Mount Nelson

As Saturday was Christmas, the Salamanca market was pushed to Sunday. It hosts a very interesting asortiment of local arts and crafts. Some nice fossils on sale too, but being inquisitive and suspicious of 'locally found' fossils, I went down to inspect the pebbles on the beach and it didn't take me long to find a few fossils for myself... The market also haf, for some reason, a large number of weisswust and sauercraut stalls. As it was just nearing on 9am, I passed on those.

My chosen directing for the day was Mount Nelson park, to the South of Hobart. Just on the side of the road was a masked plover (thank you, internet) couple with a cute little chick.

As everywhere out of downtown Hobart, the road to Mount Nelson went straight up the hill. And then, as it was become too steep even for Tasmanian standards, they started hichbacks!! But here, to my great surprise and joy, I found there were little hicking paths through the forest. These were steep, but at least you get trees. And you can follow your progress pretty well, as the 'trails' are called things like "sharp bend #2" and "flat bend #4".

I saw yet another wallaby in the forest, and as it wasn't too frightened I got to look at it for quite some time. Actually, having seen a hare in a meadow earlier, it took me quite some time to decide whether it was in fact a small wallaby or an exceptionally large hare...

Then lunch near a small stream, and then the downpour came. They had planned it, and it didn't last very long, so I can't complain too much, but it did send all the animal life into shelter.

At the top of Mount Nelson is a nice view of Hobart, as well as a clear view of all the Southern part of the Derwent river. There is a small museum set up in the old signal stationat the top too, which is interesting.

Then I continued South into the Truganini park, which is much wetter than the other parks, and so has a lot more ferns and mosses ... and even 3 kookaburras, laughing!

The walk back along the coast was quite pleasant, with very nice flower decorations all over, and many many small parks, some just large enough for a tree and a bench under it.