Hobart shopping guide

This list is far from exhaustive I'm sure, but here are some short notes about the best spots for a browse and a buy that I found whilst in Hobart. Most of these places specialise in creations from small-scale Tasmanian designers or local artisan food producers, meaning that you can get your hands on some unique and yummy things. Also take a peek at my general thoughts on the lovely city of Hobart here.

Hobart visiting guide

My first impression of Hobart was formed through a haze of 4.30am weariness, but the barbarity of the 6.00am flight was more than made up for by the chance of catching the view as we descended: the sunrise’s last glows over layers of rolling hills, mountains and glimmering bays. Below, snatches of lovely straight white beaches, green farmland, and forest. First thing to note: Hobart really is pretty!

’Twas in that place o’ Scotland’s Isle

Edinburgh, in my mind and recollection, is a city of theatrical contrasts: Old Town and New Town, vastness and intimacy, drama and comfort. I traveled there in a particularly cold winter, only intensifying this sense.

On the one hand, Edinburgh is a place of great spatial spectacle. Not a very large city, it is set upon a series of

Queen Street, Croydon

Queen Street seems to be just springing onto everybody’s lips in Adelaide, making a claim on some local buzz as a spot for breakfast if you’re tired of Hutt Street or Hyde Park, and a location for dreamy Saturday lurking. It's also a bit of an arts hub, home to some of the 2011 SALA venues and hosting a mid-winter street party for the opening of the festival.

And that was New York

As a lover of cities, of the pavement and the steel, of the bustling shops, the rushing people, I have been wanting for sometime now to put down in words my experience of that ultimate metropolis, Manhattan.

Nightmare on Main Street

Halloween is one holiday that I firmly advocate we take up with more verve below the Southern Cross. I believe I have been trick-o-treating once in my life, and attended just one Halloween-themed party; never once have we had trick-o-treaters knocking at the door of our house, certainly in the twenty-two years I’ve been in residence. But I was utterly delighted by my Halloween experience this year. I mean, the holiday has

Holiday, oh, holiday! And the best one of the year

Now that the old “holiday season” has begun in earnest, it seems that the end of the year is approaching rapidly – it’s Thanksgiving on Thursday, and Christmas is already more than in the air. There’s something contagious about the sense of holiday fun that’s circulating at the moment, something that isn’t just about excitement of a potential white Christmas. Certainly, the weather plays into it - there’s ice-skating on

A poem on the underground

I love the subway. Any city, any system, there is just something wonderful about those rattling old trains hurtling at break-neck speed through subterranean tunnels. The subway is hot, it is crowded, it is grimy and rat-infested, it has the power to ruin your day with its delays and abrupt route alterations, and yet I love it.

On Train Travel

On my few trips through Western Europe and New England I have discovered something about myself that would never perhaps have surfaced in my native Australia – I love to travel by train. One would expect to be deathly bored, cooped up with nowhere to go for hours on end, with only the distraction of an undulating stroll to the café car and its promise of a packet of crisps and bland, expensive coffee.