Today we are moving on from Pump House Point to Freycinet National Park and our home for the next few days so after breakfast we called for a golf buggy to take our luggage to the car and set off. It isn’t actually very far but unfortunately in Tasmania there are only a few roads so you can’t drive straight there. As we had to go a non direct route we decided we would drive round the Great Lake then head south from there. The Great Lake is part of the Highland Lakes region and is the most extensive alpine plateau in Australia. Apparently the lakes are home to the platypus but although we saw a few hedgehogs on the road we still haven’t seen any platypus and we are beginning to think they are an Australian myth! The road around the lake is both sealed and unsealed in places but to be honest seems to be very well maintained so wasn’t a problem to drive on. After a couple of hours we should have gone through a town called Westbury where we had planned to pick up some lunch but for some reason the Sat Nav decided to take us along a number of ‘local’ roads and through a town called Bracknell – it obviously thought we were missing home so in the end we kept going and eventually stopped in the town of Evandale which is quite close to Clarendon for a pie at the local bakery. Evandale is a historic town and it would have been nice to have a walk round it but unfortunately we were getting short on time so after lunch we set off for Clarendon. I think we might have been the only visitors they had received today as there were two ladies from the National Trust who came out to greet us and while one was describing her time living in the UK and Europe and the other went off to put the kettle on so we could have a cup of tea! Luckily we managed to escape before that as some other visitors arrived but they were lovely and very well meaning! The house is magnificent, it is a Georgian house in a parkland setting with walled garden and farm buildings. It was purchased as a 6,000 acre property in 1817. The original owner was James Cox who had been born in Devizes and came to Tasmania (Van Diemen’s land) in 1814, he brought the original land in 1817 and received agricultural grants which extended the property to over 18.000 acres which he used for agriculture. Apparently at this time Tasmania was the food bowl for Australia and James built a business exporting grain to New South Wales and also India, Mauritius and the Cape Colony. He made a lot of money and built the house in the 1830s as a statement of his achievement. James used an amount of convict labour to run the house and the farm, but in 1838 he had 46 male and 27 female free people working there. He employed an average of 36 convicts during the period 1830-1835. He had 19 children but only four sons so over time the land had to be sold off to provide for his children. By the time the property was sold by his dependents in 1917 the agricultural holding was less than 700 acres! The house was owned by two further families and bequeathed to the National Trust in 1962 having stood empty for a number of years. Evidence of the fact it wasn’t lived in is everywhere, the wallpaper is coming off the walls and also a lot of work is going on in the basement to repair the foundations. Having said that the house is lovely and with limited budget they have made a very good job of showing how it would be used. They even had a lovely Christmas trees in the hall! After walking round the grounds we set off for the Freycinet peninsular which was still a couple of hours away. The area now seems to have been turned over to vineyards as every field we drove past had row after row of vineyards and a number of them have open cellar door’s which basically means you can go and try the wine and also buy direct from them. We arrived at about 5pm and after finding the room which is very nice we set off for the laundry as we are starting to run out of clothes! With all the laundry done we walked round to the bar and had something to eat then came back to the room for a bit of a relax and check what we are going to be doing for the next few days.
