Hobart

Hobart is the capital of Tasmania, Australia, on the estuary of the River Derwent at the foot of kunanyi, also called Mount Wellington. After Sydney it is the second-oldest capital city in the country.

David Collins founded the settlement at Sullivans Cove in 1804 and named it after Lord Hobart, the British secretary of state for the colonies. In the 19th century the port was a base for ships hunting whales in the Southern Ocean, and merchants built sandstone warehouses on the waterfront. Battery Point, a district of cottages above the harbor, keeps the narrow lanes and stone houses of the sailors and merchants of the colonial port.

Cascade Brewery, opened in 1824 in South Hobart, is the oldest brewery in Australia that has worked without a break, and its stone building stands below the mountain. Hobart is the home port of Nuyina, the Australian icebreaker that carries scientists and supplies to the stations in Antarctica, and French research ships also sail to Antarctica from the city.

Salamanca Place, a row of sandstone warehouses on the waterfront, was built in the 1830s and 1840s for the trade of the port and holds a market of local food and crafts every Saturday. The yachts of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, which starts on Boxing Day, finish in the Derwent and tie up at the docks of the waterfront. MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, was built by the collector David Walsh in caves cut into a sandstone bank upriver at Berriedale. A road climbs to the summit of kunanyi, which has views over the city, the river and the coast.