Chocaholics Anonymous

When I left off yesterday basically I was en route to Hobart from the Tasman Peninsula. I had been to Port Arthur in the morning, and then made my way around the peninsula, stopping off at Tasman Arch, the Devils Kitchen, a Blowhole, and the Tasmanian Devil conservation park. I also stopped off for a quick look at Eaglehawk Neck, as well as stopping at a few lookouts along the route, which gave spectacular views of the cliffs and the bays of the Peninsula. Such spectacular views!

Tasman Arch

Cliffs at the Devils Kitchen

I actually found myself making good time into Hobart, such a change on this trip. This was just as well as I had realised pretty early on that, being Friday, today would be my best opportunity to visit the Cadbury chocolate factory – as it is, according to my guide book, only open Monday to Friday. I doubted very much that I would still be in Hobart come Monday as my fortnight would be half over and I had hoped to be heading towards the West coast by then.

The Cadbury chocolate factory is like a childhood dream come true. Literally, from the second you step in the doors, a feeling of madness takes over, as you are transported into the magical world of chocolate – like a child in a candy store. Everywhere you look is chocolate – well not literally, but there is a lot of it. The first step in transporting you back 20 – 30 years is the display of TV ads by Professor Julius Sumner Miller – famous for his totally random experiments and then linking these scientific elements to the goodness of Cadbury dairy milk chocolate – with its famous ‘glass and a half of full cream milk in every 200g block’! I mean, these days, knowing that its full cream milk – well, that’s a problem for those of us with weight watcher backgrounds. You need it to be skim milk! The second step to the madness is the actual Cadbury store itself. Its completely nuts, you go in there and you see totally mad specials everywhere – and suddenly money becomes immaterial, as you think instead about all the savings you’re making – sample bags for $6.50 (and you get to fill them yourself), 2-3 200g blocks of a variety of flavours for $6 (compared to the $3 you’d pay for just 1 in the shop!) – its just madness. So of course, I went completely overboard – buying this, that, and everything for my nephews, nieces, sisters and so on – and then I suddenly realised that I hadn’t actually bought anything for myself! Suffice to say I spent an obscene amount of money on chocolate! The thing is, if you’re buying lots of 200g blocks of chocolate – well 5 of those make a kilo, and there’s a limit to how much weight you can carry on the plane – so how to get all this lovely chocolate back for the family? Cadburys, in their wisdom, have sorted that out too – with postage and packaging deals for boxes of various sizes. That’s actually quite ingenious, because what happens is, you end up whacking more chocolate in there as you figure, well, if I’m paying for a medium size box, then I should fill it! So hence I am seriously broke after my visit to the Cadbury factory.

The thing I really liked about the factory, aside from the chocolate shop, was the presentation. Although entry to the factory cost $7.50, and you don’t actually get to see them make the chocolate, they do give you a little presentation and demonstration of how they actually make the chocolate. And they give you tastes of it at every stage, as well as lots of free samples. So it really was worth the experience – even if it cost a packet! Hopefully the nephews, nieces, sisters, and their husbands will be appreciative of the little gifts coming their way…

Surprisingly, all this took about an hour and half, and I literally left the factory at closing time (3pm in Winter). At this point I debated about heading to Richmond to have a ‘quick look’ at the buildings there – but knowing that sunset is at 4.45 or so, I figured it wouldn’t really be worth it, so I headed off for my hostel – the Tassie Backpackers @ The Brunswick Hotel.

I had thought I was being quite smart booking centrally in Hobart. That was until I realised that, the downside of that is that there is no parking. Normally for me this isn’t a problem – but I have a hire car – so I had to be a bit creative. Fortunately 2 streets away from the hostel there was a parking bay that was paid until 5pm, and thereafter was free until Monday 9am. This wasn’t the case in front of the hostel – paid until 5pm and then charging again from 9am on Saturday. So I took everything out of the car, locked it, and said a quick prayer that it wouldn’t be damaged or so on whilst I was in the hostel 2 streets away. Luckily all was good!

The hostel, whilst being quite drab on the outside, and with very dated décor inside, was quite clean (except for the kitchen – clearly people were capable of washing up their dishes but incapable of putting them away!). The dorm I was in had six beds and was quite tiny, but fortunately for the first night there was only two of us in there. The second night was more of a challenge – as it was full – and with international students who were long term in Hobart – so they had a load of luggage!

Downstairs there was the actual Brunswick Hotel – a bar with a woodfire, which made it quite cosy to sit in there in the evenings and do internetting – especially as their wifi was free.

My first night in Hobart, after checking in to the hostel, involved walking around seeing as much as possible. I headed down to Constitution Dock, which quite frankly was a bit of a disappointment – I don’t see what the hue and cry is over it really. I did however partake of fish and chips off the trawlers there (a bit overpriced in my opinion, but still quite nice). I sat on the chairs outside the trawlers and got attacked by seagulls hoping for a sliver of fish!

It soon got too cold to stay out however, so I fairly quickly headed back to the hostel for a relatively early night. After all, tomorrow is a big day…