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.
This dystopian parable had one of the nuttiest premises I’ve seen in a movie. In the not-so-distant future, the entire planet is frozen solid after the attempt to solve the problem of global warming goes spectacularly wrong. All life is wiped out, and what remains of the human race is gathered on a single train, which is powered by an eternal engine and whose rail network spans the entire globe, so it takes the train one year to complete the full circle.
I’m glad I watched it, but dear lord this was one silly movie. I overheard one person say that this was the worst film he’s ever seen, and while personally I don’t concur, if you don’t have a soft spot for the overblown gothic melodrama I can see why this movie would not agree with you.
Saw Laura Marling at the beautiful Hamer Hall yesterday – she performed as part of the Melbourne Festival. Monday night is a weird night for a concert, but then a break in the routine is always nice.
