Travel may be good for the spirit but it is hard on the sole. Our all-purpose footwear was past its "use by" date and didn't smell too good either. Connie's were so worn that I joked I could see her socks through the soles of her boots. They already had a lot of miles on them we set sail from Galveston a year ago today so we left them in the store and wore our new kicks into Hobart.
Hobart seemed like the perfect place to search out replacements. After all, hiking is a way of life in Tassie where the kids are virtually born with Vibram feet. And it gave us a good excuse to look around. While we were ogling the art deco buildings, a retired meteorologist stopped to give us a brief history of Hobart since 1965 when he arrived. It is so nice when complete strangers take the time to make you feel like part of the community.
We also visited the under-renovation History and Art Museum. Some sections are closed during the construction and their apology is "We are a bit smaller so we can be a lot bigger!" A first for us in Australia, the museum is FREE! With so many sites being so expensive this was a pleasant shock. We enjoyed the small art gallery of talented Australian painters from the mid-Nineteenth Century to present and the display on Australia's contribution to polar research. At forty-two degrees South, Hobart is the logical base for supply and research ships heading to Antarctica.
The laundry is drying in the intermittent sunshine and Connie has cleaned out the van in preparation for returning it tomorrow when we fly to tropical Darwin. It will be a pleasant change from Tasmania's chill but in a few days we will probably wish for some of that cold air.
