Tasmania: Cradle Mountain

We departed Launceston travelling westwards into Cradle Country. As we left the main highway for the "B-class" road the route began to climb offering far ranging views across the mountains.

At the small settlement of Chudleigh we stopped at The Honey Farm, a shop offering everything to do with bees.  This had particular interest for me as I intend to start keeping bees on our return to the UK and I am already booked onto an introductory course.  We tried several different types of honey, to which had been added apricot,  chocolate, cinnamon, raspberry, etc.  I came away with a pot of lime honey and the authoritative book on bee keeping in use in Australia.

We visited Cradle Mountain National Park where a shuttle bus takes you for the last 8 miles to the start of several walking trails.  We chose to walk around Dove Lake, a 2 hour, 6 kilometre, circuit, with views to the jagged peaks of Cradle Mountain.  The walk was enjoyable, but unfortunately the sun remained stubbornly behind the clouds so the photographs did not do the area justice.

Resuming our journey we drove through across some spectacular mountain passes traversed by corkscrew roads.  This was scenery to rival the best we had seen in New Zealand, but on a grander, more rugged scale. Much of the area was mineral rich, gold, silver, and since all having been mined here. But is was to Queenstown that we headed for the night, where there is still an active and productive copper mine, although great care has been taken to hide the unsightly spoil heaps from sight.

A word about our accommodation. We are staying at Penghana, a National Trust property that was built in 1898 by the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company as the General Manager's Residence. The house is constructed of locally produced bricks and Tasmanian timbers.  The Blackwood timber for the handsome staircase was shipped to England, machined, and then returned for assembly.  Many of the original furnishings are still on display, and we were invited to play on the full-size billiard table or play the pianola.

We ate at Maloney's Restaurant, the kind of place you would turn away from in the UK as it is stuck in a 1950's time warp, with an uninspiring interior barely visible behind Venetian blinds.  boy, were we in for a surprise!  Fresh oysters at a fraction of the price elsewhere, and "beef and reef", fillet steak and more scallops than I could count in a divine seafood sauce, with Tasmanian Cabernet Merlot from the Holm Oak vineyard in the Tamar Valley.  Add to that great service and a gift of a piece of agate infused with threads of copper, all contributed to a very enjoyable evening.  

To top it all, as I parked the car back at our B&B,  there, sitting on the hedge beside us, and picked out by the headlights, was a Tasmanian Devil cutely munching berries!  After a minute or so staring at each other in disbelief he quietly sloped off into bushes, and we, likewise, sloped off to our room to finish a bottle of wine!