It was time to get out of Hobart. Unfortunately a cruise load of tourists had taken all the cars at Avis, so we had some time to kill before ours could be brought over from the airport. So we made our way to Pilgrim Coffee for breakfast… and there we found a winner for the Most Hipster Place in Hobart! They served us a breakfast amuse bouche of spiced popcorn. It was good, but weird.
After we got the car, we decided to make an unplanned side trip up Mount Wellington. My friend Richard had recommended it, and since the day was clear it seemed like a good idea. Well, it was and it wasn’t. The scenery and view were AMAZING. But OHMYGOD IT WAS SO COLD AND WINDY.
You could see all the way to Bruny.
I’m not kidding; it was actually hard to stand up against the wind. SO COLD.
We braced ourself and headed to the enclosed lookout. Ahhhh, much better.
Another view of the Tasman Bridge, from very far away and very high up!
A walkway from the enclosed lookout leads to some outdoor viewing platforms. Thankfully they were more sheltered by the mountain and not so freezing.
Snookums with the Derwent River below. I took a timelapse video of the sky moving above his head.
Then it was time to get moving. Our destination was Queenstown, 260km away. After a couple hours of driving through mountain wilderness, we spotted a sign for a town called Tarraleah and thought it was a good place to stop for lunch. Instead we found something fascinating.
It turns out that the alpine lakes of this region made it a prime location for hydroelectric power stations!
This lookout was very cool. We discovered that Tarraleah was essentially built to house the engineers and management of the power station.
It was only when we got to the little cafe in town that we discovered Tarraleah isn’t a town anymore at all. All of it – the cute little cottages, the well manicured lawns – is now owned by a private company as a tourist destination! It was like being in the town from The Truman Show. These ducks are basically the only permanent inhabitants. Very cool, if a little Twilight Zone…
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