Four o’clock in the morning and already 27C and humid. Our 6.25am flight to Tasmania was too early to catch a ferry from Stradbroke Island so we had left our comfortable air-conditioned house and spent the night on the “Suzanne”. Despite opening every hatch, door and window there was scarcely a breath of wind in the Marina and the boat was like an oven.
We were heading for the Wooden Boat Show in Hobart and then spending the next two weeks travelling around Tasmania and catching up with relatives. Hopefully by the time we returned the heat would have abated and we would be back to pleasant weather. We had given the garden a final water and then left it to it’s fate (vowing that before we left again we would have put in that long talked about remote watering system).
Our plans had been made well in advance and we had booked all the ‘not to be missed’ items. We had discovered that we could valet park the car at the airport for three weeks for less than we would have paid in taxi fares so were off to a good start!
We arrived in Hobart to a very pleasant 17C. A little chilly for some but for us it was heaven after the past couple of weeks. 
We took a taxi from the airport to our B&B in Salamanca Mews where we were met by Kim, our host, and shown around the very spacious and comfortable apartment.
We had arrived too early to officially check in so dropped our bags and headed down to Salamanca Square to look at the galleries and check out the cafes and restaurants, sample the Tasmanian fare, beers, wines and ciders (a Seafood Risotto at Maldini’s Restaurant was particularly good) and fall in love with Esther Shohet’s painting “Happy, Happy Hobart” – which we subsequently bought!
We collected some supplies from the Tasmanian Fresh shop and repaired to our apartment to unpack and settle in. A glass of Frogmore Creek Chardonnay and a mushroom omelet on the sunny balcony and it was time to crawl into our king size beds and sleep.
