The Daily Telegraph TASMANIA Your 16-Page Guide to One of the Most Unspoilt Islands on Earth
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The Daily Telegraph TASMANIA Your 16-page guide to one of the most unspoilt islands on Earth Saturday, April 12, 2008 telegraph.co.uk TASMANIA INTRODUCTION ABOUT THIS SUPPLEMENT Lying 150 miles off mainland Australia’s south coast is a magical island with so many experiences to discover. Tasmania has a wilderness that’s listed as a World Heritage Site, plus stunning lakes, spectacular rainforest and unique wildlife. You’ll breathe some of the cleanest air on the planet, but Tasmania is not all about rugged terrain and the great outdoors — you can stay in luxury accommodation and enjoy the finest food and wine. You’d be missing out on a taste of paradise if you did not include Tassie in an Australian holiday. This supplement aims to give you a glimpse of one of the most unspoilt islands on Earth. INSIDE Motoring 4 Accommodation 5 Wildlife 6 Walking 8 Property 10 Food and drink 11 Events 12 Wilderness 13 Adventure 14 Fantastic tassiE organic forestry and a savage here? In an old jam factory on Sport 15 protector of sea eagles. Salamanca Docks, where the REPORT BY VICTORIA MATHER And you just thought you first settlers stepped ashore, Produced by Telegraph Create in association with Tourism Tasmania, Tailor Made might go for a jolly hol, staying Flora de Kantzow has done the Travel and Qantas. don’T BE FooLED BY Tasmania’S air somewhere sensational, such as Manhattan thing: acres of PICTURE CREDITS: Cover: Geoffrey Lea/Tourism Tasmania (Wine Glass Bay); Owen the Avalon Coastal Retreat at exposed brickwork, fabulous art, Tomalin/Alamy (Tasmanian devil). P2: Getty, Lindy-Lou Bateman/Tourism Tasmania. Great Oyster Bay, and hug a a humming bar. Those convicts P3: JP & ES Baker, Chris Crerar/Tourism Tasmania. P4: Joe Shemesh/Tourism OF undErstatEMEnt — THis is an goosedown pillow. wouldn’t know the old place. Tasmania. P5: Peter Luxton, George Apostolidis/Tourism Tasmania. P6: Tim Dub/ Tourism Tasmania. P7: Geoffrey Lea, Keiichi Hiki/Tourism Tasmania. P9: Simon Right, so the first thing one Hobart is jumping. On the Kenny/Tourism Tasmania, Don Fuchs/Australian Geographic. P10: Getty (2). used to need in Tasmania was an waterfront are all the hot P11: Garry Moore/Tourism Tasmania (2). P12: Don Stephens, Nick Osborne/ isLand THat inVitES suPERLatiVES anorak, regardless of whether or restaurants and bars; yachts bob, Tourism Tasmania. P13: Pure Tasmania, Geoff Murray/Tourism Tasmania. P14: Brett Fernon/Tourism Tasmania. P15: Nick Hancock, George Apostolidis, not one was an anorak. and the market comes to town. Mark Spencer, Jeff Jennings/Tourism Tasmania. The Freycinet Peninsula is one We live in homogenised he worst thing a pooed on her bed, about which of the most beautiful places on Tesco-world; here in Tasmania mainland she was a terrific sport: “Always Earth. The headland on which Australian can do nice to know the natives Avalon is perched is so private to a Tasmanian is appreciate one,” she commented. that anoraks are not required: build a swimming The Tasmania I first went to you can wander nude. All around pool in the shape was emerging from being is deep blue sea from the floor to of Australia (yes, Australia’s orphan state to a ceiling glass walls of this © TAILOR MADE TRAVEL MADE TAILOR © this stuff state of grace, largely due modernist bombshell. The bath is happens, mainly to a terrific ball of energy, sculpted from huon pine, the in Palm Beach, the late premier, Jim Bacon, fridge filled with meats and Sydney) and leave off Tassie. and his wife Honey Bacon cheeses from Wursthaus, the Weird. You’d think Australia’s (that was a marriage made Fauchon of Tassie. You can walk Tonly island state would be so in heaven). and swim, eat and read in front of perfect as the Jacuzzi. Jim took Tassie on tour: the log fire. Tasmania is pretty much “Hello, world — we’re here, we’re The posh Islington Hotel, perfect in every way. fab, we have sensational food meanwhile, is an 1847 Regency Admittedly, when I first went and wine, amazing beaches, house overlooking Mount there and woke up to the history, wildlife, beauty, Wellington, stuffed with antiques. dripping wet veil of rain that eco-emptiness.” Dust-gatherer angst (the urban was Cradle Mountain, I thought Honey was the Carla of Tassie. version of hunter-gatherer angst) it was a very long way to have What they rode was the comes to mind, but one is deeply travelled to Wales. eco-wave, then a bit hippy-dippy, cossetted, canapé’d to the gills, I was then entirely beguiled now acutely fashionable. It was and kissed all over by the by possums squeezing people-with-beards power that in-house dachshund. themselves down the