3 October 2005 (Day 28)

The day after. It was such a wonderful day in Sydney, warm weather and a public holiday Monday. We headed over to Shelley Beach to snorkel. The water was freezing! Not as cold as Tasmania, but it was pretty cold to go in without wetsuits.
It wasn’t long until we found ourselves out on the point and below us in shallow water were three Port Jackson sharks, just circling around not caring about us.
We headed to the other side and everywhere we looked there were small critters. Schools of juvenile mado, the tiniest of squid. It’s amazing seeing the differences over time. The cold water got to even Daniel and we ended up drying in the sun on the beach before heading over to Manly for a late lunch and a walk through the stalls for the jazz festival.
We then raced home to shower, change and pick up Paul to take him out for dinner for his birthday the day before. Jon and Tracey joined us at Dee Why Indian where we had the banquet. The yummy Butter Chicken and Lamb Korma followed by the sticky date pudding!
Tex Perkins and the Cruel Sea sung:
This just ain't fun no more
Don't know what to say
The honeymoon is over baby
It's never gonna be that way again


Well this Blog is now over, but the honeymoon....it goes on everyday.

Hope you enjoyed it... we certainly did.

2 October 2005 (Day 27 – Hobart – Sydney)

Our last day in Hobart and we even lost an hour due to the introduction of daylight savings. As the graves we visited a couple of days ago looked largely unkempt and probably never visited by anyone, Daniel wanted to return and place some flowers at each of them.
Trying to find a florist open at 9am on a Sunday morning in Tasmania is impossible. We had hoped to find an Interflora at least open so we could also send some flowers to Johanne and Lilly. Eventually we found a Woolworths that was open and bought a bunch of carnations. As it happened, the Woolworths was a short distance from the cemetery. After a visit to each of the grave sites to lay two carnations at each, we decided to go out for breakfast down at Salamanca Place.
As today is Daniel’s father’s birthday we went to a gift shop and found a shirt for him and then we found ourselves a salt and pepper grinder made out of Sassafras Tasmania hardwood – a constant reminder of our honeymoon.
We then found a nice café that served the biggest breakfast. Two poached eggs, heaps of bacon and two spiced sausages on thick toast. Yum. Whilst waiting for the meal Daniel received a call from Macca asking what time we arrived back in Sydney and if we wanted to come over to watch the grand final. As we had tickets to Sydney, why not!
Breakfast took us close to the time that we needed to leave to make the airport in time. In fact, when we arrived at the airport we had less than an hour before boarding. Whilst Daniel carried the two big bags to the check-in, Helen sorted out returning the car.
Whilst waiting in the packed terminal, we filled out the last of our postcards to send back before Helen raced out through the security check to put them in the post box.
Our last plane ride, and again Helen is booked onto the window seat, which she gives up to Daniel – although there really isn’t too much of a window to look out of and a guy the size of Daniel takes the seat in front – he did want to lay is chair back, but asked if it was okay first and when asked if he wouldn’t mind not doing it, took it in his stride.
The flight took us out over Flinders Island, past the white peaks of Mt Kosciusko and a right hand turn as we went over Parliament House. Within minutes we started to see the outskirts of Sydney.
At other airports all you could see was bush and a bit of a country town before we landed – that and it was almost always night when we landed. In Sydney, you fly over thousands of homes before you get anywhere near landing. We came in from the west, just as we had flown out 27 days before up to Hamilton. We could see Prospect Reservoir, then we could see the Harbour Bridge in the distance. With a bit of turbulence on the way down, and then a thud, we landed and we were home. Nearly!
We got a taxi back to Kings Park and went inside. We were greeted by the mad mess that we left that night packing. The remnants of the flowers from the wedding, the piles of papers for organising the wedding and our travel plans. Now we were home.
We dumped the bags then tracked down Daniel’s dad. He was at the Cumberland Community Club playing dominos on his birthday. We raced over there and gave him his present and shared a beer but by then it had all pretty much caught up with us. We headed home and crashed…. but not for too long.
We headed over to Fiona’s place where Wolffa, Macca, Fi, and a few others from Blacktown Council were preparing for the Grand Final. With a feast of beer and seafood we settled down to watch the Western Tigers defeat the North Queensland Cowboys with one very excited Wolffa running around before he crashed on the sofa (not before breaking a bottle!)
We left Fiona’s place at around 11pm and crashed in our own bed not long after.

