I had no plans for Hobart except to visit Euan Hills at the Art Mob Aboriginal Fine Art shop. While the shop is right next to where the ship docks, we passed it outbound because we knew we would buy things and didn’t want to carry them around Hobart. I was also thinking of Pop most of the day.
When Pop sailed into Hobart in1943 he thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He was crammed with 5,500 other troops onto a ship built in 1908 built to carry 2,900. It served as a troop transport in the First World War. They were dodging Japanese submarines for more than six weeks. Radio Tokyo had reported the ship had been sunk and while the men laughed at the broadcasts because they were still afloat. Pop was desperate to send a letter to Mom to let her know he was alive. He also just wanted to see dry land. He often told me that seeing the houses climbing up the hill from the water’s edge was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He gave me a kangaroo penny from Australia that he got there. He always wanted to take Mom to Australia, preferably on a cruise ship to show her the sail into Hobart.
They were never able to make that trip. I looked at the houses rising from the sea and thought of Pop. As we wandered Hobart, I picked out buildings that he could possibly have seen.
We walked from the ship, along the waterfront to the Salamanca district, built by convicts out of sandstone in the 1830s and ‘40s. They were warehouses and port buildings. Now they are an art center with shops, including the Hobart Book Shop. I carry my swimsuit and towel to Physical Therapy in a Hobart Book Shop tote bag. I got it the first time I was in Hobart, filled it with books. I’m pretty sure if Pop saw anything it would be those buildings, as well as some of the older hotels and the Tasmanian Art Museum and Gallery built in 1863, although I doubt he would have entered. He may have entered the Cathedral. Much of what he could still see today would be dwarfed by post war steel and glass.
On our way to Salamanca, we passed several things Pop would not have seen, like the monuments to Antarctic exploration built in 2002
and the Abel Tasman monument from 1988.
Walking up from that monument we saw a demonstration protesting government inaction on global warming in front of the Premier’s offices. We talked to a couple our age who had retired to Hobart 14 years ago. Tasmania is losing population to mainland Australia but is gaining population among the elderly. Reasons include a mild climate and lower living costs. The husband told us that Hobart, being a state capital, had all the medical facilities missing in other communities, plus shops, the arts and culture in a walkable package. He could no longer drive and liked the fact that he could get anywhere he needed to go, the hospital, restaurants, shops and arts facilities on foot or with accessible public transport. He gave us one recommendation. We needed to go to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary thirty minutes outside of Hobart, not only to go there but to support it. We told him that, in fact, we were heading there that evening.
At Salamanca (Yes, I know it’s a Spanish town. But it was the site of a battle that the Brits won in the Napoleonic Wars so it is commemorated in Hobart.)
Suzi and I stopped for a coffee and, being Lent, for some hot cross buns. (More expensive than one a penny, or even two a penny.) Hot cross buns, spiced rolls with dried fruit and a sugar icing cross on them, seem to be an odd thing for lent, and Queen Elizabeth I tried to ban them but householders kept making them. The crosses apparently made them ok to eat during lent, and the spices represent the spices used for embalmment, certainly a symbol of penance. So there. They were believed to bring good luck and a safe journey if baked on Good Friday and carried on sea voyages. Thus, they ended up in Australia and New Zealand where they are more popular than in Britain. Australian bakeries sell them with chocolate chips, which seems to defeat the purpose of Lent. We were offered chocolate and Nutella buns but stayed with the traditional.
At the end of our walk, we visited Mr. Hill. The first time we were here our ship stayed overnight in Hobart to avoid a storm. We went into his shop just at closing. He locked the door, brought out some wine and we talked for hours. I always enjoy my conversations with Euan. I learn about aboriginal art and a lot more. There is a group of statues of terrified Irish women getting off a prison ship in Hobart. He wants to erect a group of statues of a frightened aboriginal family facing them to complete the picture. He has been trying for years with a lot of resistance. We ended up in a discussion about monuments, which ones should stay and which should go. He talked about the statue of a colonial governor who was particularly bad for the indigenous inhabitants. They reached a compromise that local artists could decorate the statue in non-destructive ways to make their point. One artist put a blood dripping wooden sword in his hand and covered him with “blood” (removable paint.) The next artists put translucent cloth in front of the statue with stories of what he did to denigrate indigenous people. Finally, one night someone came along with a saw and just cut him down. The
