Hobart, Tasmania: Mt Wellington

Another road sign to add to my collection!  This wombat sign was somewhere between Dunalley on the Tasman Peninsula and Hobart. Our drive into Hobart included not just one bridge… Not just two bridges… But three, yes, three bridges!  Okay, the first two were causeways.  The last one is the Tasman Bridge. Here’s a glimpse of Hobart as we were crossing the Tasman Bridge over the Derwent River.  Hobart is so picturesque.  Tasmania only has about 500,000 people and half of them live in Hobart.  And it looks like every single one of them must have a great view.   Our first trip through Hobart was a quick one, just driving through on our way to our next stay- a caravan park in Snug.  It was a long holiday weekend (Labour Day) so we decided to book in rather than fight the masses for a camping spot somewhere.  Here’s another view of the bridge the next day as we headed back into Hobart to visit Mount Wellington. This mountain has a lovely feature: a road that goes all the way to the peak!!! The road was windy and pretty steep in places.  It was so interesting to see the vegetation change as we climbed.  From tall trees to very short trees to no trees. It was cloudy and cold at the top.  We were lucky that it wasn’t too cloudy, we still had great views. Thankfully there is an enclosed structure as well as outdoor viewing platforms.  We weren’t exactly dressed for this.  It had been quite warm at our campsite that morning.  We were all in shorts and some of us didn’t even have jackets.  You’d think I’d know better, being from Utah and all. The views were spectacular.  We were nearly touching the bottom of the clouds.  I took some pictures from inside first before braving the cold wind on the platform below.  See how they’re all wearing jackets?  And hats?  Ooops. The information posters inside had some great um, information.  I didn’t know about the Tasman Bridge disaster back in the 70s. We moved outside and found that the first viewing platform sheltered us from the wind some, so it wasn’t nearly as cold as I thought it would be. I have a gazillion pictures like those above.  Just spectacular.  The lower platform was not as sheltered so it was freezing!  We didn’t stay there long. The clouds cleared up again as we were leaving.  This is the same transmitter tower that was covered in clouds at the beginning of this post. According to this plaque the road was opened in 1937!  It looks like the road took a few years to build.  Whenever we are on one of these steep, windy roads or trails I always wonder about the people who built them. What a cute kid.  He had his hat but not a jacket so he stole Sean’s vest. Brothers.  Aren’t they cute? Their sister came running to be in the picture too.  She didn’t have her jacket either.  Poor Dad ended up going without. There’s a better shot of the tower as we were leaving the parking area. This sign says 1270 metres above sea level.  That’s 4,166 feet for those who are metric-challenged.  More pictures of the vegetation or lack thereof…   We saw heaps of these Moke cars heading up the road as we were coming down.   All different colours, even pink and purple.  We’d seen them the day before on the Tasman Peninsula.  I looked it up later and there was a get together for Moke owners over the Labour Day weekend.  We saw at least a couple of dozen headed up the mountain as we were coming down. After we came down the mountain we drove around Hobart a bit.  You can just make out the viewing structure and the towers in this picture.  If we’d been a bit more prepared we could have done a walk or two, there were some that sounded perfect for families.  On the way back to Snug we stopped in Margate to visit the old train that has been converted into some shops.  You can still climb in the engine which the kids were thrilled to do.  TurboBug loooooves trains right now so we had to make the stop.   See all the train cars lined up behind the engine?  They’ve been converted into shops.  Great use for an old train, making it a tourist stop.  We only went in a couple of the shops as everything was closing up for the day.  One of those was a lolly shop.  We may have indulged in a treat or two.