1 October 2005 (Day 26)

While we had been at Port Arthur the night before another 5 people arrived at the dive accommodation – they were sharing the two 4-bunk rooms in the downstairs section. In the morning we waited to let them head off for their dive then went downstairs to cook up cheesy scrambled eggs and bacon and to use the showers in the downstairs rooms as we didn’t have one in our upstairs double. Then it was time to pack again, luckily not to get on a plane yet as our still-wet diving gear made our bags heavier.
We headed back to Port Arthur to see what it looked like when it wasn’t raining. We joined a walking tour, which gave us some background information on some of the buildings and history of the settlement. The tour ended next to the museum which has a couple of computer terminals where you can search to see if any of your family had been on the records at Port Arthur. Daniel had tried to search the previous night but, just as he’d managed to get a terminal to work they all shut down automatically as it was 5pm. This morning they all seemed to still be off and there was no-one to assist – maybe the service is only available in business hours. There were a number of books in the room which listed all the names of the people who had come to Port Arthur, so we looked briefly through those but couldn’t see any familiar names.
We had cauliflower soup for lunch in the Museum Café before heading back down the hill to the wharf to join a brief cruise in the port of Port Arthur. The boat dropped us off at the Isle of the Dead, used as the cemetery for the prison where we had bought tickets for a tour of the island.
The Isle of the Dead is a tiny brushy hill jutting out of the water a short distance from shore. It looks small enough to walk around the entire island in 5 minutes if it wasn’t for the bush, yet, disturbingly, it has well over 1000 bodies buried on it. Tours of the island are strictly by guide only, and you must stay on the roped off path so you aren’t walking over dead people. The guide showed us a sketch from the time when the island was in full use – the area for convicts was just row upon row upon row of body-sized mounds of earth, all jammed up close to one another. It must have absolutely stunk.
Life at Port Arthur had observed a strict hierarchy between prisoners, guards and officers and their families, and this was maintained in death. The convicts were buried on the lowest part of the island, the soldiers higher up, and the highest ground was reserved for the officers and highest ranking civilians at the peninsula. Until the year or so before the prison was closed in 1877, prisoners were not allowed to have a headstone or other marking on their grave. Even if they were allowed to have a headstone, they would have needed to have family or someone else to know and care that they had died and to have had enough money to have paid for a stone to be engraved and erected. Consequently, on the entire Isle of the Dead only about nine convict graves are marked by headstones.
The highest part of the island, on the other hand, is marked with a double row of headstones across the width of the hill, including some crypts. A number of the headstones had been carved by one of the convicts, who had learnt stone masonry at Norfolk Island. His signature was an edging of rope-work around his headstones.
One of the punishments at Port Arthur was to be assigned to be the grave digger on the Isle of the Dead. This was a live-in job, with supplies delivered weekly by boat – some even grew vegetables on the island, although we read about at least one who refused to eat any of them. Given how close together the burial mounds were this must have been a foul and miserable existence.
One of the reasons we had decided to take the tour of the Isle of the Dead was in the hope that Daniel could get some good photos from the island looking back at the Port Arthur settlement, but, despite the island being so small the tour moved slowly and had quite a lot of people and we couldn’t get a good shot clear of trees before we were all hustled back down to the wooden jetty where the boat was already pulling in to take us back to shore.
On the way back in we saw a seal off the stern, but despite Daniel standing poised with the camera we didn’t see it again so he had to settle for a few shots of the ruined Penitentiary building from the boat.
Once back on land we went to look over the Commissioner’s quarters. This rambling building had originally been a four-room house which underwent a number of additions to accommodate the needs of the various prison Commissioners and their growing families, then more additions when the prison closed and the building became a hotel. The rooms were furnished according to the period in which they had been added.
We went on to look over the Penitentiary then up the hill to look over the Silent Prison in daylight. We looked into the chapel, with its rows of boxes –this was the only place in the silent prison where prisoners were allowed to make any noise, as they were allowed to lift their masks to sing hymns. Helen is just mystified at the mind that could conceive of the Silent Prison and its rules. We found the Punishment Cell, with the 1m thick walls and four doors to enter. Whilst Daniel was in the cell Helen also found the light switch, to give Daniel a genuine experience of what it was like to be locked up in here. Of course this meant that Daniel had to return the favour.
