EC-Rider Travels

Alice and I went for a great walk this morning along the Hobart Rivulet and into the Cascade Gardens leading to the Cascade Brewery, Australia’s first and oldest brewery, established in 1824. There was much wildlife about including a very small wallaby called a pademelon. (I thought that was the name of the egg, which was not an egg, we saw at Uluru!). There was also a very cute family of ‘native hens’ with babies.

At the end of the gardens is the Cascade Female Factory which operated from 1828-1856 as a workhouse and penitentiary centre for female convicts and their children from Britain. Over 13,500 female convicts were transported by the British Government to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) as punishment for often very minor crimes, mainly theft. Once again this is not a good story and the conditions they lived in (a room 28ft x 12ft for over 70 women) and the way they were treated was totally horrific.

We returned for a quick breakfast and farewell to Cecilia (Sophia was on a sleepover) and it was off to the airport – via one last gallery to see some beautiful jewellery made by indigenous artists from shells, bird claws and echidna quills.

Kind, kind Justin then took me to the airport and I flew back to Melbourne.

It was freezing in Melbourne and pouring with rain when I arrived. Apparently 37 degrees yesterday, so hot they had to stop some of the Melbourne Open tennis on the outside courts…. and today it was 16 degrees. Things were all going a little pear-shaped in the airport, and I had to wait a long time for the Skybus, however there was the sweetest lady in charge, who was so concerned about us all freezing to death, it was ok. I met the most charming man on the bus who, it transpired, was the Head of Communications at Melbourne Airport so I told him what a good job she was doing! Such a nice guy who led me through the complicated train network to find the right one to get back to Surrey Hills. Tim was kindly there to meet me and it was very nice to return ‘home’. Sarah is in Sydney watching a former RBS teacher, David Yow, teaching ballet class at the MacDonald Summer School, so Tim and I had a delicious supper before he headed off to the airport to collect her.