On The Heritage Highway

On Sunday I finally left Hobart bound for Devonport. I decided to travel via the so-called ‘Heritage Highway’ because that would enable me to continue my current convict theme, and visit places of early Australia heritage – places such as Richmond, Ross, Oatlands, Campbell Town. All these locations can be found along the one stretch of road between Hobart and Launceston.

Knowing as I do that distances are deceptively large in Tasmania, I set off very early on Sunday morning, and arrived in Richmond at around 8.30am. This was no mean feat for me, I can assure you – it is holidays after all! But the problem in arriving so early is that nothing is open, so its really hard to get a feel for a place when there is no action at all. I decided to follow one of the walks in my “100 Walks in Tasmania” book, which took me past quite a lot of heritage sights – plus gave me a lot of background information to the town. For example, did you know that the district was first explored in 1803 and by 1815 settlers had arrived? Hm? Did you?

Or that it houses the oldest bridge in Australia, built in 1823 of sandstone by convict labour? Hm? All jokes aside, I found it to be a very charming town, thoroughly enjoying my walk – especially out to old St John’s Catholic church – if you have a wander through the graveyard there you see some very interesting gravestones. But I would have to say that the thing I enjoyed most about this town was the lolly shop in the old Richmond Arms hotel. You see, as kids Dad would promise us, if we did this chore, or that job, he would take us down the road to the milk bar and we could have as many malted milks as we could drink. Of course we could never ever finish even one, but we never remembered that – our little eyes would light up as we planned what flavour we’d have first, then next – and you’d better watch out, Dad, you’ll be up for a lot of malted milks! So it was with great delight that I discovered this little shop sold traditional malted milkshakes – I simply had to have one! It was just wonderful, and for just a few minutes, there in that special little town with so much heritage, I had my own little trip down memory lane. Priceless.

After that though it was on to Oatlands. En route I took the backroads, deviating off the so called “Heritage Highway”, and was treated to a magnificent array of gorgeous farmhouses and farmlands, set against a backdrop of lovely rolling hills. A little of piece of England right here in Tasmania.

Oatlands is renowned for being the town with the largest collection of Georgian sandstone buildings in one village. It was simply gorgeous. I did a quick little walk around there too, out past the old gaol (of which all that remains is the gaolers’ residence) and then around the bend to the famous Callington Mill. I met an old wino sitting outside the BWS, clearly off his face at 11 in the morning, who proceeded to tell me all about the mill, in heavily slurred speech. Hmm.

But the most pretty thing about this town was all the topiaries. They depict scenes of everyday life in Oatlands – so you get sculptured bushes representing farming, shearing – things like that. Very pretty.

Further on down the road and it was the turn of Ross to shine. My favourite part of Ross was the bridge – it, too, having been built by convicts – but they had created some interesting little carvings on the side of the bridge. I had a quick wander about that town too.

After this I then encountered Campbelltown, famous for its ‘red bridge’ – also built by convicts, and also, like the other bridges beforehand, still in use today. Them convicts, they knew how to build stuff to last, eh?

My next stop after Campbelltown was Evandale. Being a Sunday, the Evandale markets were in full swing – actually they were starting to wrap up when I got there but I still got a bit of a taste of it. Nothing on Salamanca though! The thing I really liked about Evandale was again how English it was. Narrow little streets, several churches, several pubs – all you need in a town, right? It was very quaint-looking.

Alas I was starting to get a bit of a panic on, as the afternoon was slipping away and I was still quite a way from Devonport. The thing that was starting to worry me was that I had planned today to visit the Ashgrove Cheese farm en route to Devonport – but I wasn’t sure what time they closed. How disappointing would it be to come all this way and find they were shut? What could be more disappointing than that?

Well to find out what was more disappointing than that, read the next post! Meanwhile I felt then the need to console myself with a visit to Anvers House of Chocolate, where I drowned my cheesy woes in a cup of Aztec Chili Hot Chocolate, complete with decadent gateau. Yum!

Finally I arrived in Devonport. What a long day driving! I can’t believe I left at like 8.00am and with all the stops, finally arrived about 6.00pm! I was absolutely shattered...