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Leaving Canberra, I flew to Hobart,
the capital of Tasmania. This is a beautiful city located on the
waterfront near the mouth of the Derwent River, some 10 miles from the ocean. The city itself felt
quite busy for a city of 200,000. It has a dramatic backdrop being at the base
of 11,000 foot Mount Wellington, which was clouded over when I was there, but
was still quite impressive. Salamanca Place, a street lined with sandstone
buildings built by convicts, is the central point of Hobart. A set of winding
stairs lead up the Battery point, a neighborhood lined with small streets and
Victorian style cottages and homes also built by convicts during Tasmania's age
as a penal colony for Great Britain in the 1800s. So much of Tasmania's history
revolves around the convict era, which used to be an embarrassment to the people
here until they realized that they could use and exploit this image in the
Tourist trade. |
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