We should just listen to the locals!

It was once again time to pack up our things and move on, not that we wanted to. We just figured it would be smarter to pack our backs and bring them with us whenever we went into town to explore a little more before making our way to the airport. The walk down to the markets was fairly easy since it was all downhill and got even easier whenever we picked up the free shuttle. Yes, they have a free shuttle from Hobart CBD to the Salamanca Markets. When we arrived in Salamanca we were both a little surprised at how busy and crowded the spot was compared to how calm it had looked the night before. I was more surprised with the market merchandise since I’ve gotten very accustomed to Sydney’s Chinese, cheap markets. These markets were more about the home grown, organic materials or handcrafted products thus a little pricier. We were more window shopping and wandering about though since we didn’t have a lot of extra weight left in our backpacks anyways. We did a quick loop around the markets and decided we had enough before heading up the hill to check out Battery Point. This was supposed to be a historic area so we didn’t know what to expect but were a little surprised whenever we couldn’t find any old looking buildings. I mean, the houses were nice and unique but not exactly old like we were looking for. We did however get a picture of the welcome sign to prove that we were there!

 

We have been talking about fish and chips for some time now and had our minds set on going to this restaurant called Speed Feed that we had walked by yesterday that had looked promising. We should have known it was too good to be true though since the restaurant didn’t look too busy or lit up whenever we were walking by. Our good luck continued because it was closed…for the weekend! What type of restaurant doesn’t stay open for the weekend?! Once again we were stuck without getting the fish and chips that we wanted but we agreed it will only make it that much better once we finally find them! With not many other options out there we settled on the healthy choice of Subway which we haven’t had in a while! We would have loved to find some cool little niche restaurant but with our stomachs growling and our wallets a little empty we decided not to take our chances at getting disappointed. This is one of the biggest reasons we’re ready to be back in the US – cheap food! We had a little bit of extra time to kill before we had to catch a bus to the airport so we went to the local technology store to look up a tour number and finally book a tour for Melbourne to see the 12 apostles! We could have easily caught a bus to the airport from Hobart CBD but obviously we’d be paying a high dollar for conveience since it would be $17 one way each. We just couldn’t see ourselves paying that price so he had looked up the local bus system and realized that we could take a bus that would take us on the path to the airport and we could just walk the rest of the way. Because we had been so quick with our sightseeing we were able to catch an earlier bus than we expected which was reassuring for the both of us. We didn’t want to be walking in the dark the whole way. We were both a little nervous about getting off on the wrong stop so Riley went up to ask the driver to let us know when to get off. We jumped the gun and got off earlier than we were supposed to but the driver didn’t stop us. That left us walking a little bit more than expected. The bus driver even passed us on his return trip and pulled over to say sorry for not letting us know. He was actually planning to let us off at a stop past the one he was supposed to – that would have been nice to know! He assured on we were on the right path which was a relief since we were both starting to worry. We kept moving and with a little help from the locals we were able to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The flight to Melbourne was a breeze since it was a little less than an hour in the air. We had a last minute couchsurfing host lined up which meant we had to get from the airport to a suburb called St. Kilda. We bit the bullet and paid for the airport shuttle bus to Melbourne CBD but decided to save our money and walk the rest of the way. We had mapped out the path and it didn’t look too far so we were going to take our chances. Whenever we arrived at Southern Cross train station we realized that a rugby game had just gotten out since the streets were crowded with lion fans and lots of people wearing red and yellow. We were a little confused on who won the game but we weren’t about to ask anyone – people are serious about their rugby here! We had actually started watching the beginning of the game in the Hobart airport so it was weird to be in the location of the actual game just 55 minutes later! We should have taken our host’s advice when he said to take the tram from the city to St. Kilda because it was a lot longer walk than we expected! We don’t even want to add up how many miles we covered today. It all worked out though since we finally arrived at his house whenever him and his girlfriend were getting out of the taxi, arriving home from a birthday party. We got the awkward introductions out of the way, let them know our plans and quickly headed to bed. It was well over midnight and we were all exhausted!