A summer Saturday in Hobart

Sometimes exploring places that are most familiar through the lens of a camera reveals unexpected delights.

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Crabapples in Saint Andrews Park, Hobart
Decorative bust over a window of a Hobart house
The Streets of San Franciso? No, Patrick Street, Hobart
Rhona H, one of several wooden boats satisfying the demand for sail and tall-ship experiences on Hobart’s waterways
Brooke Street Pier, the innovative floating hub for ferries, food and local experiences
King’s Pier Marina, Hobart

The denizens of Hobart demonstrate a propensity for messing about in boats that leads the nation, if boat-ownership statistics are to be believed. And on a sunny summer Saturday, who could blame them, when even the crowded marinas around Constitution Dock look idyllic.

Hobart from Kings Pier
HMAS Canberra, being approached by two members of the Tasmanian Coastguard

I’m told that this enormous vessel is not an aircraft carrier, but instead an LHD, and that this does not stand for Long Haul Destroyer, but instead means Landing Helicopter Dock.  I’d like to think that the two chaps from the Tasmanian Coastguard down in front on the jet skis are heading out to check its parking sticker and to make sure it’s got a valid National Parks Pass. Perhaps when it’s military service is finished, it might help solve the Bruny Ferry problem;-)

Melaleucca craypots on the deck of a fishing boat in Hobart

I’m told that the traditional Tasmanian craypot is woven and steamed from tea tree from the horizontal scrub of the west coast. This traditional method does not, as yet, seem to have succumbed to more modern materials and manufacturing techniques. A fellow instagrammer, @thorpe_farm, told of having  visited a bloke at Marrawah who told him all about how the different woods fizz under water and handle the abuse of boats and rocks. Very Tasmanian!

The Watergate at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Cellular Tessalation

Cellular Tessalation has been gracing the Watergate forecourt of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery during the summer, offering an intriguing foretaste of Pattern Play, the playful exhibition that is displayed inside. The structure is made of hundreds of hexagonal plastic cells, all different as in nature.

Headstones at Saint Andrew’s Park, Hobart

There were many small cemeteries dotted around Hobart Town in the early decades of  white settlement. As the colony grew, the major cemetery was established at Cornelian Bay, a couple of kilometres north of the town, as land closer was in high demand. Buriels from the small cemeteries were exhumed and reburied there. If the land was to be reused for homes or businesses, the headstones were sent to Cornelian Bay too. At Saint Davids Park and at this small park on the northern edge of the CBD, the headstones have been incorporated into the walls of public space, offering a tangible link with the site’s past.

Occasionally the exhumations were not entirely complete, as a home owner in West Hobart recently discovered whilst excavating for some renovations.

Headstones at Saint Andrew’s Park, Hobart
Footpath lined with old headstones at Saint Andrew’s Park, Hobart

4 Comments Add yours

  1. RuthsArc – London – Looking forward, looking back & enjoying life in Tasmania.
    RuthsArc says:

    Lovely photos of Hobart Andrew. I haven’t been to St Andrew’s Park so will make time to visit. I might drive rather than walk up Patrick Street !

    1. Hi Ruth, yes even long standing Hobart residents don’t seem to have heard of it. Thanks.

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