Strolling into Hobart’s big waterfront story

I can’t think of many (or, at this moment, any) more pleasant cities to wander round on a sunny, late-summer afternoon than Hobart.

And, three hours and 25 minutes from Perth on a direct Qantas flight, here I am. I’m staying at the affordable, neat and tidy Movenpick hotel in Elizabeth Street, unostentatiously tucked between Groovy Barbers Barbershop (unrequired) and Chemist Warehouse (equally unrequired). In March, there are prices from just over $200 a night.

If you don’t always want to have your head hung over the map tracking your progress in your phone, and want to look up and out into the world, you might follow my example and walk downhill. Certainly in a city like Hobart, it will eventually lead you to the exciting bit; the waterfront.

The sky is blue, the trees are still full of a moist greenness and the little water fountains dance as I sit briefly in Franklin Square. There are some people lying on the verdant grass, half in shade, reading books. Actual paperback books. Another couple is each isolated (yet connected) in their phone.

And there is a white-streaked statute of the man himself, Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin. But more of him, and that familiar surname, later on. For now, let’s enjoy the mild temperature, afternoon sunshine, languid atmosphere, and stroll on.

We could take the Red Decker sightseeing bus. It follows a 90-minute city loop with 20 stops, and a 24 hour ticket is $45 for an adult. (reddecker.com.au)

But we walk on, following the fall of the land, to the harbour. And what a fine harbour this is.

The catamaran ferry Mona Roma is just pulling into Brooke Street Pier, having returned from the Mona art gallery, which is 11km from Hobart — a 25-minute voyage up the Derwent River. Mona is an eclectic “museum of new and old art”. (mona.net.au)

Just past it, the Windeward topsail schooner has just returned from its Sunday sail, and two people are high up on the top yard, furling the topsail.

Modelled on an 1848 Boston topsail schooner, the 33m Windeward was built by volunteers in Hobart in 1996, almost entirely of recycled timber. It sails from Brooke Street Pier for three hours, from 1pm to 4pm, with a light lunch, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (windewardbound.com.au)

Further along the waterfront, people come and go from Elizabeth Street Pier, which has eateries to choose from, including the popular Billy’s Burgers.

And moored next to it is The Lady Nelson. Also built locally, but in 1988, the ship is a full size replica of the original Lady Nelson Brig that brought the first European settlers to Hobart in 1803.

And it has a nicely unusual offering — a three-day sail and walk. There are three days of walking and two nights on board the ship. The walks are all about 90 minutes and “suitable for persons in the 50-plus age range”, say the folk that have put them together. It costs $790, inclusive of all meals and the next is March 17 to 19, 2026. (ladynelson.com.au)

From nearby, the heritage-listed SV Rhonda H also sails most weekends, from $60. It is Hobart’s oldest and smallest operating tall ship — a 15.3m (52-foot) gaff-rigged ketch built in 1942 in Tasmania. It is now sailed by an all-volunteer crew of Heritage Sailing Tasmania. (rhonah.com.au)

The yellow boats of Pennicott Wilderness Journeys come and go — particularly on their 2½-hour Iron Pot Cruises to . . . the Iron Pot, Australia’s oldest lighthouse. The history of Hobart’s early settlement is told. Pennicott has brand new, 12-seat boats. (ironpotcruises.com.au)

That telling of Hobart’s early history is a reminder that it hasn’t all been fun and sunshine. Beer and skittles.

And further down the wharf, at King’s Pier, there is a plaque placed by the Reserve Forces Day Council of Tasmania as a tribute to the 1000 Tasmanian volunteers who left in 1914 for Gallipoli, during World War I. Four hundred did not return.

I walk on along King’s Pier to another tribute — this time to Louis Bernacchi, a Tasmanian-educated physicist, astronomer and photographer, who lived from 1876 to 1942 and was the first Australian to winter in Antarctica, on the British Southern Cross Expedition (from 1898 to 1900).

Bernacchi was also on Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery expedition in 1901, as a physicist and the only man on the ship who’d previously been to Antarctica. His observations were published by the Royal Society in 1908 and 1909.

The Bernacchi Tribute is a group of sculptures, often referred to as Heading South. There is Bernacchi, in bronze, with his favourite husky, Joe, posing in front of an old camera. And in the cluster of pieces by sculptor Stephen Walker, are seals, penguins and seabirds on the rocks behind him.

Next to it, at Macquarie Wharf, there are lots of places to eat and drink, from the sweet-smelling Fellini Italian Restaurant to The Black Footed Pig and Old Wharf Restaurant. Its bars include the Evolve Spirits Bar and Callington Mill Distillery Hobart Cellar Door & Restaurant, in the MACq 01 Hotel.

Outside, there is another sobering reminder of more difficult days.

More than 13,000 convict women were transported to what was then Van Diemen’s Land (and is now Tasmania) between 1803 and 1853, bringing with them 2000 children.

This is remembered by Footsteps, a set of sculptures by Pavan Cillespie.

Old and new rub shoulders.

Working boats like the Climax and Clementine are laden with pots and fishing gear.

Climax, a Western Australian fishing vessel, has been in Hobart since 2009 fishing for crayfish. Further along, the Sagitta has big fishing gear.

There’s gear in the carpark, too. People touring in hire cars, a Winnebago and on motorcycles.

Suddenly I’m hungry.

I consider Mures Fish Centre, with its Upper Deck Restaurant and Kelp Bar, but settle for Flippers, a floating seafood place on Constitution Dock.

After just a few minutes, “Number 40” is called and I step forward to collect my $18.50 order.

I prefer sitting out on a bench with a box of excellent, golden, crispy fish and chips, in this harbour with all its life, past and present.

It’s a good spot to watch a Sunday wane, as the air quickly turns to a pleasant Tasmanian chill.

Franklin, Hobart & the greatest sea search in history

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer, Arctic expeditioner and Lt-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) from 1837 to 1843, living here in Hobart.

He promoted intellectual growth in Tasmania, and founded the Tasmanian Natural History Society.

The Franklin River would be named for him.

Franklin was born in 1786, joined the Royal Navy at the age for 14, and by the time he came to Tasmania, he had served as a signal midshipman on HMS Bellerophon at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, sailed under his uncle, Matthew Flinders, on the HMS Investigator when it made the first circumnavigation of Australia between 1801 and 1803 and commanded the ship Trent in an attempt to reach the North Pole in 1818.

He had a reputation for endurance and skill.

But it is the Franklin Expedition in search of the Northwest Passage for which he is most enduringly famous, and which was his last.

The HMS Terror and HMS Erebus left England in 1845 to search for a sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Capt. John Franklin was in command — as he had also already led two previous searches for the Northwest Passage.

After two years without receiving any communication from Franklin, the British Admiralty sent a search party, but it failed to find any sign of the expedition.

It is reckoned that 39 missions were sent to the Arctic searching for the ships and crew, but it wasn’t until the 1850s that there was real evidence of what befell them.

All 129 men on board had perished. It is the worst disaster in the history of British polar exploration.

The wreck of the Erebus was found in 2014 and the Terror in 2016.

I was there, in the Northwest Passage, as this unfolded. I was only about 20km away, on another ship, when we heard that the Terror had been found in Terror Bay, of all places. It is was upright and in pristine condition, in not much more than 20 metres of water, off the south-west coast of King William Island, in Nunavut, Canada.

Inuit hunter Sammy Kogvik had seen a mast sticking out of the ice in 2010, which eventually guided the Arctic Research Foundation to the site.

The story of the Franklin expedition was finally laid to rest.

PICTURE GALLERY

as the day played out