An Ava Gardner in Hobart

	Boating on the Derwent River © Getty Images

If Hobart were in England, there would be no word for it other than quaint. But quaint seems as misplaced a concept in Australia as not having a nickname.

When we first arrived here a few nights ago, it seemed as if we had walked into Northern Exposure, that early to mid-90s US series about a New York doctor moving to a town in Alaska. Isolation is instantly felt, befitting of a town at one edge of the world, but not that of an underdeveloped one. Hobart is fine and functional. It just moves to its own pace, one similar to other small, port cities.

As a Hollywood actress, Hobart would be Ava Gardner, with its aloof and distant beauty. Hills of a few colours, shapes and textures skirt it.

The Derwent river lurks through it, opening to greater things. The view from the press box at the Bellerive Oval, looking out at the River end, is outstanding and distracting. Hills creep up on either side of the Oval, but are kept apart by the Derwent , which seems to form a lovely crescent around the back-end of the ground from where we sit.

Mount Wellington - calling it a hill, as I did, can be offensive - overlooks the city with a benign but still stern care. The cap can often get snowy and the weather in the city is as moody as a young, wayward rockstar.

The Tasman Bridge, which connects Hobart to its eastern suburbs and crosses the Derwent, intrigues me the most. A great tragedy visited it in 1975, when a bulk carrier, the Lake Illawarra, crashed into it, causing a section of it to collapse. Four cars fell off it and 12 people died in all.

Three taxi drivers have spoken to me about it, including one who says he was just driving off it when it happened. That kind of disaster leaves a stronger imprint in smaller cities and apparently there was a collective social fallout in the days after the incident.

Somehow, it adds to the sad grace of the city.