Travellin' Penguin

**One of the illustrations from my book crawl passport.**

This week is the national Australia Book Crawl. Book lovers are given a list of participating book stores for readers to visit during the week. I’ll explain…

Yesterday I walked into the city from South Hobart. It was a very dreary, showery day with big gray skies and rain. I knew if I stayed home I’d fall asleep so I packed the umbrella and hit the pavement.

**I walked through St David’s Park on my way to Salamanca.**

**I love the smell of fallen leaves in cold air.**

Hobart has four participating shops. First up was Hobart Book shop in the historic district on the waterfront of Salamanca. Salamanca consists of many historic sandstone buildings from the 1800s.

I was given my ‘passport’ and after looking around the shop I had it stamped. There were quite a few people browsing.

**Salamanca consists of 1800s sandstone buildings. Part of our historical district.**

I then passed the waterfront area as I headed towards the city centre.

Shop 2 had me heading up to the central business district to see Richard and Em who run Cracked and Spineless. It is a windowless shop, up some stairs and hidden away in an arcade. They sell a lot of new and used books, many to a young crowd. They successfully market books on Facebook. Everything from classic lit, fantasy, contemporary and outright weird. They are always busy.

From there I walked another block away to a shopping centre called Centerpoint to the more commercial shop, Dymocks. It too was busy and the young women behind the counter were busy with customers. Again I got my passport stamped.

**Dymocks gets a lot of traffic from the through traffic of shops and eateries.**

I saved my favourite shop, Fullers until last as I needed to get the passport stamped. Then I had to sign the passport and turn it in.

**The cafe is at the back of the shop. Our book launches and other events are held there.**

The passports , once turned in will go into a competition random draw. The prize is a large book pack from Penguin/Random House. I was then given a voucher for a free coffee in their cafe. The store was teeming with customers. The line at the cashiers desk was winding back into the main part of the store. I had to wait a couple of minutes to get a seat in the cafe. I think everyone in Hobart was visiting book shops die to the rainy, dark weather.

I enjoyed my flat white and a heated up berry muffin.

I was told quite a few people are participating in the book crawl which is such a great idea. I watched a few videos of people crawling in Sydney on social. Their list of shops was a bit longer. Our population in Hobart is only 200,000 so to see four very busy shops is something to be happy about.

With a hot coffee and muffin, I put my hood up and headed for the bus. The 5 kms walk from South Hobart and around the city centre was a real mood lifter on such a mild, rainy day.

Did I buy a book? No, not this time. I’m too busy and committed to reading the books I own this year.

I hope my friends here have a chance to have some bookish fun of some sort.