The Wedding Day- Farewell to Australia

Friday night saw the wedding party meet up at St. Mary's Cathedral, for the wedding rehearsals. I had just about recovered from the fishing trip the day before and did my best to be helpful and, more importantly, remember what I was supposed to be doing the following day.

On the wedding day we all assembled in the church waiting for the arrival of Elena, the bride. As mentioned previously I was best man, and was therefore at the top of the church with Donal, the groom. I was curious about the traditions in this part of the world and enquired as to whether the bride would be on time. The general consensus was yes, she would be.

They say life is stranger than fiction and every now and again something happens to remind you of that fact. The time of arrival had passed and then some and there was still no sign of the bride! We began to speculate that something had happened to the car and as it would turn out we weren't far wrong.

The bride eventually arrived and it transpired that an uncle decided to visit the house before the wedding and parked the car in their drive. No problem there, except that when he went to leave, his car wouldn't start! and wouldn't you know it but the brides car was blocked in by the uncle's. It was time to roll up the sleeves and get dirty and the bridesmaids duly obliged. Picture the scene the bridesmaids all decked out and pushing the uncle's car down the drive. Like I said, life is stranger than fiction!

Here's a picture of us with Ian and Norah outside the Cathedral. (We just learned today, 18th April, that Ian is now minus his appendix, get well soon!)


There were no hiccups after that, they both said their "I do's" and became husband and wife. Here's a few pics of the happy couple.

The picture above is from the wedding cake but a pretty good likeness I think you'll agree.

After some photos it was onto the wedding venue which had a magnificent setting in Hobart harbour surrounded by all types of yachts and boats. The picture below gives a good idea of the setting.

The wedding saw the coming together of several traditions, Italian, Australian and Irish- the brides parents are originally from Italy. The Italians were keen to show off a few of their own traditions during the wedding and one that was especially popular with the kids- but probably not the cleaning staff- was the throwing of confetti during the first dance.

After the speeches were over we all let our hair down, I hadn't drank a whole lot before my speech but not to worry as myself and the barmaid got well acquainted before the night was out. Someone even remarked how during my speech I was quite articulate and that within the space of a couple of hours I couldn't string a sentence together and was slurring my words!

The bride and groom were good enough to organise a birthday cake for Ian and myself as Ian's was the day prior and mine was coming up on the 6th, the wedding being on the 3rd. We got presented with a bucket and a toy fish as reminders of our eventful fishing trip a couple of days before!

That was the wedding day, we spent the next day nursing hangovers and generally taking life easy. Although we did try to impersonate passengers of the third biggest ocean linear in the world, which just so happened to be docked in Hobart at the time. It seems big boats were one of the themes of the trip. Alas we didn't get on even though we tried to casually saunter by the security guard. Here's a pic of a really nice area around the harbour with the boat in the background.

I am not sure what the actual area is called or indeed whether there is a name to it, but there's a really nice hotel called The Henry Jones Art Hotel. Check out the web site, even if you can't afford to stay there, it's worth popping in for a drink and a gander. The picture below is of a covered courtyard area that the back of the hotel links onto. There are loads of nice cafes and shops in there also.

I forgot to mention in the previous post that during our time in Hobart there was Bioluminescent Algae in the water. When anything disturbed the water, lets just say for arguments sake a handful of stones, the algae light up as a defense mechanism. It was really unusual and something we had never witnessed before. Here's a pic I borrowed from another web site which isn't great but gives an idea of what I am talking about. When the boats came into the harbour there was literally a blue neon type halo affect around them like in the following pic.

So that was our time in Hobart, we departed the next day and arrived back in Wellington Airport at 23.59 on the 5th March, a minute before my birthday. Alas for once I had opened my present early, the trip of a life time!

Cathal

Tasmania (Days 18-26)

Tasmania was the holiday within a holiday, if you know what I mean. Although we had planned to meet up with some friends later in the week, and I was due to be best man at a wedding towards the end of our stay, we took things relatively easy considering we were here for over a week.

Hobart is another big port and is not unlike Sydney in that regard, with a population of just over 200,000 though, you cannot say that it is over run with people, locals or tourists. This is Hobart's and Tasmania's charm. It is still off the beaten track, but one wonders for how long?

In the lonely planet's blue list book Australia is listed as the number one destination and within Australia, Tassie is listed as "the region of choice." I am sure they are aware of the irony that by recommending a place for it's isolation they are undermining the very reason for picking it in the first instance.

Here's a few pics of the port to give you an idea of what it is like.

The bride, or should that be the bride's parents, or should that be both (diplomatic to the last) were good enough to put us for the first few days in Hobart. I mean they only had the small matter of a wedding less than seven days away to worry about. Who couldn't do with visitors to entertain at a time like that!

We arrived late Friday night and were looking forward to going to the toilets and freshening up before we collected our bags and headed into the arrival hall where, the future, bride and groom were due to pick us up. Little did we know that the baggage reclaim was the arrivals hall! The groom confirmed that the area we were in was brand new and a couple of month's previously we would have been picking out our own bags from the back of a trolley in a shed. Like I said it's off the beaten track.

The first thing we did on the Saturday was got to the Salamanca Markets. There are really great markets and the best we were at in Australia. The market is not full of tat and general crap, but proper crafts people and artists selling their wares. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera on the day of the market so the picture below is one I "borrowed" from another web site.

The next day the groom borrowed the future in laws car and took us up to Mount Wellington. Given the name we felt we couldn't give it a miss. It was a fantastic day and the visibility was excellent, you could see the whole of Hobart and beyond.

There is a sheltered look out area at the top of the mountain here's a pic of it and one of Sharon with the future groom. The groom is doing his "I'm a little tea pot impression!"

On the way back we decided to take a minor detour to Cascade Brewery. Tasmania has two main breweries, Cascade, in the shadow of Mount Wellington and James Boag from Launceston up North. In Cascade you can get a paddle of it's six beers and have a little taste of them all. They give you an A4 sheet explaining the various types, they even have a stout. Here's a few pics.

After that we headed back to Newtown where we were staying.

We did a bit of exploring around Hobart ourselves during our time there and here's a few pics.



There are some really nice walks and areas in Hobart. The pic above is of Battery Point, where there are lots of B&B's, cafes etc.

That was our first few days in Hobart, on the Monday, Day 20, we headed onto Bicheno, where friends of ours were due to join us on the Tuesday evening. There will be more on the next post.

Cathal