Hobart – Swansea

Awoke to the discovery that we were on a fabulous dog beach. Midget played till she couldn’t stand up anymore and we had a lovely relaxing morning.

sunrise outside of the Sandy Bay Rowing Club

The boys had arranged to go on the Cascade Brewery Tour. We arrived at 1pm and Sharon and I enjoyed lunch in the café. It then appeared that a talent show was taking place outside so we were able to watch and listen to the kids performing. The boys returned to enjoy their beer tastings and then decided to take home a few packs of Cascade Black that can’t be bought outside Tassie. They were well chuffed.

tassie tiger as made for the cascade commercials - you should just be able to make the brewery out in the background

Headed north up through Richmond and then on to Swansea. The coastline is surely pretty and somewhat remote.

Swansea was a very cute little town of just 600. We noticed many of the key buildings around the town had been renovated very successfully and there were also many new buildings that fitted in beautifully with the older buildings around town. We later found this man was a rich mainlander who had “taken over” the town. Some were upset, as he was pushing and wished to get his way, I guess because he was used to it, and also because he was doing so much for the town. One old lady we spoke to said she was happy as his renovation and new additions has bought both an optometrist and chemist to the town, which they didn’t have before. Apparently the tourist season (now just finished) brings the population to 1000 during the season. But they were on stage 3 water restrictions which really surprised us how dry and baron the countryside did look.

We enjoyed fresh Swansea fish and chips from one of the three fish & chips shops in the town. The owners also had two elegant restaurants as well as the tourist icon of the Barkmill Tavern & Bakery on the outskirts of town. See http://www.barkmilltavern.com.au for more info. It was also a museum, bottle shop, restaurant, café and the famous bakery, as well as new backpackers. It was very well done. The owner had just held a garage sale yesterday selling off all the items in old building he’d just bought in the centre of town. A lovely heritage building that had been turned into an accommodation venue in the 1960s with horrid extensions (now about to be removed). There is a lot happening. It would be good to get back here one day to see how it looks.