I reached Tasmania a while ago. I’m living in one of the southernmost cities in the world, and it feels southern, full of Antarctic wind and snow: we’re in the roaring 40s here – the wind that created a naval superhighway and blew ships around the world. The wind is vicious, and it tends to snow rather than rain, but the sky is nearly always blue, and there always seems to be a rainbow somewhere if you look hard enough.

I’ve been reluctant to write about Hobart for fear of making premature and prejudiced judgements that I’ll have to live with for the next six months. But it’s high time I wrote something.

We’re living in Battery Point, the quaint village-like part of Hobart just by Salamanca waterfront. The house is white and sharp-lined, part of a brown and grey modern development. It’s got a whole wall of French windows which is wonderful when it’s sunny, but there’s only one fan heater which is supposed to heat the whole house; for the first few days we froze, until we cracked and bought some electric heaters. I bought a second-hand road bike (“a piece of junk” said the man in the bike shop) and have become addicted to my morning cycle ride along the River Derwent.

Everything looks a bit cold, but perhaps that’s because it’s winter and I’ve long forgotten what summer is like. The buildings are elegant though rather cool and severe. It’s hard to believe this is a capital city; there are no skyscrapers, no fancy hotels, no large official buildings, no wailing sirens. In fact, it has the air of a rather pleasant little hilly town. There are good museums and exhibitions and plays, but it’s all so small! One day while standing at some traffic lights (they do exist) a car sped through an amber light, and it occurred to me this was the most exciting thing I’d seen.

In the water stand two enormous ice-breakers: Aurora Australis and L’Astrolabe. Next to them in Salamanca Place, the trees glow with lights every evening. It feels like the depot at the end of the world, hidden and forgotten about. Maps sometimes forget to put Tasmania on the map of Australia, or even leave it off deliberately.

And what of the work, the reason I’m here? Consider the size of Hobart and the amount of politics in inverse proportion. And I can’t explain how strange it is to find myself studying Romanian art and history here. But where better to dedicate myself to the pursuit of truth and wisdom than a place of no distractions, of pure wind and blue skies, of prisons and wilderness?