Laziness and laundry 10 Feb 2017

Today was a rest day with a few domestic chores thrown in. We are travelling with just seven days of clothes each, so we have to schedule in a laundry day once a week at the least. Today we used the laundry in Strahan which actually seemed to belong to quite a posh hotel. To be fair, it usually only takes about 90 minutes to wash and dry and there is always something to go and look at whilst it's washing.

Most of the washing was dry when our tumble-drier stopped and the kindly hotel minders were happy we hung the rest on the clothes line back at our hotel.

The hotel we are staying at gets mixed reviews on Trip Advisor to say the least. It's a bit like marmite ( or vegemite here), you either love it or hate it. The building itself was an estate managers cottage which has been moved, lock, stock and barrel, from Gormaston to Strahan. That's a journey of nearly 60km. The road between to two is extremely winding, so, although the building was cut up into 6 pieces, it must have been an interesting journey. The owners,  now in their seventies are away at the moment and the place is being looked after by their daughter and son-in-law who arrived the day the parents left, on Tuesday, apparently with no handover!

Once upon a time, the cottage must have been wonderful and still is to a degree. It is very homely with a mis-match of furniture and fittings and it also has a faint musty smell to it. The rooms, some en-suite are small, but adequate, but our bed, for example, has one of the springs trying to make an escape bid through the side of the mattress. The room was superficially clean, but drawers in the bathroom were decidedly grubby.

To me, I think the place was once a labour of love, but is now a chore to the owners. The grounds are beautiful, the location stunning, it just needs new owners, it's on the market for A$590,000 or about £350,000, but certainly needs some money spending on it. I could be beautiful again if someone had the money and vision.

After our chores were done, we had a picnic in the grounds of our hotel, as I said, the views are gorgeous looking over the harbour to the mountains. Strahan is the only town in Macquarie Harbour, I believe the second largest natural harbour in Australia. There's only one very narrow entrance between Macquarie Heads known as 'Hell's Gates'. The name came from convicts transported to Sarah Island inside the harbour a particularly harsh penal settlement.

The other reason for our laziness today is that we have to drive to Hobart tomorrow, a journey of just under 300km. It doesn't sound far, but we've already tasted the road just outside Queenstown and we will travel through two National Parks. That means we will doubtless be stopping and starting a lot admiring the views and looking at wildlife. It will probably take all day to get to Lindisfarne, just outside Hobart!

We lazed in the garden for a couple of hours and then went to explore the outer reaches of Strahan. We followed the railway line down a dusty track for a few kilometres, the line runs along the beach. Back in town, we refuelled the car ready for tomorrow and set out to drive to Macquarie Heads. It was 11km up a dirt road that was in surprisingly good condition. There is a campsite at the end of the road and clearly the main reason for camping there is to go fishing.

It's possible for 4WD vehicles to drive on the beach, but our car doesn't qualify so we walked down to the broad beach that flanks 'Hell's Gates'. The channel is really narrow considering the size of Macquarie harbour, but navigable to reasonably sized ships. Clearly, the fishing is good in the channel too.

Shortly, we will head into town for our eat-in take-out fish and pizza outlet and following that, we will go and claim our free 30 minutes of wifi access!