Wednesday, October 16, 2013

16 October 2013 - Treasure Island Caravan Park, Berriedale, Tasmania


Today could have been one of those days travellers could do without, offering neither education nor rest, neither pleasure nor thrills. On the scale of one to ten of travel joys, it was not very far up there but was better than expected.

We were up and away early, plunging into Hobart’s traffic rush, making the quarter hour trip twice that long, however we still arrived at Barry Cooper’s Auto Repairs before the scheduled time. We were advised the work could take most of the day and so we set off with our backpacks down Elizabeth Street into the city, a distance of a little less than two kilometres, enjoying the eclectic mix of restaurants and early morning cafes along the way as we passed through North Hobart. The Elizabeth Street Mall was still very quiet. We wandered through a couple of side malls looking in vain for a McDonalds apart from a small counter affair in a small food hall. Finally we gave up and walked on down to the Information Centre where we learned where both the Scottish restaurant and the library were, stopping by the Centro transport office to enquire after bus routes and fare structures. The one decent size MacDonalds was back up the hill on the edge of North Hobart; there we found this rather out of the way place and sat over the worst cup of coffee we have ever had in our favourite El Cheapo café. Serves us right, I guess, for not patronising a real café although we are not likely to change at this stage in our lives.

Still, we lingered, pouring over our maps and discussing travel options over the next few days, and taking into account the urgency we have been feeling has been dealt with by a rescheduling of our return ferry trip to the mainland. Finally we made our way to the State Library where we found, to our immense delight, a small museum tucked away on the ground floor; the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Art.

This is an extraordinary collection of fine and rare books, colonial works of art, eighteenth and early nineteenth century furniture, silver glass, fine china and objets d’art, all donated by Henry Allport in 1965. He was the fourth generation of a wealthy family who first settled in Van Diemen’s Land in 1831. The Allport bequest remains one of the most generous in Tasmania’s history and was an absolute treasure to discover. We spent some time admiring the rooms that have been established here in the library, marvelling that one family could have accumulated so much richesse in possessions.


Buoyed by such a bonus, we settled ourselves into the reading rooms upstairs with a variety of reading matter and remained there until just after midday, when we returned to the Elizabeth Street Mall to find a spot in the sun for our lunch. By now the mall was full of shoppers, workers and tourists, or should I say “full” by Tasmanian standards.  We sat out of the wind serenaded by a blue-grass fiddler whose very lengthy strains finally became too much and we moved on. We people-watched as we are prone to do, whispering disparaging comments about the passers-by to each other, greatly amused by our mutual rudeness. Such are the pastimes of the retired observers of life; people beware!

We returned to the library where I retrieved the book I had been reading and curled up in the warmth by the window while the winds blowing fiercely outside. By the time we received a text from the garage to say the landcruiser was ready for collection, I had read about 150 pages of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, a literary prize winning work all the better for being in Large Print. This was a first for me, the large print that is; what a discovery that was. When I am once more in a house and have a local library at my disposal, I shall make use of this facility offered by most libraries designed for those with fading eyesight. Another frailty of losing one’s youth! And of course I will have to source the half read book sometime in the future; I hate abandoning a book. It suggests failure and I hate to fail or give up on anything.


Another plus for the day was the invoice for the mechanical service, more than one hundred dollars less than quoted. On the way back we called into the Woolworths supermarket at Glenorchy and stocked up on fresh fruit and vegetables; we do seem to consume a lot of these.


I must also use this space to have a grizzle about free camping courtesy. For the past day or two, a Hymer motorhome was parked near us here in the park. It is frustrating when you are travelling in a self-contained rig to be obliged to pay for a space in a built up area. We are sympathetic to this not only as caravanners ourselves but also as motorhomers. The New Zealand Caravan and Motorhome Association and the CMCA here spell out the general courtesy to be exercised when it comes to parking up, especially in a built up area. One of those rules is about not camping within a certain distance of a commercial camping ground, and certainly not within view of one. We also acknowledge that these same commercial operations lobby local councils and shires so that their own interests are paramount. It is a brave public body who upsets the tourist operators.

However our gripe is with the travellers in this Hymer who parked down here in the bay, within view of the camp and right up close to the boundary of the camp. How is that for audacity!!!? In New Zealand we have our club numbers on our van and such behaviour would be reported to the Association; the members would be reprimanded and risk being excommunicated. Shame on these people here in Hobart!!! You know who you are!

And the weather today? By the time we set off back to North Hobart on foot, the skies had clouded over and we were subjected to bursts of wind-driven rain. Since arriving home, the rain has set in for real although the wind which was buffeting the caravan a little earlier, has disappeared. 

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