Down Under Down Under
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 7 ~ 28 Dec - Hobart
As expected, LawConnect comes in this morning, crossing the line at 2.35am. Under normal circumstances we gather that there would have been loud and boisterous celebrations, but two sailors have died in particularly bad weather on the first night, so everyone is much more subdued. It's still enough to wake us up, although we don't see the actual finish.
LawConnect is berthed by the time I am ready with my camera, after which we go back to sleep.
Amanda is up early enough to catch the second boat to come it, Celestial V70. Yes, it looks from the picture like its name is "Willow"... which it is, sort of. Boat names seem to be a bit of a trap for the uninitiated. I find in this website article about the event, "Celestial V70 was loaned to Sam by Jim Cooney and Samantha Grant and is known as Willow. For several years after purchase, she had sailed in Australia under the name Maserati." For that matter, LawConnect wasn't always called LawConnect until the company of the same name became a sponsor.
And what is LawConnect, the company?
Their website says, "LawConnect harnesses the power of advanced artificial intelligence to provide free legal information tailored to your needs." Oh. That's not entirely a good thing. AI can do many things, but it's really good at coming up with extremely plausible-looking nonsense; if you're not an expert in the particular field, you can easily be taken in.
Later they say, "By connecting individuals with experienced lawyers...", which is a rather different matter, but you have to put that in the context of "Just describe your legal issue, and you'll receive a personalised report created by AI with the option to have it reviewed and verified." I presume the former is free but the latter isn't: it's basically a bait-and-switch operation.
But I am blithely unaware of any of this in the here (then) and now, so my moral compass can point true North without a problem.
Wild Thing 100 will also have finished by the time we're up, but we have a busy day so we can't go look at them just yet.
You remember that we did Christmas parkrun a few days ago? Well now it's a Saturday, so we have to do ordinary Saturday parkrun.
Early morning over the marina. It's looking like a nice day.
But that was Amanda's idea of early morning. By the time it's mine, the day isn't looking so good. That's Wild Thing, by the way, the third boat in and the last so far.
And here we are at Risdon Brook and it's thoroughly dull and grey. It's now about quarter to nine, and when we first arrived, if it wasn't for the flag we'd've thought we were in the wrong place. They tell us it was actually the first parkrun in the Hobart area and used to be a lot bigger, but really it got a bit too big for the location so it's much better now. Most people are locals and regulars who'll turn up about two minutes before the start.
The lake is artificial, created by a hydroelectric dam, but it looks like it would be very pretty in nicer weather.
Spoiler alert: even without drones, we don't see any.
Well, I say we don't see any: we don't knowingly see any. Our bird-fu may simply be too weak, we must accept.
Sufficiently fast people managed to finish before any rain, but I'm enjoying (-ish!) heavy drizzle on the final straight.
We look surprisingly happy for drowned rats.
In nicer weather, we'd love to go for a bit of an explore, but as it is, we will be happy to round off our morning with a shower and some dry clothes.
Ooh, a little present from the management.
Note that their mini snowmen don't seem to be made of snow. I wonder if the local kids get confused by all the Northern Hemisphere winter imagery in what for them is the middle of summer.
Now, off for a little walk around town.
Today's cruise liner, the Viking Venus. "Expand your horizons on our award-winning, all-veranda small ship, with just 930 guests."
We will have to agree to disagree on the word "small".
There's a surprising amount of good old British engineering here; or at least it's surprising until you think that Tasmania simply wouldn't have had any industrial base of its own a century or more ago. Jessop and Appleby Brothers were late-19th, early-20th century manufacturers of cranes and the like, and clearly of some importance if the number of Google hits are anything to go by! Start at Grace's Guide for example.
It's a remarkably demotic (a poncey word for non-poncey: hmm...) event. Anyone can just walk along the pontoons and check out the boats. It's only good manners that stops anyone jumping on board.
The Thing may be Wild, but the people are quite tame.
Aha! That's Jo and her new toy-boy!
There's a bit of a story here. Kell was part of the crew of the winning yacht in [19-something-or-other] and has been coming back regularly for years in his camper van. This year, however, his daughter [?] got him a room at Somerset for the weekend as a present. Jo met him when he was asking directions to the car park, and as she was going that way herself, invited him to come with her.
There's a big market a few minutes away. We can't resist buying some of these amazing candles.
A spot of lunch seems in order. Scallop stick sounds interesting.
Indeed it is.
Wallaby burger, it must be said, is not immediately obviously different from beef. Way too gunky for Amanda's taste, and I won't be rushing back for another one, but it needs to be tried.
I think this seaplane is giving sightseeing rides, because we've seen it come and go quite a few times.
In an art gallery inside a former jam works, a piece depicting DNA replication. The double-strand helx at the base is broken into two single strands, which are then paired up with new strands to form two exact copies of the original. It's a very simplified view, missing out all the biochemical machinery that performs each task, but it's accurate as far as it goes, and rather elegant with it. More detail from Nature.
And perhaps more craft than art, but Amanda buys an alpaca scarf made by a local lady of 76. Apparently she has just stopped making them and Amanda has bought the last one.
"BEWARE OF VEHICLES". The vehicles themselves are much easier to see than the warning sign.
The vehicles you need to beware of are coming from the old Gas Works, now repurposed like most of Hobart's older buildings. Just at the right is a substantial off-licence ("bottle shop" in Australian) where we will stock up on wine.
Back at the harbour, another of the race finishers is about to berth.
They're probably just a touch knackered, because it takes them a couple of goes to line up neatly.
There's a hospital building with a helipad on its roof not far away, and we see this air ambulance a few times. We don't know whether there are regular emergencies or whether these are routine flights for some other reason.
Apropos of nothing, Guvu is on holiday with us. Here he is modelling my new woolly hat which I have not yet needed myself.
In the village this evening, a competent enough but not particularly inspiring band.
Another day draws to its close.
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