About how Hobart became the beginning of my first roadtrip

Hobart may be a little town, capital of a little island (only 15.000 squarekilometers smaller than Austria), Australias smallest state. But in the few days I’ve been here I met a lot of people, someone to travel with and…I bought my first car!!! =D

On my first day the weather here was very british (you can also call it rainy and cloudy if you prefer so), but I started to explore the town like I always do…simply walking through the streets, along the boulevards, the small lanes, the hidden alleys…

When I met up with Alice (my first ever Couchhost - thanks for the great time in Hobart! (= ) and some of her friends, we had a a great evening with cheap beer (that’s why you should always go out with locals, they know the cheapest pubs!) and met three Canadian Geologists, who were much more alive than their subject of study!

On our one-hour-way home we came across a closed pub with three people sitting in there, drinking wine and playing on a guitar.

…if you know me, you probably know, how I reacted: smiling (in a positive non-psycho-joker-like-way) and waving at them, asking them in body language if we may join them.

One of them actually opened the door and asked: “Be you travellers?” And we answered: “Ne! We are but men!”

Ok…actually he asked if we are travellers and we just said yes (couldn’t resist to make a reference to Tenacious D). But he let us in, gave us both a glass of wine and we had a great night after a great evening!

Stuart, the guy, who opened the door for us was the owner of the pub and presented it to us proudly, explaining his pub philosophy to us.

The next day I met Claudia, a Couchsurferin from Italy who wanted to make a roadtrip through Tasmania for cheap like me. To make it short, we spent the next days looking for a car on Gumtree (a website, popular in the UK and Australie, where you can find everything - including Guinea pigs), bought one for cheap, registered it (much easier than in Europe, thanks Australien Government! - you just have to fill out one formular, pay 50 up to 100 dollars, depending on the car price, and that’s it), made some food and camping gear shopping and now we’re on the road! =)

Flower Power-Van from a danish Hippie

The first car we tried, was a Flower Power-Van, but it was too fucked up, so that my first car ever should be a Hyundai Excel as old as myself with manual gear and 4 of 5 doors that still open!

My car!!!! =)

We also attended a free Gospel Concert in town, which was amazing! Two-hundred-and-twenty musicians on stage. The audience gave zero fucks about the weather, which changed regularly from sunshine to soft rain. The pianist got sometimes so excited that he just stood up on his bench and conducted the chore. When they were playing hits like “Don’t let the sun go down on me”, “Come together” and in the end even Michael Jacksons “Don’t stop ‘till you get enough” the crowd was dancing like they couldn’t get enough. 

An amazing crowd of people dancing and having
fun at the gospel concert in Hobart!

And when we were done with grocery and food shopping for our roadtrip we went up a hill to have a better view on Mount Wellington, which was surrounded by clouds while the rest of the sky was blue. So we drove up the hill until the street ended, went on by foot…just to realise that we would have to enter private property if we want to have a magnificent view on the mountain. So we just asked the people who were standing in front of the fence if this was private property and they actually let us in (after asking what nationality we are…I wonder, if he would have said no if we would have been from somewhere else…) to what was a grazing side for their deer! Because they were butchers! And after sitting in the sun on their land for some time and taking pictures, they shared some beer with us and we had a nice chat for some hours before we left to have a last meal with Alice before leaving Hobart.

Mount Wellington on a sunny day!

So even though Hobart might be a small town, being around there with the right people I made a lot of experience (including riding a car on the “wrong” side of the street, which is not that horrible is I thought it would be).

Now I'm on my first roadtrip, having slept more often in the car than in the tent, made my second couch surfing experience (which was awesome) and eat a lot of Pasta...but that's another story ;)