Hobart Day 120 16/01/2015

The Ibis Budget turned out to be very functional (if lacking any charm!) and after packing up we walked back to the airport for our flight to Hobart. It was on time and relatively uneventful although there were strong cross winds on the approach which made for a bumpy ride. In fact we were soon glad we had decided against the ferry crossing when we saw the swell on the sea and how windy it was! From the airport we got the local airport bus which dropped us off right outside the Prince of Wales Hotel at Battery Point where we'd booked to stay for the night. The views on the way in where lovely round the bay and Derwent River and over the bridge to get into the centre. Unfortunately despite the online booking company (our first and last experience of using wotif.com) confirming our reservation the hotel didn't have it and were full. In fact most of Hobart was full as it's festival time. We left it to the hotel to find us an alternate place to stay and after a lovely lunch in the deli next door headed down to Salamanca by the harbour and to the tourist information office to purchase our national parks pass and get a few tips on where to go over the next two weeks. We headed back to the hotel and with little option agreed to stay a bit further out of town at Sandy Bay in a self contained studio flat. They paid for a taxi to take us there. The place was OK but we were both disappointed with the location, accommodation and general lack of choice that we had. We headed out early evening in search of a restaurant we'd seen in the lonely planet but soon realised it was too far to walk. We wandered back and went to an Italian which was nice but expensive for two bowls of pasta although we did experience our first Tasmanian wine which was very drinkable. Not a great start to our adventures in Tasmania. As we are now using Simon's mobile data for the wifi, we will not be posting any pictures as they will be expensive to load. We will retrospectively load them when we get free wifi again on 31st Jan and "normal service" will be resume. We will hopefully be able to describe in words what we will be seeing (with a couple of pics added on Facebook for good measure!)