Very hot weather in south eastern Australia on Monday, and this included Hobart - the day started out quite cool but the temperature got to over 35 degrees later in the day.
My shore excursion was a wine-tasting tour. We got to the first place - Coal Valley Vineyard - around 10:30 am which might be considered a bit early for wine, but it was all very nice. I wouldn't have purchased any of the wine here - not bad, just not my thing - but they served it with cheese and crackers, with the cheese coming from a local producer (Wicked Cheese). First time I ever like a blue vein cheese.
We then moved on to the Puddleduck Vineyard. At each of these places they gave a talk about the vineyard and how they got to where they are now and this one was very interesting - it sounds like it took them longer to come up with a name for the vineyard than it did to grow all their vines. I would have bought some of the sparkling wine they served here - very nice.
Final stop was a "Wine and Chocolate Pairing" at another family run business - they have both Federation Chocolate where they make their own chocolate (starting with the beans, which apparently a lot of fancy chocolate places don't do) and also a small vineyard called "Every Man and his Dog". Again, nice wine and also delicious chocolate (and this is coming from someone who isn't necessarily a fan of chocolate).
It was only a small group - I think about 11 people - and overall was a nice way to spend a few hours.
For the rest of the cruise though I did my favourite thing on a cruise which is basically lazing around reading.
Got kicked off the ship quite early. I had decided not to check in to my flight but instead to go straight to the airport to see if I could get an earlier flight. Went and waited in the passenger service queue, opened up the Qantas app while I was waiting and realised they were already offering me a choice of six earlier flights. So, I bugged out of the queue, accepted the next flight on the app and was on the plane by 9:30 am rather than the 3:30 pm flight I'd originally booked. All good!
