Central Highlands

We drove sort of diagonally across Tasmania today from Hobart to Rocky Cape, a very scenic route through the stunning Central Highlands. (If only my Extras were working and I could show you them!) 

For widwed, here’s the interior of the pub at Miena where we made our coffee stop. I was struck by the historic phones and cameras, my father by the racing paraphernalia behind the bar. As he inspected the photo (thumbnail detail) he realised it was of my cousin (the state’s top jockey for a while), winning the Devonport Cup in 2005. So there was certainly a good spoonful of history stirred in these flat whites. Since my mother originates from northwest Tasmania, and my father has strong recollections of driving through the highlands to the isolated hydro town where his family emigrated as “Ten Pound Poms” in the fifties (his mother falling into deeper, darker horror at the brutal barren landscape, so different to London and Lancashire) - the whole journey took in a good dose of history!

As a footnote - that journey of my father’s family on a rickety old bus straight off the boat took a good four or five hours and they arrived at Brontë Park ravenously hungry. But as it was the second Tuesday in November, everything was closed and there was no food to be had until the Melbourne Cup had finished. My father can still remember the winner’s name!