Start Mosman to Sydney Airport Domestic flying JetStar to Launceston Tasmania
4.30 alarm and a 20-minute taxi ride gave us plenty of time at the airport to catch up on coffee and cake and contemplate the admirable efficiency of the departure gates and security process. No removal of shoes here and only laptops given special treatment in their own tray.
The arrival of a contingent of the NSW Rural Fire Service reminded me that I had not checked on the status of current bushfires in Tasmania and especially in the Cradle Mountain region where we are heading today from Launceston. If those guys are on our flight we need to know where they are going!
It is really about time I made this visit having never been before and being ignorant of just about everything Tasmanian except the great produce and the Port Arthur shootings of many years ago. When I mentioned to Sydney people that I was going the advice I got for the most part never got beyond: great food and wine and remember to take a jacket. It is a small place by Aussie standards but the weather patterns have the range and variety of a European climate. Oh and the landscape is more Scandinavian than Australian I'm told. Apart from that there were a couple of warnings, again by urban Sydney siders who live with gangland crime and drive by shootings, to be careful driving through the countryside…
Launceston to Cradle Mountain Lodge
I had not bargained for the glorious scenery from the moment of landing in the truly charming city of Launceston, framed as it is by the distant mountains of the Ben Lomond national park where skiing takes place in winter. Walking around the city in early morning sunshine it soon became clear that it would not take long to see what there was to be seen so compactly arranged were the old buildings and the gardens down to the Tamar River. The sight of the traditional two story pre-federation houses intermingled with uncompromising contemporary boxes rippling down the hillside to the river not only reminded me why the names evoked Devon but also had my property portfolio head running wild with excitement at the thought of achieving my old fantasy of a sun kissed room with highly polished wooden floors and ceiling height Georgian windows where I would sit at my desk and write overlooking the water below… A lovely place to dream about which started I think when I saw some movie many years ago set in the south of France. The fleeting visit to the Art Gallery was full of surprises in both the quality and range, from the early 19th century artists who painted Tasmanian landscapes like English pastoral scenes to a superb still life by Adelaide born modernist Margaret Preston and even an interactive work called Noise Ink by artists Trent Brooks, Peter Seaton and Mike Hodgson. We brunched happily at Stillwater restaurant in the old Ritchie’s Flour Mill and then hit the road.
Two hours later, having passed through a weirdly rural Sheffield (town of murals), up a twisting turning road that almost gave me vertigo, we arrived at the Cradle Mountain Lodge, settled in, had a full body massage and enjoyed the bottle of sparkles awaiting us. The cabins are meant for winter with fabulous log fires and vegetation spilling into every space almost knocking at the windows. We are warned to keep doors and windows closed in case the possums think it is an invitation to dinner. As we sat sipping the Tassie champagne, large unfamiliar parrots called Green Rosellas, came to graze on the patch of low growing green-grey foliage below our deck and later a huge grey Currawong appeared. Later a rainy walk down the hill from our cabin through the trees past a group of Rufus wallabies, small and delicate looking, to the bistro for a king fish supper. The fires were lit and the atmosphere was ski lodge without the ski boots and snow.