We left Port Arthur towards the end of the afternoon, finding it hard to connect the convict history with the serene, park-like grounds and sandstone ruins.
We headed back towards Eaglehawk Neck to take in some of the geographic sights. First stop was Tasman Arch, where a cave in the cliff face had eroded away until the roof on the landward side had collapsed in leaving an archway looking out to sea. Scenic, although not too photogenic as it was difficult to get enough distance to get a good shot. We walked to Devil’s Kitchen, which was a similar formation except that the archway had also collapsed, leaving just a gouge in the cliff face. At high tide we guessed it would be spectacular, with waves gushing in and roiling through the rocks, but as it was currently low tide there wasn’t much to see.
We jumped into the car for the brief drive to the Blowhole. A brief walk first to the lookout then to the blowhole but this one really needed high tide to show what it could do, so we left pretty quickly.
Back into the car again and we drove to the narrow neck of land at Eaglehawk Neck itself and walked out to the Constable’s Cottage and then on to the Dog Line. At its narrowest point, Eaglehawk Neck is only 160m wide. This connects the Southern part of the Tasman Peninsula with the rest of Tasmania. The year after Port Arthur commenced being used as a prison they dug out a shallow trench at the narrowest point, laid it with white gravel and chained vicious guard dogs along the trench. The dogs were to act as a warning system to alert guards of any escapees trying to get past Eaglehawk Neck and out to freedom. The dogs were said to be chained in such a way that two could eat out of the same bowl but they couldn’t get close enough to fight. Eventually the line of dogs was even extended out into the water, with dogs set on platforms in the bays.
Once more back at the car we drove down the road to the Tessellated Pavement at the North side of Pirate’s Bay. This is formed by the action of salt expanding in the cracks of the rocks along the shoreline, causing the cracks to expand and form a cobblestone effect. Finally a formation that needed low tide to show off!
We said goodbye to the Tasman Peninsula and headed for Hobart as the sun started to set. As this was the last night of our honeymoon we had decided to splash out and had booked a spa room at the Hotel Grand Chancellor (using the Entertainment Book!) and a table at Mures, billed as Hobart’s premier seafood restaurant. After the day walking around Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsular cliff formations we were really looking forward to that spa!
Within an hour we were crossing the Tasman Bridge and headed for the hotel. Soon the spa was running and the bubbles from the complimentary bath gel massing up. As we waited for our last night Brandy Alexanders to be delivered by room service we caught a brief news story on the new terrorist bombing in Bali. There wasn’t much detail broadcast on the Hobart news.
After a relaxing spa and cocktail we made our way across the road to the wharf area and to the restaurant. A quick perusal of the menu found what we were looking for – a seafood platter of course! The seafood platters were individual ones, and we also noticed that there was a seafood tasting entrée on the menu. We ordered a tasting entrée to share and a seafood platter each. Our stomachs probably would have preferred a tasting entrée each and a seafood platter to share! We also ordered a bottle of Peter Lehman Semillon – it was a nice feeling to order from somewhere where we had visited at the cellar door.
The entrée had six bite-sized pieces, which we shared with the exception of the oyster. They were interesting – octopus with a chilli plum sauce, creamy prawn wonton, fish pate with cream and dill – although not exceptional. Then it was time for the platters: chilled whole prawns mounted on skewers (stuck into a hidden apple so the prawns were standing upright); natural Bruni Island oysters with sour cream and caviar; peeled prawns (watery and flavourless compared to the unpeeled ones on the skewers); and some beautiful blue gum smoked salmon; then a small basket of crumbed deep fried scallops, calamari (only 2 rings!), prawns and fish pieces; two seared scallops on half shells and a small piece of chargrilled blue eye which was nice. The rating? Well, there was plenty of seafood, but it simply couldn’t compare with the quality of seafood, imaginative and varied flavouring and perfection of cooking of the best three platters from Coffs Harbour, Hamilton Is and Fremantle. Unfortunately Hobart’s premier seafood restaurant left us unimpressed.
One of our normal rules on a seafood platter night is not to have an entrée, which we had broken tonight with the result that Helen couldn’t finish her platter. Our other rule is no dessert. We decided to break this one too and ordered a trio of icecream to share, purely because we were too full to want to move yet! The icecream was a nice surprise, good quality, creamy and good flavours, and slipped down very nicely.
We slowly made our way back over the road and up to our room on the 19th floor and decided that a warm spa would be a good way to soothe over taxed stomachs before falling into bed.

