had. Oh well c'est la vie, and kids, don't tempt fate.
That being said, this annoying and untimely illness has given me time to
write a blog post about where we are. Hobart, Tasmania is a beautiful
city situated on the Derwent River in the shadow of Mt. Wellington.
It is at 43 degrees South so it's pretty far down there. There isn't
a continental climate however, so you don't have to worry about the
extreme weather like you do at home. What you do have to watch out
for are atmospheric changes on a level to leave one stupefied and often quite chilly coupled with the unpredictability
caused by having the Great Southern Ocean just to the South. Weather wise,
the place is hoppin.
No where can the turbulent weather be better illustrated
than in the yearly sporting spectacle of the Sydney to Hobart yacht
race. This is probably one of the worlds premier ocean going yacht races. Now, one would think that when you round the headland and
enter the Derwent from the open ocean that a boat would be home
free. Often this is not the case. Many Sydney to Hobart races have
been won and lost on the river. Just this year there was a scene of
mass carnage as a bunch of Maxi Yachts rounded the corner to come up to Hobart. The winds were so high that the light and fast, but
brittle boats tore apart. If you don't believe me look up the
pictures on the internet. There are some pretty good shots of
sailboat destruction. One captain was reported to have actually shot
his flare gun through his main sail in his desperate bid for
salvation. My host, Craig, and his brother go out on it every week to
race on Wednesdays.
The general feel of Hobart is sort of
like Richmond. You never know when you might step out the back door
of the pub and find an old bus sitting in the beer garden, full of
people committing all sorts of acts of violence over a game of Uno.
There are some hipsters cruising around on their fixed gear bikes
but, much as in Blacksburg, there are hills so riding a bike with no
breaks is a perilous affair.
A native who made his pile and returned
to the city has recently opened a museum called Mona. This is
supposedly a museum of all things weird. Ellen and I haven't visited
yet but they have ferries that leave from the main dock in Hobart and
run up the river to the peninsula where Mona is located. The ferries
are painted in trendy grey and pink camouflage schemes and have
things like victorian couches on them next to statues of cows. Make no
mistake, this place is hip.
This weekend has been the Royal Hobart
Regatta festival. This is a long weekend (of which there are many in
the Australian summer) where military planes fly over the city in
close formation and Royal Australian Navy ship usually comes to town.
There are bands and a wooden boat festival culminating in a sailing
regatta on Monday. I am told that the wooden boat festival only happens bi-annually so it is lucky that we got to see it. The whole weekend basically feels like a state fair for which
everyone in Southern Tasmania gets a day off. There are stalls selling fried
food of every kind complete with a steam powered merry-go-round on the wharf. From
what little I have seen of it, the Regatta Day celebration seems like
a whole heap of fun. I was able do drag my pitiful self down the other night to see the Navy rock band perform a set. It was nice to see a
Navy band that wasn't obviously selling it's self as a recruiting
tool. I'm sure upon it's inception the creators of the Navy rock band
had numbers in mind but, over all, the musicians seemed to just be
there for the entertainment of the people and to playfully harass the
army. In the states there would have been recruiting officers set up
on either side of the stage. It was nice that they were keeping it
subliminal instead of super-liminal.
The place we have been staying is in
South Hobart up the side of Mt. Wellington very near to the suburb of
Fern Tree. This is cool because we're just a hop, skip, and a jump
from the Mt. Wellington park. The hiking and biking is fantastic with
miles of trails some of which are shared between mountain bikers and
hikers and some which are hiking only. There are also lots of
dolerite rocks which have some exposed areas and some really cool
looking bolted climbing routes. This being the realm of the hipster,
there are mountain bike tracks going up everywhere around the area.
Once I get better I'm going to get a beater mountain bike off Craigs
brother's company and start riding the trails.
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| A wallaby in mid hop. Also it should be noted that this is picture 2112 off Ellen's camera. Therefore, I assume the Wallaby is saluting Neil Peart; the greatest drummer of them all. |
Hobart is also a city of naturalists.
The University of Tasmania is located here and there is a general
feel of conservation. Just to the North of town there is a wildlife
preserve called Bonorong. Ellen and I went there on our first week in
the country. It is a very cool wildlife park where they have some of
everything that lives in Tasmania natively. We got to see echidnas
and quolls and even some Tasmanian devils getting their mid afternoon
snack of chicken. The girl giving the tour asked us if we'd seen the
cartoon of Taz spinning around to the general destruction of
everything around him. When we answered yes of course she dove into a
discourse about how devils are actually sort of slow and lumbering
critters with poor eyesight. Because of this, they often eat road
kill and are apt to end up as road kill themselves. There is also a
type of virus that is causing them all to die off. Bonorong is taking
measures to try and save them by breeding populations of devils and
putting them on islands surrounding Tasmania. Hopefully this will act
as a stop gap measure until a vaccine can be administered to these
populations. Hopefully we won't lose these derpy cute little guys
forever.
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| Tasmanian Devils at Bonorong |
For Ellen and I the game is feeling
better and finding jobs. She, of course, didn't catch the flu like I
did. In fact it has just occurred to me that the only people I know
who have gotten it have been males.
Well that's all for now folks. I promise I will be more attentive to the blog once interesting things start happening again. Right now we're just finishing getting all the paperwork done. Stay tuned and keep the Northern Hemisphere warm!
<3 Joker and Ellen
