Drive to Launceston

4th February 2018

After a number of early starts, this morning we had a chance to sleep in. Todays schedule is unhurried, and all we need to do is to get to Launceston by early afternoon to meet up with David and Kathy Small. Tonight we are staying at the Country Club Tasmania, just outside Launceston.

Breakfast at a nearby Cafe called Laneway was excellent, and we needed to go for a walk through the main street and along the waterfront of the Mersey River to work some of it off. The Spirit of Tasmania was in port, having arrived this morning on the overnight trip schedule.

Walking along the waterfront we were a bit amazed to see some of the banners on the hotels located along the river. It seems there is a State election coming up and the Labour and Greens Parties are trying to do something to limit poker machines in the state.

Hard to argue with the message.

The town is deserted on a Sunday morning with pretty much all of the shops closed and not many people on the street. We enjoyed our walk and headed back to the car to move on to Launceston.

We decided to take the long way via Port Sorrel and down the Tamar River to Launceston. It was another perfect day, and we decided to stop at Hawleys Beach at Port Sorrel and go for a walk along the beach. It was low tide, and the locals were out enjoying the good weather.

Hawleys Beach

From here on we headed to Exeter, and then drove down alongside the Tamar River (not a pretty sight at low tide, until we reached Launceston. We received a call from Kathy and David to let us know they had arrived and were in their hire car heading for the Country Club where we are staying tonight.

Once the checking in formalities were out of the way, we had a light lunch at the hotel before deciding to go for a drive up the eastern side of the Tamar to check out a few wineries. 

Before leaving, we checked with the pro shop to confirm our golf booking for tomorrow morning which is at 9.30am. Once confirmed, we were on our way.

Providence winery at Lalla is an old favourite, and it was first port of call. The owner took us through a tasting of his current range including a couple os sensational pinot noirs (of which we acquired a couple). He suggested we might try Andrew Pirie's new winery Apogee, about another 10 km down the road. Specialising in sparkling wine, he is one of the pioneers of the Tasmanian wine industry. With on 3 wines to taste, the visit was well worth the stop over. 

It was now time to head back to the hotel.

The Country Club is a bit out of town, so the only sensible dinner options were to pick one of the restaurants at the hotel. This turned out to be easy, as it is Sunday night and there was really only one option, The Links restaurant buffet. It was OK.