Another marathon day on the road awaited us....New Norfolk to Gretna......all of about 25 kms! We were actually embarking on the first leg of our trip up through part of the central highlands and across to the west coast but just had to overnight at Gretna en route. Why? Well, the Gretna Green Hotel was the next on our list of Tasmanian pubs at which caravan accommodation is offered, and we had heard good things about this particular hostelry.
Fortunately it was a Friday. Indeed we had planned it so as to be here on either a Friday or Saturday, the two evenings of the week on which the pub serves dinner. From this you may have gathered that there is not too much to the town of Gretna itself, and you would be right, but we used our time there to visit nearby Hamilton as well, and enjoyed one of the best pub nights we had on the Apple Isle.
This plan also came with a side bonus. As a matter of courtesy (and to make sure we did not plop ourselves in an inappropriate spot) it was necessary to check in with the publican on arrival, so there was no point in getting there too early.
The resultant 1000 hours departure was, for us, almost unheard of, and you could be forgiven for thinking that I would have relished a sleep in. Not so!. As predicted by 'she who knows me too well', I was up at the crack of dawn and champing at the bit! "Oh just settle down....have another cup of coffee or go for a walk", and comments similar, were muttered frequently before we got under way just before check out time.
We crossed the Derwent at New Norfolk and turned left onto the A10, the Lyell Highway, which would eventually take us all the way across to Queenstown.
The road was pleasantly quiet as we slipped past a few Derwent Valley orchards
and caught the odd glimpse of the river below us.
At Rosegarland, a mere 15 kms or so along the highway, the junction road sign threw up some familiar names, but for us the B61 was now a road of past adventures and we remained steadfastly on the A10.
Within less than fifteen minutes the Gretna Green Hotel was within out sights. This was definitely one of those days on which we felt as though we had 'arrived before we left'!
It was almost eerily quiet in and around this charming old sandstone pub, circa 1849, but I decided that the sandwich board and the one car out the front was a good sign. The front door was well and truly shut, but I managed to scout up the boots barman who was doing odd jobs in the rear yard.
He could not have been more welcoming, and directed me to the (very narrow) driveway at the right of this shot. This was the entrance to the camping ground. With the pub ute parked as it was, we just squeaked through,
but once I had passed this small test of driving skill, a huge paddock behind the hotel opened up to us, and after a good look around we settled on a level patch close close to the neighbouring farm fence.
We initially had the place to ourselves. The other van on site at the time of our arrival belonged to the pub owner. It was unoccupied and going nowhere.
And as this and the previous shot show, we did not have far to walk to get a drink. This was a very promising start!
Once settled we decided to whizz a tad further north-east up the Lyell Highway to the town of Hamilton. As this map shows, both Gretna and Hamilton (which are actually counted as one location for matters of census etc) lie within the area of Tasmania in which the best examples of historic towns and villages are to be found. Campbell Town, Ross, Oatlands, Kempton, Bothwell (and Richmond just out of shot to the right) all rate highly on the 'historic scale'.
The excellent website 'Aussie Towns' describes Hamilton as being, "a small Georgian and early Victorian village in the Derwent Valley which has remained largely unspoilt.
Today it is still sufficiently removed from the commercialisation of places like Richmond to offer the visitor an opportunity to experience what the villages of southern Tasmania were like in the 1830s and 1840s. It is easily accessible being only one hour from Hobart. The appeal of the town is a product of its peacefulness and its excellent collection of well-preserved historic buildings."
That is exactly what we found, and here I have to include a 'mea culpa'. We really did come here on what could be best described as a flying visit and I now realise that we did not do this place full tourist justice. Mind you, just how many historical buildings can one comfortably cope with? OK, poor self-justification!
A short distance out of Gretna this prominent hillside advertisement left us in no doubt that we were on the right track. What a clever use of the stones of the area and a can of white paint.
Nestled in the valley of the Clyde River which joins the Derwent just south of the town, the peaks of the Great Western Tiers and the central highlands are easily visible from Hamilton, and the hills which surround the town have a bit more bite that those of the Derwent Valley.
This is a town with an interesting history. After the initial exploration of the area in the early 1800's, settlers arrived to take up the good rural land along the Clyde River.
By 1835 the town's population had risen to nearly 800 of whom over 300 were convicts working on the town's buildings and on surrounding farming and grazing properties. With a reported thirty sly grog shops operating in the settlement and a roaring illegal liquor trade, coupled with continual raids by bushrangers and escaped convicts, the long suffering gentry of Hamilton eventually successfully petitioned for the establishment of a police post in the town and by 1837 eleven troopers were stationed here to maintain law and order.....including, of course, a dreaded flagellator!
