Tasmania: One of the Corners of the World

My final cruise of the contract was a circumnavigation of Australia. I had done a relocation cruise around the top of the continent, but this would be my first time along the south edge, across the Bight and to the island-state of Tasmania.

We called in Burnie and Hobart, with an overnight stop in Hobart. The weather was refreshingly cold, after the north of Australia and Bali (8 degrees south of the equator). We could see mountains from the deck of the ship when we were in port. Most of our other ports were flat, or included gentle hills, so sharp, wild mountains were a noteworthy sight.

Overnights are always a holiday aboard ships. We go for months without ever seeing darkness on land. Sunset finds all the crew back onboard, back at work. The technical department, in charge of the maintenance and upkeep of the ship, work regular working hours, between 8am and 6pm, so they never get a chance to get off in port. Nightly entertainment needs to be prepared and rehearsed. All of that changes with an overnight. The whole ship finds fill-ins for or ways out of any remaining duties, and all departments head out for a night of normalcy.

A leisurely dinner out preceded a few drinks at a local bar, followed by a visit to a night club. Hobart’s sleepy Tuesday night was woken up by the hundreds of crew members looking for a break from ship life.

I had dinner with friends then hung out at a bar, but when it got to the night club, it was identical to the crew bar on the ship, when we have a crew disco. No thank you, not my scene. So off to bed for me, in preparation for an early start going to a wildlife refuge the next day, to visit wombats, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos and koalas.

We headed to the Bonorong Wildlife Refuge for a taste of local wildlife. We drove under the brooding peak of Mount Wellington and crossed the wide Derwent River. A brief half-hour drive out of Hobart brought us over foothills and through valleys, giving us a taste of wild Tasmania. Its stretching grasslands reminded me of England’s Lake District or South Africa’s stretching game reserves. I guess grasslands are grasslands, the world over.