It was pretty obvious that the Sydney to Devonport version of the “Spirit of Tasmania” ferry service was failing long before it actually died in July, 2006. There were fulminations in the press, and a government backed bailout and the advertising for the service got increasingly strident without the product getting any cheaper. None of these are good signs.
The thing was the whole idea was one that had utterly good foundations but which had obviously been broken by some committee of interested parties. Talk about a broken product. I was just about the perfect target for the trip to Tasmania by ship, but the idea only just appealed to me. You see, I have been to Devonport. It’s a good town. Fun. Good shops, quiet, decent. Some nice places to stay. But it isn’t Hobart.
Devonport
Hobart is the capital of Tasmania and is unique. It is, as I like to say, the only place in the world where I have gone into the city central Post Office at lunchtime on a Wednesday and not had to stand in a queue. Where I simply walked in the door and up to a counter, and got served, and wandered out. No waiting. I was about one block down the street thinking of something else when it occurred to me that this was utterly weird and outlandish. Hobart is that sort of a place. When you get the right mindset, such things are almost magical.
Astor Hotel, Hobart
A capital city, wonderful architecture, good shops, and as quiet and as calm as a one horse town where the horse is out visiting relatives. I have spent days wandering around thinking of nothing much and been the better for it. The idea of sailing into Hobart harbour and wandering up to my favourite hotel and checking in really appealed. The idea of sailing to Devonport and then spending four hours on the road before finding my hotel in Hobart was a lot less attractive. I kept hoping that they would change the ferry route, but the longer I waited the more obvious it became that I was waiting in vain.
The Devonport chamber of commerce, you see, saw that they “only” got between 100-200,000 visitors through their port facility every year and that they would all starve if the Sydney service bypassed their town and went direct to Hobart. Their theory was that, because just about everyone who went to Tasmania ended up in Hobart anyway… Whereas everyone I talked to said that they would prefer a longer initial sailing journey followed by arriving in a larger town. A lot of them said that they would happily go to Hobart and then travel North and leave Tasmania on the Devonport-Melbourne ferry. Me, anything that had me on the ship longer was what I was after.
As it happened, the Sydney-Devonport run slowly died. First there were less sailings per week, then the bailout, then I suddenly realised that if I didn’t go, I wouldn’t be going. I booked that week, and left two weeks later on the 13th of November, 2005 . (A Saturday, should you be superstitious.)
Booking was easy enough. There was a phone number. Apparently, TTLine didn’t have an actual office in Sydney. That struck me as stupid, but there you go. Leaving was harder. There were signs around the dock near Darling harbour about where cars should go to be loaded, but nothing about where walk on passengers should go. Like, nothing. Eventually we found it after dragging our rumbly bags around for just long enough to get worried. A small, flyblown office that looked like it might have once been modern back in 1956. For about a week. Then there was a rat maze of “security” … did we realise that if we had drugs in our bags there would be trouble? We did. Did we realise that if we had bombs there would be trouble? We did. Even if they didn’t go off? Yes. Were we sure about that? Yes.
It’s a weird feeling knowing that the entire office bureaucracy only existed just before the ship sailed or arrived. Mostly these people did other things. You could tell that their hearts weren’t in this. Then, there was “Customs” which was a weird feeling seeing as we were travelling point to point in Australia. The “Customs” guy (who was in reality a private security firm worker) was a zealous man. He announced that my roll on anti-insect cream was a “Chemical” and “Dangerous” and most importantly, I wouldn’t be allowed to have it on board. From his accent he was a native of Delhi and a reasonably recent arrival. He seemed like a nice man, but he knew what he was talking about. Apparently, I could take my anti-mosquito stuff on board and threaten the captain with it. I suppose it would only be a matter of time before the ship was anchored in Antarctica an I would be issuing my demands, I was forced to fill out a long and complicated form about who I was and my mosquito repellent was duly put in a plastic bag, with the form, so that I could collect it at the other end. It is against the law to make jokes about terrorism or anti-terrorist Policing in Australia. There are heavy penalties. That form was a hard one to fill out.
Then it was outside into a place like a covered carpark where there was a large doorway type metal detector. It took the keys out of my pocket and all the rest of it, and I walked through. My large rumbly bag, on the other hand, went, “whoop, whoop” when it passed through. This guy was different. He was a blond native Australian and obviously had a clue.
He said, “what’s in it mate?”
I looked at my bag, dubiously. I said “fucking everything.”
He said, “Put it on the bus.”
I did. I got in the mini-bus with it, and watched caravan owners being helped to unbolt the LP Gas cylinders from the sides of the caravans. That made some sort of sense to me. Almost immediately the bus pulled out and headed for the ship like the rabbit at the greyhound track. Somehow, I expected for the bus to stop and disembark us outside the ship so that we could enter through some side door in the hull. It didn’t happen. The bus tore across the carpark and into the open bow of the ship. Inside there was a huge steel carpark. At the end of that there was a small watertight door in the bulkhead. It was a right hump to get my really unpleasantly heavy rumbly bag across through that door. On the other side there were a huge set of escalators that went from where we were at the waterline up to the common areas at the main deck. Believe me, if there had been stairs I would have died. If there had been lifts, people being people, there would have been a blood bath.
The cabin was good, but the ship was leaving. We ran, arse over teakettle, to see us leave. This is where the video picks up.
10 Minutes 29 Seconds
There is nothing like being on a ship under way. There is all the excitement of a plane leaving the ground… but without the inhibition of being strapped into a tiny seat. There is all the excitement of a journey and of moving… but with the freedom to walk around in an amazing new and exciting environment. People go quite crazy and otherwise staid matrons screech like schoolgirls and look for any reason to do it again. It is an amazing experience to watch a 200 pound dowager screeching with laughter like a loon at the fact that a door opens jerkily because the ship is rolling. All up, being on the “Spirit of Tasmania III” for the first hour or so was like being in a suburban RSL club, at sea, where all the patrons had recently taken rather large dosages of a powerful and illegal drug.
The Spirit of Tasmania III facts:
Formerly known as Superfast II she worked as a ferry between the Greek city of Patras and Ancona, in Italy.
GoogleEarth PlaceMarks KMZ. (Requires GoogleEarth)
Patras Greece GoogleEarth
Ancona Italy GoogleEarth
Built in 1995 at Schichau Seebeckwerft, Bremerhaven, Germany
Weight
Gross Register Tonnage (GRT) 23.663
Dead Weight Tonnage 5.717
Size
173.7 metres long x 24 metres high x 6.4 wide
Engines
4 Zgoda - Sulzer, 31.680 kW
Cruising speed
27.3 Knots or
50.55 Kilometres per Hour.
31.5 Miles Per Hour
Passengers
1.400
Beds
686 in 200 cabins
Cars
830
Lane Metres 1.850
(Half the ship is a large moving parking garage where the cares and trucks are parked end to end. This number is the total amount of available parking space. Meaning 1.149 miles or 6,060 feet in Imperial)
Next Page, More Spirit of Tasmania III, more pictures and soon, more video
If you are looking for somewhere to stay in Devonport, the place I recommend is the Riverview Lodge.