30 September 2005 (Day 25)

We got ourselves up, showered and breakfasted and were at the dive shed by 8.30 to find out if we were going to be able to dive today – yesterday apparently there was a huge swell and not a chance of getting the boat out. Gary, the proprietor, told us that we’d be able to dive today although it wouldn’t be the best. He started on the paperwork as Michael, the third diver for today, arrived.
Gary started dishing out the wetsuits for the day – thick 7mm two piece wetsuits. As he passed them out he said “try it on” so we did. Little did we know that ‘trying it on’ meant that we were to wear them until we returned from the dive. This meant we couldn’t have what we did start to call a ‘Wolffa’ (named after the man himself and his habit of having a nervous wee prior to a dive) but now call a PESS – Pre-Emersion Safety Stop!
We got all the gear we needed and climbed into the back of a Land Cruiser, which by reports from the driver, didn’t have good breaks. Re-assuring!
On the way down to the pier we were told that there was a penguin crossing on the road and that they come out to go to their roost at about 9pm.
We got to the pier and loaded up the small boat with all the required gear and then headed out to the dive site, only about 20 minutes away. As we pulled up a seal came to the surface to see what was going on. We were told that if the seal was in a playful mood it may come and play with us.
All four of us jumped into the icy water - 12°C. The only exposed part of our bodies were our faces and when you hit the water, you felt it! As Daniel bobbed to the surface his weight belt slid down around his knees. He moved towards the boat where he then lay on his back whilst the skipper reattached the belt for him.
Time to descend. We released the air from our BCDs. Everyone started to go down, except for Daniel. The 33 lbs he was carrying wasn’t enough to help him get down and stay down so again he went over to the boat where he was given another 3lbs.
Finally we were all down in the 12°C water, amongst kelp and rocks. No coral here. Also no masses of fish. The area is famous for sea dragons, but none of them either.
We swam around for 50 minutes looking but all that was found was a small draughtsboard shark, three or four lobsters and a heap of abalone.
Daniel came up with a headache. Not the best feeling when you’ve been at pressure for 50 minutes. Whilst having a surface interval of an hour, we had cup-a-soup and a kit kat each and the Divemaster gave us a demonstration of how to loose your cap. Her cap blew off and she went to catch it with her hand with the soup in it. She wore the soup and the cap still went into the water. She jumped in to get the cap.
Daniel did do the second dive, but this one was only in a maximum of 9 metres of water. Not very deep and not much to see at all. A very disappointing dive, especially when the Divemaster jumped out of the water before the rest of us because she was too cold, even though she wore a dry suit.
The trip back in made Daniel feel very seedy. We got back to the shop and washed the gear before racing into the dive digs for a hot shower. After a while Daniel started to feel a little more human.
We headed into Port Arthur and had a little look around the grounds before making our way back to the information centre to start our ghost tour.
As the tour was at 6:30pm there were a number of kids. We started off at the chapel where we were told of one brutal murder and of another suspicious death where someone fell from the roof and where his blood spilt nothing would grow. The kids started to get scared.
We then headed into the Parson’s house where we sat in a darkened room lit only by a single candle. The Parson’s house is supposed to be the most haunted place in Australia. We were told a story of how the Parson’s wife set a trap for the ghost. One child cried the whole way through. Somewhat distracting, but by far the most distracting thing was the flashes of everyone’s cameras. Given how dark it was, the flash was blinding.
As we left the Parson’s house the mother of the child spoke to the guide. He organised a car to pick them up.
We then moved onto another house where the ghosts of a small girl and a 16 year old boy holding a baby walked the roof. We saw nothing.
From there it was down into the mortuary under the Surgeon General’s residence. Before going down there some people left the trail to take photos. They didn’t see the deep trench that they fell down.
In the mortuary we went into the dissection room. Dissections were done on convicts as opposed to an autopsy – the difference being that an autopsy is done to find out the cause of death, whilst a dissection is done to have a sticky beak.
We heard various tails of ghost experiences, including one involving a former guide who had to leave because of the effect it had on her.
A sheep scull sat on the slab and was used to make noise to scare people. It worked. The remaining young boy couldn’t handle it and started to cry. Another car came and picked him and his mother and grandmother up.
Finally we moved onto the Silent Prison. This prison was used to punish the repeat offenders in Port Arthur. We sat as the prisoners would have almost 150 years ago – in complete silence. Prisoners were not allowed to make any noise. Any noise was punished. They were isolated and guards wore velvet slippers to reduce any noise they made. The prisoners were given numbered disks and were only referred to by that number. They had the opportunity to go to church where they were locked into individual stalls and could not see anyone else. They were totally isolated from everyone. And if they misbehaved in there, they went into solitary confinement which was a tiny cell, in complete darkness with walls a metre thick. Four doors separated the prisoner from the world.
We left the Silent Prison. Again, no ghosts. That was the end of the tour and we headed back to the information centre. On the way back we asked about the guide who left. It turns out that it was Linda from our tour of Fremantle Prison!
We then took some photos in the dark of the lit up church, but without any way of seeing where to go we were very limited in where we could go.
We then raced around to the restaurant that is a part of the hotel which backs onto the Port Arthur grounds. Although it was just 8pm, the grill was closed. We were, however, able to get a chicken parmagiana each.
We then headed down to where the penguins were reportedly crossing. It was a few minutes after 9pm but we saw nothing crossing the street. One penguin was on the side of the road and Daniel was able to photograph it.
We went down onto the beach and tried to find some more but to no avail. It was even difficult to find our way back to the road.
We went back to the dive digs and went straight to bed.