This settled things down a bit, and by the 1850's Hamilton boasted two breweries (of course), six inns (again, of course), a handsome church (consistent with Governor Arthur's scheme of things), a significant school, shops, a blacksmith, and a large convict probation station.
The wild west days were now over. This was now a town on the move and marked for greater things.
But this did not eventuate. Settlements pushed out beyond this area close to Hobart, and Hamilton seemed to get lost in the rush. Now with a population of well less than 1,000, the Hamilton of today is a small, quiet rural farming town, and that is exactly what we found on the late morning of our visit.
Unlike many of its neighbours, this town does not actually straddle the main highway, and as we turned off into the town we first came across one of its more prominent buildings, Glen Clyde House.
Built by convicts in 1840 as a private home, it was soon converted and extended to become a coaching inn and hotel. Now Glen Clyde House is home to a Tasmanian artisans' gallery and cafe, which despite its advertised opening hours, was firmly shut on the day of our visit.
So with no coffee and cake for the Mobile Marshies, we toddled on into the town in search of the large hotel about which I had read. In doing so we passed this small group of clearly old buildings. That with the portico style entrance is now home to an office of the Central Highlands Council whilst its neighbour at the far end houses the Hamilton Heritage Centre (also sadly closed).
Nestled in the valley of the Clyde River which joins the Derwent just south of the town, the peaks of the Great Western Tiers and the central highlands are easily visible from Hamilton, and the hills which surround the town have a bit more bite that those of the Derwent Valley.
This is a town with an interesting history. After the initial exploration of the area in the early 1800's, settlers arrived to take up the good rural land along the Clyde River.
By 1835 the town's population had risen to nearly 800 of whom over 300 were convicts working on the town's buildings and on surrounding farming and grazing properties. With a reported thirty sly grog shops operating in the settlement and a roaring illegal liquor trade, coupled with continual raids by bushrangers and escaped convicts, the long suffering gentry of Hamilton eventually successfully petitioned for the establishment of a police post in the town and by 1837 eleven troopers were stationed here to maintain law and order.....including, of course, a dreaded flagellator!
This settled things down a bit, and by the 1850's Hamilton boasted two breweries (of course), six inns (again, of course), a handsome church (consistent with Governor Arthur's scheme of things), a significant school, shops, a blacksmith, and a large convict probation station.
The wild west days were now over. This was now a town on the move and marked for greater things.
But this did not eventuate. Settlements pushed out beyond this area close to Hobart, and Hamilton seemed to get lost in the rush. Now with a population of well less than 1,000, the Hamilton of today is a small, quiet rural farming town, and that is exactly what we found on the late morning of our visit.
Unlike many of its neighbours, this town does not actually straddle the main highway, and as we turned off into the town we first came across one of its more prominent buildings, Glen Clyde House.
Built by convicts in 1840 as a private home, it was soon converted and extended to become a coaching inn and hotel. Now Glen Clyde House is home to a Tasmanian artisans' gallery and cafe, which despite its advertised opening hours, was firmly shut on the day of our visit.
So with no coffee and cake for the Mobile Marshies, we toddled on into the town in search of the large hotel about which I had read. In doing so we passed this small group of clearly old buildings. That with the portico style entrance is now home to an office of the Central Highlands Council whilst its neighbour at the far end houses the Hamilton Heritage Centre (also sadly closed).By now we were beginning to understand why Hamilton has remained as it is.....as interested visitors all tourist doors seemed shut to us.
Undeterred we drove further on down the road towards a building which just had to be the pub.
Correct!
The date of construction of this grand old hotel clearly meant that this must have been one of the first of the major building projects in the early settlement. Nothing like getting social priorities right!
Directly across the road from the pub the hillside gravestones gracing this early cemetery seemed oddly isolated and somewhat mournful,
but it was the seriously dilapidated building just beyond the pub which really took my attention, but only after I had take a closer look.
Believe it or not, this housed the town post office boxes. We wondered for just how much longer this would last!
During what was a real whistle stop tour we did discover that Hamilton supports a very appealing looking caravan camp site on the banks of the Clyde River, and if we had decided that a munch was in order, The Wild Fennel cafe on the entrance road was actually open!
We really should have hopped out of the Cruiser and done a town walk here. My later trawl through various information sources revealed that we had missed quite a few significant buildings dotted around the town.
