Another Hobart visit

We first visited Hobart on a very quick cruise ship stop, in 2016. We were so taken with it then that we decided we definitely had to return on our own boat. This time, we've had four weeks to enjoy Hobart and some other areas of Tasmania, but, have only just scratched the surface. We wish we could stay longer, but, autumn is now here (although you'd never know it with the 39C temperatures we experienced yesterday, a new record) and NZ is beckoning. For our one month visit, we were lucky to base ourselves at Oyster Cove Marina, in Kettering, about twenty miles south of Hobart. It was a lovely place to stay, the rural setting was appealing, the people were friendly and the price was very reasonable. The bus service wasn't the greatest, but, we rented a car for the first two weeks which got us where we needed to go. Just up the hill from the boat, was a nice inn and restaurant overlooking the cove and we enjoyed a few meals there after our day's boat work was completed.

We had our usual share of boat problems and fixes to deal with, but, there's always somebody worse off. This local boat came into the marina after what must have been a rather bad day of sailing!

We took the car one day and headed to the lookout at the top of Mount Wellington, which looms over Hobart. Unfortunately, the top was completely clouded over and we turned around before getting to the summit. Here's the view from about 1/2 way up, from the top it must be even more spectacular, but, this view was great too, don't you think?

We had originally planned to stay at a marina in town, but, due to our arrival just a few days before the Wooden Boat Festival was due to start, everything was booked up. With hindsight, Oyster Cove was a better choice for us anyway, so, it worked out for the best. The Wooden Boat Festival is only put on every second year, so, you might think we couldn't have planned it better, but, wooden boats aren't really our 'thing'. However, they're very pretty to look at and the history and workmanship on display were bound to be interesting, so, we were eager to visit the show. It was small, as boat shows go, but, the variety of boats was tremendous and the atmosphere was very convivial.

Lots of great food stalls and demonstrations rounded out the activities. They even had Morris dancers! Not sure what they have to do with wooden boats, but, it was fun to watch them for a while anyway.

Our last night before we headed to Hobart to clear out was spent at anchor in Barnes Bay, just across the channel from Oyster Cove. That's Mount Wellington in the distance. It was a lovely, warm, calm evening. We sat out in the cockpit for a while and listened to the kookaburras in the woods adjacent to the shore, a great sendoff.