Having been on the road for ten days, albeit staying at each place two nights at a time, we were ready for a slower pace when we got back to Hobart for our final stint. We consequently decided not to do the dayflight tour to the southwest, that we were considering. That, special as it sounds, we’ll save for another trip. Instead, we …
Visited the Tasmanian Royal Botanic Gardens
… with our worthy guide, Ian. We parked near the Queen’s Domain and walked through the Soldiers Memorial Avenue which commemorates around 500 soldiers who died in World War I. Trees were planted, with a plaque for each soldier containing his name, unit, place and date of death, and age, as you usually see, but also occupation and all sorts of other information about family, military career and civilian life that I don’t recollect seeing before. On one, for example, we’re told about a soldier’s widow and whom she married after the war. Quite fascinating that such effort was taken to document these mostly all-too-brief lives. Many of the original trees, one planted for each soldier, haven’t survived, but new trees have been planted in the last decade or so. Ian did tell us that the trees planted up near the Tasmanian Cricket Ground end of the Avenue have thrived. They apparently benefited from some water and fertiliser run-off from care given to the ground! Cricket, after all, as we Aussies know, is important.
I love visiting botanic gardens and these Tasmanian ones (RTBG) were well worth a visit. Botanic gardens all have their little specialties. At the RTBG we particularly enjoyed the Tasmanian collection (of course), the community food garden with which ABC’s retired gardening guru Peter Cundall has been connected, the little Antarctic house, and the gorgeous stone conservatory. The gardens are also lovely for their view over the Derwent River. Loved seeing families out enjoying it on what was a lovely day.
We ended the day with a tasty meal at Ian and Helen’s favourite Thai restaurant, the Ivory Cafe, one of those special wife-out-front-husband-cook-in-the-back places. The wife in this case is Donna. She’s friendly, knows her regulars, and has a delightfully cheeky sense of humour. We enjoyed some repartee with her as well as loving the food. Reminded us of our lovely Rama’s in Pearce.
The evening ended with two rounds of 500, with each team winning one each. Perfect!
Our Salamanca day
It’s been more than two decades since Len’s been to the Salamanca Markets so off we set, not too bright and early, to check them out. I managed to pick up a few gifts, we had lunch at a laundromat* – seriously – in Salamanca Place, and we just generally mooched around with tourists and locals alike. I’m not a keen markets fan, really, excluding food/farmers’ markets. It’s sometimes hard to distinguish real craft from more commercial offerings. Still, the setting of these markets is beautiful and visiting them is worth doing. We also popped into Salamanca Place’s friendly, independent Hobart bookshop.
On our walk home, we popped into the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, whose current main exhibition featured the 1880s botanical watercolours of Tasmanian artist Margaret Anderson Hope. I like botanical art, and we both enjoyed looking at the works, and recognising some of the plants we’d seen over the last week or so.
We haven’t mentioned nephew Oscar much in these posts, but being a teenager with a part-time job and a life of his own, he’s not been around a lot. Nonetheless we’ve enjoyed catching up with him, albeit in snippets, in his own environment (rather than on his visits to our neck of the woods).
Helen continues to introduce me to new cooking ideas, including this night’s spinach, leek and goat-and-sheep feta pie with gluten-free base. It worked a treat, so I’ll be bringing that recipe home. The evening ended with our being taught a new card game – Up and Down the River. Great fun, though we could see why its alternative name is Oh hell! My mild name would be Darn it!, but we’ll leave it to you to imagine alternative names!
* the Machine Laundry Cafe
Just a few photos …
I prefer loud snacks that yell at me.
We won’t be competing then … You smart Alec you!