Mt. Wellington

For our return trip home, we had a late flight from Hobart to Melbourne, stayed the night at a budget hotel in Melbourne, then had a flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong the next morning. That last flight was 9 hours.

On our very last day in Hobart, before our flight out, we went to the Salamanca Market. The Salamanca area looks like the old fishing wharf with old trading houses, hotels, etc. Then, every Saturday, they have a huge farmers market there, full of everything a town could want. Produce, flowers, clothes, souvenirs, knick knacks, and of course, street food! We ate the legendary brats from the sausage stand. Actually we ate there twice, as we walked down the street once and up the street once. It's a family owned operation, and they make their entire week's income from this single market. Talk about doing some business! Drew had one brat covered in hot mustard. It had so much horseradish in it that after the first bite he started to cry! Or, maybe he just thought the brat was so beautiful....

Right nearby the market was a large park that lots of people were hanging out in. When we started walking through, we noticed all of these large monuments, so we went to check them out. Turns out, the part was originally a graveyard. They moved all of the smaller headstones and put them into a wall, which is really interesting to look at, as it shows the names, ages at death, date, and sometimes the cause. They left the large memorials in place, which is what we initially noticed. They also left the bodies there, obviously. So all of these people are just hanging out on people's graves.... A bit weird, but these people didn't seem to mind. 

We then took a drive to the top of Mt. Wellington, the mountain the stands behind the city. We originally wanted to hike this, but the weather never cooperated. And honestly, if the hike had taken us to the same place the drive did, that's always a bit frustrated. You take your last turn on the trail, only to come out into a parking lot with lots of other people milling around. You mean I could have drove here?!? It's always a annoying feeling right at that moment. 

The view from the top was incredible. You could see the city, the Derwent River, other surrounding mountains, etc. Apparently there was an enormous forest fire on Mt. Wellington back in 1967, and the land is still recovering. 

Again, a bit out of order. The night before we left, we had an amazing seafood dinner right by the marina. I had a Moreton Bay bug, which looked like a lobster tail, and most of the meat was in the tail, except it didn't have claws. Delicious! 

Drew had the seafood platter, which consisted of oysters (which are my new favorite seafood!), raw salmon, raw tuna, prawns, scallops, some delicious white fish, and fried barramundi. Fantastic! And a great way to wrap up our trip!