For the sake of some sort of completeness, I've included a couple (with thanks to 'Aussie Towns' for the photos).
Completed in 1837, Hamilton's St Peter's Church oddly comes with only one door, which is in itself a commentary on both the times and the town.
Consistent with Governor Arthur's demands that all convicts should be brought to see the error of their ways and seek salvation through (compulsory) religious practice, at least fifty percent of this church's early congregation were convicts. It is almost certain that the 'one door design' was to prevent escapes. It did occur to me that this also took the pressure off the preacher......even the most boring sermon would be delivered to what was literally a 'captive audience'....convict or not!
Another local building of real interest is the old schoolhouse, built by convict stonemasons in 1858.
This included two features which were also a comment on the times. The Headmaster had no need for separate accommodation. He lived in a room at the top of the school stairs. And unlike the church, this building had at least two doors for what now seems the most peculiar of reasons. The pupils had to enter the school via the door specifically designated for their gender. Now that's taking segregation to a whole new level!
So there we have our 'tick and flick' visit to Hamilton, a town which has now gone on our 'to do list' for any return visit to the Apple Isle.
We had one more thing to do back in Gretna before the evening festivities began. On the southern approach into the town we spied an impressive looking memorial standing high on a hill. This demanded further attention, and the short stroll there and back would do us both no harm.
The quick jaunt down the highway, past one of Gretna's more impressive homes
soon found us at the bottom of the access path to the memorial above us. We climbed the slope hoping that apart from getting a closer look at the memorial itself, we would be treated with good views out over the river valley.
What a stunning location this was for the town's acknowledgement of the sacrifice made by members of the community in WW1.
From this vantage point we could see out over the gentle slopes of the hills to the south and west, and at least one impressive farm house.
These two cottages right beside the highway were typical of what we were seeing all over the island,
and just below us a sharp bend in the River Derwent
and a distant small riverside orchard completed the picture. As we surveyed the scene below us we were glad we had made the effort and we left trying to imagine just how much more scenic this would be when the winter rains transformed the dry pastures to lush carpets of green.
By the time we returned to the van, the Ship's Cat was grumpy. He needed some air. I suspect being tied to the farm fence (temporarily) was not quite what he had bargained for, but he did seem to occupy himself quite happily for a while trying to work out just what those strange looking things were on the other side of the wire.
This was obviously the ram paddock. Liz could not get over how long their legs were....I was far more impressed by other attributes!
With Max 'walked', fed and happily back on his bed, it was time for a drink and dinner. By now the Friday afternoon local crowd had arrived at the pub.
We walked in through the back entrance, past the rear beer garden, complete with an outside loo built especially for folk like us camping in the paddock behind the pub (door at the right of this photo).
This was far more salubrious than your normal country pub back dunny where swatting the spiders and kicking out the cockroaches would be a mandatory pre-use activity. It was brand new, spotlessly clean and the sign over the door made it quite clear that this was available 24 hours a day for all visitors in the camp ground. Brilliant!
Fortunately I had taken a few interior shots earlier, beginning at the front bar which was deserted at the time of our arrival.
The Gretna Green Hotel is a real country pub, and whilst the front bar and the pool room could be found anywhere,
features like this little snug,
and various other nooks and crannies and unusual furniture gave it its individual character. We enjoyed an aperitif or two (otherwise known as a few preliminary pints!) here in the Jack Daniels Barwhilst a few of the locals were having a fine time in the nearby front bar.
The dining room featured a somewhat eclectic mix of furniture,
including a piano tucked away next to the fireplace.
Typically, a few risque plaques adorned the walls
but we were more interested in the menu boards,
which offered fare at ridiculously low prices. And there was more on offer from the main menu, all equally cheap.
Whilst we had been out and about, another couple had parked their van behind the pub, and as is common in these circumstances, they joined us for dinner. By the time we actually got around to wandering into the dining room for dinner, Brad the barman and I were best mates, and I suspect we may have been the recipients of some local largess.
We had the best night. Great pub grub, more than one bottle of good wine, a couple of after dinner ports, excellent company and a bill of only $75, which included the several pre-dinner drinks at the bar. This was just the sort of evening one hopes for in spots like this. To have enjoyed it this cheaply was just a bonus.
The welcoming and unpretentious Gretna Green Hotel, all a good country pub should be, was the recipient of several ticks on our Tasmanian Pub Crawl list and very firmly placed in the 'return visit' column.
And tomorrow night we would be parked in front of another hotel, but this was to be a different story altogether.
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