Tasmania, day 2

Mt Wellington from the bottom

Well, after the previous night's excesses, a walk up a hill seemed like the best way to blow away the cobwebs.  But a walk seemed a bit energetic, and so we wimped out and drove up the hill instead...

Mt Wellington dominates the Hobart skyline from pretty much every angle.  It's just a little shorter than Ben Nevis, and, as usual on such occasions, Mark came close to finding out just how far it is down from the top as he perched precariously over precipices to take his ration of photos.

Mark tries to reduce the size of the party by 50%

A long way down....

David was still having to work, so back to the substation we went.  We were greeted there by Andy, who readers will also remember from this famous day.  Now, Andy happens also to be married to Steve, and had therefore had to put up with the late return of a sozzled spouse the night before, a state of affairs for which she (inexplicably) held David and Mark to blame.

Andy (with trainee Wayne[?]) in the background, gears up to deliver a bollocking

Well, Andy was very nice about it, considering.  We did, however, learn in no uncertain terms (a) that Steve has two levels of drunken amorousness: the "I really love you" stage and the "You don't really love me" stage; (b) that he had been firmly in the second of these two stages when he had returned to his beloved after the previous night's entertainment and had expressed himself to this effect at some length; and (c) that Andy would be grateful if David and Mark's antics could be geared towards avoiding this state of affairs in future.

Anyway, these introductions over, Mark left David to get on with some work while he did some exploring.  After unwisely asking if anyone had a Map of Tassie he could make use of (childish, we know...) he headed off on his travels while everyone else earned an honest crust.

David, Andy and Greg - 'some of us have got work to do, you know....'

The place that Mark found was a shot tower.  These constructions were used, as the name suggests, to manufacture lead shot.  Basically, the easiest way to make spherical shot is to drain molten lead through a colander and let it fall a long way.  Surface tension does the job as far as getting the shape right is concerned, and a large tub of water at the bottom finished off the cooling process.

 A prong for making shot

Here's a shot's-eye view of the journey down the tower...

Shame about the lighting getting in the way

There were also two guys fixing the tower using abseiling gear.  Not my idea of fun.

Another long way down

David eventually finished for the day, and so more wandering about was done: first to an old fortress on which someone had written some predictably puerile graffiti, behaviour we would not want to encourage by publicising, oh no.  Well, if you must, click on the picture to see the full size version.

Neither big nor clever

Tasmania, unlike most of Australia, has long evenings in the summer.  So David and Mark took advantage of the sunset to try some arty-farty photos.  Mixed results below...

Clouds over Mt Wellington

Wildlife

Bowen Bridge

And so to a very nice restaurant (of which there are many in Hobart), and a relatively restrained night.  We even left some booze unfinished.  We must be getting old....

 

Day 1

Day 3

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