29 September 2005 (Day 24 – Hobart to Eaglehawk Neck)

This morning we packed all our gear up again to head east – to Eaglehawk Neck down near Port Arthur. We checked out of the hotel and then headed off to Service Street again to get some pictures during the day.
After that we headed back to the A3 which is the road to cross the Tasman Bridge. We diverted left into the Royal Botanical Gardens for a quick run through tour. As we walked the front gates we were blessed with a view of a bed of bright orange tulips. This weekend they’re having their tulip festival so all the tulips were out and looked fantastic. We quickly raced around the gardens in an hour, included a run past Pete’s Vege Patch – which really is small for anyone who watched the ABC show Gardening Australia.
We left the gardens and then headed to Cornelian Bay where the Hobart cemetery has been located since the 1870s. At the Archive office yesterday we found that at least one of Daniel’s relatives had been buried there. We pulled into the office at the cemetery and asked the woman if she could help with possibly finding other relatives and tell as where to find them.
She looked up on their database and found that Matthew and Annie Maud Higgins (great great grandparents), Margaret Dickens (nee Foley, nee Cusack) [great great great grandmother] and Patrick Foley and John Dickens (great great uncles), Matthew Tasman Higgins, Rupert Collistus Higgins, Sidney Rowland Higgins, Oscar Herbert Higgins, William Herbert Higgins (great uncles), Winnifred Annie Higgins, Minnie Grace Higgins and Gladys Higgins (great aunts). There was also a Stephen Dickens and Mary Anne Dickens, but whether he is the widow of Margaret Dickens remains to be seen.
We then headed off to find their grave sites, which shed a bit of light onto each and confirmed that they were right spots. For example, the Margaret Dickens grave also contains Patrick Foley and John Dickens (her sons) and Sid was buried with his sister Winnifred Annie and nephew Edward Matthew Hugo Scholtz.
We were also able to get some addresses for people from the database, so after the cemetery we drove around to New Town, North Hobart and Hobart to have a look at the houses that they lived in. All still existed except for one which is now a shopping centre carpark.
We grabbed a quick lunch at New Town and then headed up Mt Wellington. Mt Wellington stands 1270 metres above sea level. William Herbert Higgins climbed Mt Wellington when he was 19 in 1906. He subsequently caught pneumonia and died.
We did it a lot easier by driving up and on the way we stopped off at a large patch of snow. This trip we’ve gone from the snow white sand on Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays, the red sand of Exmouth and the snow capped Mt Wellington.
Up the top it was blowing a gale, consistently, and the wind was bitingly cold but the view was great. We spent about an hour up there, reading the information plaques and taking photos.
We headed back down and then proceeded to Eaglehawk Neck, arriving at around six o’clock. We looked around the dive digs – a communal building with a double bed in the loft (with ensuite) and two rooms of six bunks with ensuites and showers. Again, no mobile reception for Daniel on Optus and there is no phone either. Even worse – no television! They do have a VCR and some videos.
We headed down to Port Arthur to try and find some dinner. We ended up driving all the way to Nubeena, dodging potoroos along the side of the road. At Nubeena we tried the Tavern, advertised on the local tourist radio. We got there at 7:15pm, but their kitchen had already closed so it was off down the road to the Ex-Servicemans Club where we were signed in and Daniel had another steak and Helen had the lasagne. A friendly bunch there, they had a brief chat with us as we were leaving.
On the trip back a wallaby jumped out in front of the car (a Budget hired Nissan Pulsar). Daniel hit the brakes and discovered that they weren’t that good. Fortunately for the wallaby though, they were just good enough and it was able to finish crossing the road with only a metre to spare.
We came back to the dive digs and then watched ‘There’s Something about Mary’ before heading for bed. Whilst watching the movie Daniel took a photo of the stars which hopefully will be interesting.

