In Which Al Bangs on

I’m still on about our Tasmania trip.
We packed so much into day six that we took it easy on day seven of our trip.

For the whole day we hung around Tasmania’s capital Hobart. Deb and Lu went shopping, while I wandered the streets with my camera.

Hobart is a city of 212,000 and as such has nearly half the population of the entire state.

Founded in 1803 Hobart is one of the oldest Cities in Oz. Like many of our early settlements it began as a convict settlement.

Like almost everywhere in Tassie I loved this town. And like a lot of Tassie it still has a profusion of 19th century buildings.I wandered randomly and snapped away as the fancy took me.

Hadley’s Hotel if the sign is to believed was built the year before my current abode Melbourne was founded. Personally I don’t believe the sign. The fussy exterior screams Victorian period. Maybe the business was established in ’34 and they rebuilt later?

I’m not sure what this building is but the little plaque on the end says it was in 1823 the site of the first service conducted by a Presbyterian minister in Oz. Which kind of suggests the building is older hence the simple Georgian style.

I love architectural details like at the top of this doorway. This carving is in sandstone. The mason who carved this must have been amazingly talented.
This one is probably 1870s or so, looks like ‘Second Empire’ style to me.St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral.And the associated residence.The town Hall.I’ll finish with this fountain in Franklin Square.In the middle of which stands this statue of Sir John Franklin.He was Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tassie) from 1836 to 1843.
He was recalled to England after falling foul of the public service. His ‘crime’?
Trying to introduce humanitarian reforms to the way convicts were treated.

Perhaps because of this humanitarian streak he was fondly remembered by the citizens of Hobart and they erected this statue in memory of him after his ill fated journey to find the North West Passage.
He died lost in the Canadian Arctic in 1847.