triumphed over logging and If clutter gives you the creeps, drainpipes. One intrepid possum dam-building on the Franklin the Henry Jones Art Hotel is morphed itself through Carol River. Now Tassie is a bit of an scary in the other way: trendy. Thatcher’s bedroom door and eco-issue model — a pioneer of Are you cool enough to stay SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2008 | | 3 INTRODUCTION TASMANIA TRAVEL TIP Þ Tasmania has four domestic airports: Hobart in the south, Launceston, Devonport and Wynyard in the north. Flying time from Melbourne is 1 hour 10 minutes and from Sydney,1 hour 50 minutes. Þ There are two passenger and vehicular ferries travelling to and from Tasmania. Spirit of Tasmania I and II depart Melbourne nightly taking approximately 10 hours to reach Devonport. Þ Tailor Made Travel offers a seven-night self-drive itinerary, including accommodation, car hire and international flights with Qantas from £1,339. 0800 988 5915; www.tailor-made. co.uk; [email protected] Þ Qantas offers 28 services a week from the UK to Australia. DID YOU KNOW… Þ Tasmania is actually an archipelago of 334 islands. Þ Hobart is the second driest city in Australia after Adelaide. Þ Macquarie Harbour in Furry friend: clockwise from left, the possum is among creatures native to Tasmania; Strahan is seven times the size Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park; descend Mount Wellington with Island of Sydney Harbour. Cycle Tours; and enjoy fine cuisine and wine at the Moorilla Food & Wine Centre there’s smalltown life as it is has the oldest golf course in the the Central Highlands, which has temperate myrtle rainforest. The meant to be: friendly and southern hemisphere, the grass just been refurbished, and you historic mining village has just charming, a happy timewarp kept short by grazing sheep. see platypuses in the lakes full of been restored and has simple with terrific food. The cool- Flora de Kantzow, creator of brown trout, before coming cottages in which you can stay. climate wines are world class, the Henry Jones, is now opening home to a log fire in your room, Tassie is a walkers’ paradise. the beers unpasteurised, the Quamby, outside Launceston, an 170 malt whiskies and 300 There’s the four-day walk along food at The Source — a 1828 colonial manor in the Tasmanian wines. Stay awhile. the Bay of Fires, ending in an restaurant at the Moorilla Estate Anglo-Indian style. It will have a Strahan itself is a small, eco-lodge with compost loos vineyard — incomparable. private golf course. Indian whitewashed world reminiscent (much nicer than they sound). If Unlike the rest of Australia, friends of mine are in great of Ireland. It overlooks Cradle Mountain is too wet, the which consists of an enormous excitement about it and have Macquarie Harbour, which is so wilderness on the Derwent River frill of activity round an hired a car and a driver. “Why?” big it makes Sydney Harbour is enchanting. intractable interior, Tasmania is I asked. “The roads are look like a puddle. The fish and How can so much of the manageable. Later this year, the completely empty.” chips on Strahan Wharf are the world’s excellence be in one small place to which to move on would “Yes,” they replied. “That is best in the world, and you should island? Yet it is: go to Port Arthur be Diamond Island, where what terrifies us.” Released from stay in the Wheelhouse where the convicts were held and there’s a new spa where all the the traffic jam that is Mumbai Apartments, designed by local the sense of historical evil is more food is sourced from within 45 onto the open highway, their builder Richard Dyson, on the palpable than anything in the minutes of your table. Or you inner Mr Toad would surely roar clifftop. With their portholes and London Dungeon. Tasmania is an could drive to the new Priory forth. Poop, poop. polished timber floors, it’s like utterly genuine place. Don’t leave Country Lodge in Bothwell, One of the world’s loveliest staying on an ocean liner. little Tassie when you’re on your sister hotel to The Islington. drives is from Strahan to Hobart. Just an hour along the wild next trip to Australia. You’ll be Fishing? It’s on the way to the I’ve told the Indians to stop at west coast is Corinna, on the edge missing one of the best highland lakes. Golf? Bothwell the Art Deco Tarraleah Lodge in of the Tarkine, Australia’s largest experiences in the world. TASMANIA MOTORING THE GREATEST DRIVE ON EARTH why would you want to? Head was way off the mark when he sit at a campfire beneath a star- development. All routes lead out on the open road in Tasmania said that Tasmania was more blazed Southern Hemisphere sky from the pocket-sized capital, REPORT BY JAMES STEWART and you embark on one of English than England.