28 September 2005 (Day 23)

We awoke to a lovely day by Tasmanian standards. As the city below drove around in peak hour we got ready to go out and have a look around. Daniel’s great grandfather was born in Tasmania and he can trace the family back to the early 1800s.
Family folklore have it that somewhere along the line they are related to the author Charles Dickens, and there was some evidence to support that – two of Dicken’s sons came out to Australia.
The Archive Office of Tasmania has a website that enabled Daniel to track the family back to his great-great-great grandparents, Patrick Foley and Margaret Cusack – the parents of the supposed Dicken’s link.
Today Daniel spent the entire day in the Archive Office looking through records trying to piece together the family tree.
Margaret Cusack and Patrick Foley had a child, but there was no record found of them marrying. A hint of the Dicken’s link was found when Anne Higgins (nee Foley) had her maiden name recorded on a birth certificate of one of her twelve children as ‘Dickens’.
A search on the databases found a marriage record for a Margaret Foley to Stephen Dickens. A check of the record showed that Margaret Foley was a widow. It is thought that Anne may have been asked her father’s name and said ‘Dickens’ instead of her maiden name, or something like that.
It’s yet to be sorted out, but there were six Patrick Foley’s who were transported to Tasmania as convicts and one Margaret Cusack. Whether they fit with the time lines has to be determined.
Whilst Daniel looked to chop down the family tree, Helen took herself off for a walk around town. She found Elizabeth St Mall – seen one shopping mall, seen ‘em all – then, rubber-necking all the way to look at the heritage buildings, headed for Salamanca Place and Battery Point. Salamanca Place is sort of like The Rocks in Sydney, set up as a heritage, gift shop and souvenir centre for old Hobart Town. Helen booked us tickets for Port Arthur before setting off on a walk around Battery Point, on the hill behind Salamanca Place.
Battery Point was one of the high points used to semaphore between ships and Hobart. It is also a village-style little suburb full of old houses and guest houses. It has a busy bakery where Helen bought a loaf of fig and pear rye bread and drooled over the great-looking cakes.
After wandering around for a few hours Helen made her way back to the Archives Office to see if Daniel was ready to emerge for lunch. He said he just had a few things left to look up and wanted to finish up before leaving, so Helen started to help.
At nearly 5pm we left the archives and walked down Murray Street a little until we saw an Indian takeaway. Daniel hadn’t eaten since breakfast so we grabbed a couple of samosas and then headed back to the hotel.
After a while we headed back out to have a drive around Hobart. One thing we had to do was go to 21 Service Street, Glebe. On various documents that Daniel has seen – including one of his great uncle’s war papers – 21 Service Street, Glebe is listed as the address of Matthew Higgins (great great grandfather).
It was harder to get there than it seemed. It was across a highway, but that highway had no right turns for ages. We ended up on top of a hill that is associated with the Botanical Gardens. There was a few lookouts that we stopped at and Daniel took a few photos.
Then it was onto Glebe. Helen navigated to the street and as we turned in Daniel saw that the house on the corner was number 23 and immediately pulled over. After a few photos we left and drove to the end of the street and were surprised at how steep it was. The road literally drops away. We took a couple of photos but it doesn’t truly show the steepness.
We drove onto Salamanca Place, where Helen had walked earlier. For dinner we went to the Ball & Chain Grill – one of the first convict built buildings in Tasmania. When we entered they told us there would be a 15 minute wait. Whilst we waited we looked at their extensive wine selection, both in the glass cabinets and on the menu. Many of the Langtons wine list were there and selling for up to $600!
We didn’t have any of that wine, instead going for a bottle of the Tasmanian made Devil’s Corner Cabernet Merlot to go with Daniel’s Porterhouse steak with a garlic and horseradish sauce whilst Helen had the duck with plum ginger sauce.
We then drove over the Tasman Bridge and down to Lindisfarne so Daniel could get some photos of the bridge in the same style as the photo of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from Blues Point.
Returning to the hotel we had intended to watch one of the in-house movies, but we were too tired and just went to bed.