Entries about hobart

One thing you learn very quickly when dealing with young children, (especially near toddler age!), is that no matter what you're trying to do, it'll take double, or triple... or even quadruple the amount of time it normally would! Apply this to travel, and you've either got to accept it and alter your traveling style to accommodate, or be constantly fighting it, yet trying to remain calm at the same time. Unfortunately, I think I find myself in the latter category way too often! To try and reduce the frequency of this occurring, I thought it'd be a good idea to try and alternate 'busier' days with 'slower' ones.

Considering I'm now writing this in hindsight after returning home... Yes, it was an excellent idea, but wasn't always achieved for various reasons. Same goes for this blog! I'd been hoping to not get any further than about a week behind with our experiences. Let's just say I was lucky to only be a day or two behind with notes in my journal! Very thankful I persevered and can now use them to help complete these blog entries. I have great respect for those who are trying to study, or do anything involving sitting down with pen and paper or at a computer for any length of time, with two or more toddlers also requiring their constant attention!

And yes, Tuesday the 9th of July 2013 had been planned to hopefully be one of those 'slower' days. But did we succeed?... With a trip to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, a trip to a local GP for Clancy, some grocery shopping and lunch back at our hotel/apartment, and finally a fun afternoon trip up Mount Wellington to see some snow... I'm glad to say I think we did! (Relatively so!)

Sonia enjoying the Cadbury delivery truck!

• As Clancy says, not actually being able to go on a factory tour 'feels like a let down'.
• We still enjoyed the talk and video provided on how they operated and made their chocolate though.
• Cheap/discounted chocolate available in their shop was good. Couldn't help picking up a few things.
• The only thing Sonia really enjoyed was the Cadbury
• Clancy 'meant to ask how many Oompa Loompa's they have working at the factory. Because I (he) hadn't seen any at that stage.' - If anyone else has ever seen any, or asked this question... we'd love to know!!

View from the springs carpark lookout on Mt Wellington

The Springs, Mount Wellington

• The Pinnacle Road was closed at The Springs car park which was at the second gate.
• There's a great sign at the bottom of the road before you get up too far, letting you know at which gate the road is closed from.
• There were large patches of snow which by now was mostly ice, which Sonia thoroughly enjoyed playing with. She mainly just wanted to hold it between her hands!
• Clancy found some snow soft enough to make two snowballs. One of which had to get thrown at me and Kaden! The other being given to Sonia and Kaden to enjoy... which promptly got eaten!
• I went and asked one of the council workers who was there directing traffic, and he recommended we check out the Hobart City Council website for updated information on the mountain and road if we were thinking about going up again another day.

So far on our Tasmanian trip we'd been pretty lucky, with it only really raining whilst being in the car, or under cover doing other things like eating lunch or looking in information centres. Today was predicted to be rather different unfortunately. We'd planned to spend the morning looking around the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, and had previously booked Sonia and I to go on the afternoon's Louisa's Walk. A strolling theatre production that tells a convict women's story through drama as you walk from the Cascades Brewery to the Cascades Female Factory. All totally outside and subject to whatever the day decides to bring. And today... that was almost constant drizzle.

Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

• A really nice garden to explore. Even in rain.
• We hadn't yet bought umbrellas, and we'd forgotten to pick up a raincover for the pram before leaving Perth. This was the exact situation where they would've come in really handy. So instead, it was raincoats for us, jacket for Sonia, and carry Kaden in the Ergo baby carrier with my jacket and a poncho over him.
• Sonia clomped along in her oversize gumboots, wanting to look at, and touch, and climb, absolutely everything! She didn't particularly appreciate us constantly telling her to keep moving, and to stay out of areas she wasn't meant to go through! Ie, climbing up and walking through a freshly dug garden bed ready for planting, to get to the French Memorial Fountain.
• There were quite a few interesting and different sculptures, or forms of art, scattered around the gardens. We didn't fully understand many of the artists explanations, but did enjoy them and the different aspect they gave to the gardens.

Louisa's Walk

• Need to book in advance as they can get booked out pretty quick, even in winter!
• A really nice walk through the Cascade gardens, from the Cascades Brewery to the Cascades Female Factory, and back again.
• Clancy stayed home for a sleep with Kaden, while Sonia and I rugged up to enjoy the walk.
• The story is based on real convicts experiences (names have been changed to protect the descendants' privacy), and the actors were very good. Utilising the natural surroundings exceedingly well to help your imagination conjure up a fully fledged image in your minds eye, with all the associated emotion and sensory details woven through.
• It was a generally sad story (what convict story isn't!), but did thankfully have a positive ending.
• I decided to try Sonia in the pram to help with the rain situation, and hopefully reduce the otherwise wanting to be carried whine. Worked out really well. She was happy to stay in the pram and watch till very close to the end of the nearly 2hr time frame. Me kneeling down beside her whenever we were stationary for a while, to explain the drama to her at her level of understanding probably helped too.
• There were some steps and a small section of rougher track, but others in the tour were very helpful and helped to carry the pram up and down.
• Even with the drizzly rain, it was well worth it.
• For those who would like to do it with toddlers or younger children, I would highly recommend getting down to their level to help explain the drama as it unfolds. This not only helps them to maintain interest and understand what's happening, allowing you to hopefully keep watching and listening too, instead of having to contend with uninterested kids... but it is also appreciated by the actors themselves. I was rather surprised, and really appreciated it when 'Louisa' came up to me at the end and thanked me for what I had done with Sonia.