Tuesday 22nd January. Strahan and the most amazing coincidence

A beautiful morning in Hobart and we wandered around the town for a while picking up some provisions at an excellent small supermarket and having coffee and cheese and chive muffins for breakfast at a small but very busy cafe.

There was surprisingly busy traffic leaving Hobart but we were soon on the open road and the recent heat wave was very apparent with all of the vegetation being very parched and there was a lot of evidence of the recent serious bush fires.  There was also much evidence, sadly, of wallabies killed by passing cars

The drive over the mountains was lovely but I guess it suffered in comparison to New Zealand where at every turn there is something more dramatic. We had some heavy rain as we drove over the mountains and the vegetation was very much rain forest with lots of stunning ferns including tree ferns but much shorter than those in NZ.

As we descended from the mountains into Queenstown the rain cleared and we saw the devastation wrought by the copper mining in the area. All of the vegetation on the mountainsides has been destroyed and the landscape looks like something from Mars. We stopped in Queenstown for tea and cakes at a cafe called Serenade which was recommended in our guide book. Very basic but excellent tea and cakes and the owner was very interested in where we had come from and whether they had Subarus in the UK!

Queenstown really does have the air of a frontier mining town.

The drive from Queenstown to Strahan was absolutely lovely and the sun came out to greet us as we arrived in the west coast wilderness.

We immediately thought that Strahan was delightful and our hotel at Risby Cove with individual units right on the waterfront was perfect. Even though the units were built of corrugated iron they looked very pretty.

We had booked for dinner in the hotel restaurant and what followed was the most amazing coincidence. Those of you who read our blog about 2012 may recall that when we were in France in September we were walking down a street in Beaune, Burgundy when who should we meet but Cindy Leslie who Rosemary worked with at Denton Hall and who we have known for 30+ years. In the past few years Rosemary has met regularly with Cindy and another ex colleague Lynn McCaw for drinks in London (usually champagne at the Ritz I will have you know!).

Having just ordered our meal who should walk into the restaurant but Lynn McCaw. The opposite side of the world in one of the most remote areas of the antipodes and there was Lynn; extraordinary!

She joined us for dinner and we had a great evening with excellent food and wine