Devonport

On the bus to Devonport, I was quite pleased to find the driver was willing to take me directly to my hostel. When booking a room that morning I had been told it was about 2km from the CBD, so this seemed like a big favor. Though, there was only one other person on the bus and he got dropped off at his destination as well.

After getting into town and finding the hostel, I unloaded my belongings and headed out. In a small town there are significant differences between methods of tourism depending on the time of day.

Opium is one of the major industries in the state, with the Tasmanian poppy industry supplies about 50% of the world’s medicinal opiates. To honor this achievement and claim to fame Devonport has a large sculpture of poppies along the waterfront, halfway beteen the war memorial and busts of the Lyons.

Joseph Lyons was a former premier of Tasmania and a former prime minister of Australia. His wife, Enid Lyons, got into office after his death in 1939 and was the first woman elected to the house of representatives in 1943. She was also the first woman appointed to the federal cabinet several years later. They both resided in Devonport from 1915 until death.

As I continued to wander, the streets felt far emptier than they had in Launceston—and it was only about 8pm. No restaurants appeared to be open anymore and there was only one pub I passed on roughly three streets of the CBD. With the intention of getting to know the town a bit better, I stopped in for a drink. After half an hour the place had cleared out. I kept wandering through the night but it mostly resulted in walking in the dark through residential areas.

In the morning I had a bus to catch over to Strahan. One of the hostel workers offered to drive me into the CBD on her way to a craft fair with her daughter one town over; so I spent the morning being offered food from some very sweet girls from Taiwan and playing Chinese checkers.