Bart Bear's Blog

 

The day before we left Hobart to fly back home boats began arriving for the Wooden Boat Festival. This is a 4 day festival celebrating Australia's rich maritime heritage and is usually the biggest exhibition of wooden boats of all sizes in the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately, we only saw the very first arrivals. Constitution dock had the usual metal boats moved out and wooden ones began moving in. Here's are some of them. I think that the white steam yacht looks like it was built just for small bears to own; the current owner didn't agree. The dock was slowly filling with sailboats ranging from small sailing canoes to fairly large ships. The car parks were filling with beautifully built small craft, some still under construction. From the top floor of our hotel, right across the road from the docks, I could watch boats coming up the Derwent estuary right into the docks, so a lot of my last afternoon in Hobart was spent at the window there. If the Oldies take me back to Tassie I will try to get them to stay while the festival is on. I love boats.