Tasmania for a week of…
…rest, golf, driving, walking, eating and drinking.
Cover image: Autumn colours in the Japanese garden at the Tasmanian Royal Botanical Garden.
- Holiday week meant no weights, but lots of stretching (to counter the effects of sitting around on sofas, beds and in cars).
- Started off around Koonya and Port Arthur with a trip back to play…
- …golf at Royal Hobart, which was fun and challenging. Course is flat, but undulating. Greens were difficult to read.
- Then Tasman Golf Club for nine holes involved no shot from a flat lie and a fantastic par 3 over a cliff chasm. The red tees are a cop out on that hole so I went with the white tee and made it across the gap (just).
- Drive to Swansea up the east coast was eventually filled with gravel roads (and thankfully no active logging in the area when we drove through). Google maps is not your friend in Tasmania. Check the roads before you finalise your route!
- As a consequence, the following day’s drive across the country to Lake St Clair was zigzaggy, but on tarmac. Staying at Pumphouse Point. Lovely, but not cheap. Breakfast and very good dinners, with fresh bread, cheese, meats and snacks for packed lunch (or a room picnic) were included (since there isn’t much else around).
- Walked around Lake St Clair to the visitor centre and on to Platypus loop. Alas no platypus to be seen, but a wombat ambled almost to our feet on the way back before it’s nose gave us away and it scuttled back under cover of a tree stump.
- Drive to Hobart was punctuated by a trip to The Wall, which we thought was… interesting.
- In Hobart we set aside Mona in favour of the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (because it was such a lovely sunny day and I like to visit botanical gardens wherever I go). The leaves were turning (a novely for people who live in western australia).
- Fantastic dinner at Wunderbar. Canard a l’orange (duck leg & breast, white bean, saffron, ravioli, citrus) was amazing.
- Drove up Mount Wellington before heading to the airport on a good day for views.
- Birds of the week: Tasmanian native hens, feisty and argumentative.
