Tasmania Day 1

Salamanca Market and Mount Wellington

Sometimes in a rush for more exotic destinations we ignore the wonderful places right under our nose, and we pretty much ignored Tasmania for the first 11 years after we’d moved to Melbourne. Once we finally visited though, we never stopped coming back, as this small island is blessed with natural beauty and packed with things to see and do. And delicious food, too.

This time around we haven’t ventured too far from Hobart, which was our base for two nights, but we still managed to pack in quite a bit. The only real annoyance on the first day was waiting for almost an hour for our checked-in bag to show up. Note to self, best not to travel to places with tiny airports so close to a public holiday, because chaos may ensue. Because of this delay, we haven’t spent as much time at the Salamanca Market as we would have liked, but oh well. It’s a great place to hang around, with the beautiful sandstone buildings as the backdrop and plenty of interesting and tasty wares on display.

Afterwards, we went for a drive to the top of Mount Wellington, which looms over the city. It was freezing cold with a killer wind, however the views were spectacular. The terrain on the very top is quite rugged and harsh, but it has its own desolate beauty to it that always appeals to me.

My brother’s PAX costume

Proving that spending hours on a detailed, time-consuming project is a family trait, here’s the amazing costume my brother made for the PAX gaming convention in Melbourne. And when I say “made”, I really mean it: he started out with a giant piece of leather (which he thinned down and dyed), a chain sheet and a pile of accessories, so other than boots, pants and gloves, he made everything himself, from the main breastplate down to the belts. The tunic was courtesy of Mum’s sewing skills.