Last Day in Hobart and Heading to Sydney

Saturday March 23 was our last full day in Hobart. It started sunny and became more mixed as the day went on. High of 23C.

We went to the weekly Saturday Salamanca Market held on Salamanca Place, a street with galleries, shops and restaurants just down the Kelly Steps from Battery Point, where we are staying. On Saturday, the street is closed off and there are around 300 vendors. The Market is from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. It was huge. Not as much fresh fruit/veg/ food as we expected, but lots of crafts-- some very good and some not so good. A number of the purveyors we had run into at other locations. It was definitely a community event where locals go weekly and mingle with the tourists.

Crowd at around 10:30 a.m.

Flowers

Hellfire gin tastings (Tassie gin is very good)

Tassie's scallop pies

Very good woodwork stalls

My morning coffee with "Smooth Criminal" beans from Straight Up Roasters

The coffee

We got a cinnamon raison bagel at Bury Me Standing Bagels.

Alain waiting for his bagel

Music at the Market

The crowd

Alain had bought a lovely meteorite necklace from a gallery earlier in the week. The salesperson told us that the jeweller would be at the Salamanca Market. She was there and Alain had a nice chat with her. She uses local stones/gems in her work.

Alain meets the jeweller- showing her his piece

There was a small section with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Very nice veg

After the market, we returned to Salamanca Square, just behind the market for an artichoke sandwich and another coffee at Parklane, where we had lunch earlier in the week.

Alain at Parklane

We went back to the hostel to drop some provisions and then headed to the Salamanca Art Centre to hear an artists' talk by Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth the two artists who worked on the Eyes as Big as Plates exhibit that we had enjoyed earlier in our visit.

Karoline (b.1980), is a Norwegian photographer, artist and writer and Finnish artist Riitta (b.1981), now based in Rockaway Beach, New York, makes wearable sculptures and is also a photographer. The artists walked around the exhibit explaining their process, their subjects (mainly seniors with whom they establish a rapport) and the background to a number of their individual photographs. They met eight years ago on the internet and have worked on this project for the entire period and still continue to collaborate. We really enjoyed their talk. I suggested to Riitta that they come to Canada. There are some amazing locations that would lend themselves to their work.

Edda, Iceland 2013

Halvar, Norway 2011- one of their first models

Liv, Norway 2017- Karoline's grandmother who at first was upset about her wrinkles being shown.

The artists- Karoline on the left and Riitta on the right--- very creative and dynamic

We walked down the street to check out a few more galleries and stores. There is a very interesting apartment complex called the Silos Apartments which incorporated renovated silos.

Front of the Silos apartment

Back of the Silos apartments- photo taken from a hill behind the complex

There was a sculpture of Roald Amundsen in front of the new building (2013) for the Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania.

Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) Noorwegen Naval captain and Polar Explorer who lead the first expedition to reach the South Pole on 14 December 1911 (Victor Lewis, American, made the original plaster cast when Amundsen was in Seattle in 1921).

We continued our walk and came across the "last link in a chain of semaphore stations which from about 1818 transmitted messages until superseded by the electric telegraph". Different coloured flags flew to alert residents to the arrival of the mail ship or train from Launceston. Until 1927, house flags signalled the identity of incoming ships.

Signalman's cottage (office and residence)

We walked through Prince's Park to a street just a few blocks from our hostel.

Dog painting on a wall

We also passed a house with a memorial plaque to Jimmy, a local cat.

We ate dinner at the hostel and finished our packing.

Sunday March 24 was a gorgeous sunny day in Hobart. We had enough time in the morning to go for breakfast at Pollen Tea Room just around the corner from the hostel. We sat in the lovely garden for our breakfast at around 9:15 a.m. It was already getting warm out.

Entrance to Pollen Tea Room. Only a few tables inside.

Beautiful garden seating

With my baked eggs and sourdough bread and espresso

I took one last photo of the streets in Battery Point and Mount Wellington in the background. Blue, blue sky. Lots of people already out for their Sunday breakfast.

Looking up the street where Pollen Tea room was located

We walked over to Arthur Circus for one last look at the beautiful homes and great playground.

Arthur Circus

Playing on the swings

One of the homes at Arthur Circus

We took at Uber to the airport (in Hobart about $10 less than a cab). Hobart Airport is a lovely small airport with beautiful wood seating and a coffee shop serving local Tasmanian beans. We had a fair bit of time in the airport as our flight to Sydney was delayed about 30 minutes.

Alain at the Hobart airport

Our Virgin Australia plane

Busy airport- lots of light

We made up some time on our flight (about 1 hour 40 minutes). We landed in Sydney at about
2:00 p.m. and took an Uber to our Airbnb near Rushcutter's Bay, an eastern city suburb about 3 km from the CBD. It is very close to the King's Cross Train station and in a very quiet well treed older apartment complex. It was about 32C in Sydney on our arrival, but it cools down at night and the temperature is forecast to drop to the low 20s by mid-week.

Outside of our building in the complex

We are staying on the main floor in a fully equipped one-bedroom apartment. Very quiet complex, although just minutes from a very busy part of town.

Separate bedroom

Dining area and kitchen-- small area with a work station/table to the left of Alain and a bathroom off the front part of the living room

We stopped at an Information Kiosk run by the City a few blocks away. The woman working there told us that Sunday is "Family Fun Day" and one can travel all day on trains, buses, ferries and light rail for only $2.70! She suggested we might want to go over to Manly Beach and take advantage of the Sunday fares. We first went to Harris Farm Markets (a good grocery store around the corner from the Info Kiosk that she recommended) with lots of fresh fruit/veg and fish. We headed out at around 5:00 p.m. and, of course, it started to rain. We decided to head to Circular Quay to check out the harbour, but nixed the beach trip. The train system is a bit complex (lots of different routes and not the clearest signage) but we're getting the hang of it. OPAL cards (like Presto in TO) are free and can be filled in $10 increments in train stations or by newsagents.

We saw the same cruise ship we had seen in Hobart harbour a few days earlier

Sydney Bridge

Bridge and Opera House (on the right) in the rain (photo from wharf area)

Sydney Opera House

We walked by the Museum of Contemporary Art, which we are planning to visit. Large Art Deco building with a modern addition. There were a lot of young people in a line up. We talked to a few of the kids, who said it was an event for mainly high school students. There was going to be live music and the woman we talked to had been invited to the event- her first time in the museum. It had generated lots of buzz.

Museum of Contemporary Art

Snaking line-- a drizzle at this point---outside of new addition

NSW Ministry for the Arts Writers Walk--
Dorothea MacKellar (1885-1968)- poet and novelist, wrote "My Country" in 1911 when she was just 19.

We walked into "The Rocks" area where there are lots of shops, restaurants and weekly markets.
We wandered into a heritage complex, called the Hospital Precinct and saw a sign for Tayim, a Middle Eastern restaurant located in the Harbour Rocks Hotel, an 1887 heritage building.

We checked some reviews and decided to stop for dinner. We had a fabulous dinner and ended up chatting to the man behind us, who turned out to be from Toronto and in Sydney for a few days on business.

Alain at Tayim--- there was an adjacent room with tables that was full

We shared a wonderful tasting plate of appetizers and then had some amazing grilled corn with a fabulous sauce. There is an adjoining small Deli which was closed but looked to have very good sandwiches and soups for eating in or take-out.