The Domain from Cornelian Bay 2015

First off, an apology. Bob pointed out that my figures at the end of last week's walk indicated I covered 10km in 11 minutes. I'm not sure why he doubts this, but I will change the figures to show I covered 20.5km in 6.2hrs.

Now for today's walk from Cornelian Bay to The Domain (and return) led by Bob.

The weather wasn't the best and on the way to Kingston I doubted we would go. However there were signs of improvement and when Bob guaranteed covered shelter for both Morning Tea and lunch, our minds were made up.

We parked in the car park opposite the Cornelian Bay Boat House Restaurant and set off towards the Tasman Bridge along the bike track.

Bob briefing us in the car park

Cornelian Bay

Setting off along the Derwent River

Tasman Bridge

We set off at a pace. When I took the two photos above which only took seconds, I heard a sonic boom and looked up to see just a cloud of dust in the distance. It took me a kilometer to catch up!

We crossed over at the Domain Highway entrance to the Botanical Gardens, then along the track past Government House.

Government House

Looking back at the Tasman Bridge. You can see what the weather was at that moment

Soon we cut up hill to another track. I won't cover the rest of the walk turn by turn as there are too many of them. Have a look at the animated track at the end of this.

We continued dodging around various official or otherwise tracks, making our way to the TCA Ground for Morning Tea in the stands.

Looking south over Hobart CBD towards Sandy Bay

The orange ship is one of the Antarctic vessels

Looking for a turn off

 On the way up to the cricket ground, Bob spotted a small animal that ran across the track in front of him. It tried to hide in the long grass and we could just see the top of it. Suddenly it jumped up and hopped off. Too quick to get a really good look or photo, I checked my phone app and think it was a Southern Brown Bandicoot. It seemed small, but could have been a young one.

According to my info, it can be up to 35cm long. However, I was raised before metrics and have trouble visualizing that length, so I converted it to a more familiar unit and found it would be 1449861/20000000000 of a league. That's much better.

A representative example of a Southern Brown Bandicoot

Main entry to the TCA ground

Site of Morning Tea. Sheltered as promised

We had a little shower of rain on the way here, so I put on my wet weather gear, but it was hardly needed for the rest of the walk.

Main pavilion at the TCA ground. They were working on the surface to prepare it for the Cricket season

Mount Stuart

Break finished, we continue on. On the radio I had heard that a school sports event was supposed to happen at the Domain Athletic Centre today, but due to the weather a decision was going to be made at 0800 as to whether it would go ahead.

Judging from the loud speaker announcements and cheering, it did.

Almost believe you're in the bush

Victoria Gunpowder magazine

The old magazine is in a isolated spot. The first two parts were built in 1850-51 with vaulted ceilings and a basement of a similar shape. It was hoped that if an accident did ever happen, the walls would contain the explosion and collapse inward preventing fallout over Hobart. A third vault, separate to but of a similar design was built in 1857.

It could contain up to 1600 barrels of black powder and was used for explosives storage up to 1970.

New extension to the Memorial Walk with Mt. Wellington in the distance. It was soon cloud covered again

More new additions to the domain

From five ways corner, we take a rough track to the upper domain then down the other side. On the way we had a brief shower of rain and about 10 seconds of hail. The rest of the walk was clear.

Heading down from the top

Interesting gum tree

Another side of the Powder Magazine

We continue down and around, heading towards the Botanical Gardens main entrance. There's a pavilion down at the far end where few tourists go and this is where we'll have lunch.

Heading for lunch

Scary photo of Ron & myself at lunch. I used a flash to try to get the others behind

The rest of the party

Lunch finished, we walked down to the Lower Domain Road, exiting to pick up the bike then foot track back to the cars.

Oyster catchers on the shore of the Derwent

The Eastern shore and one of the boathouses along one side of Cornelian Bay

 We had 6 walkers and covered 12.79km in 4:00hours. A good walk especially when you consider what weather we saw around us.

Click Here to view animated track

Click here to download GPX file