I ordered poached eggs on a griddled corn cake. One egg was a little overdone but the other one had a runny yolk which was needed to sop into the corn cake. There was lots of corn in the cake which made it deliciously fresh tasting and just a bit sweet. The bacon they typically serve in Australia is what the English would call back bacon. It is usually a bit fatty and typically not served crisp. The texture is somewhere between medium rare center cut bacon and canadian bacon. I usually like it when I have had it before, but this piece was too fatty for me. The bits of meat that I did taste were nice and salty which was a great complement to the savory egg and sweet corn cake. The side of aurugala was tasteless since it had no dressing. This is one of my pet peeves in any restaurant. If you are going to serve me any type of salad or greens please dress it properly. Undressed salad is boring to eat. Maybe the chef wanted me to mix it all together with the yolk of the eggs, but that wouldn't have worked too well since one yolk was almost well done. This was a good dish but could have been a home run with a bit more attention to detail.
My wife ordered a smoke salmon benedict. This was clearly the winner of the two main dishes. All the salmon we had here has been very good. And they served this with some avocado and greens (again undressed!!!).
Our original plan for this day was to take a boat over to Wineglass Bay. The hotel helps you set this up and we arranged for an 11:30 AM departure after our breakfast. We headed back to our room to get ready and soon an email from the boat operator that our trip has been cancelled because of high winds. Time for Plan B. We could still get to Wineglass Bay Lookout but would have to hike up about 90 minutes round trip. I think in a way to get prepared for that hike and see if we were ready, we decided to drive up to a lighthouse at Cape Tourville. This was only a twenty minute hike to the lighthouse and named one of Tasmania's 60 great short walks. How could we say no?
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| Cape Tourvile Lighthouse walk |
The short walk had a quick payoff with some magnificent views.
Since that went well, we then decided we would try the Wineglass Bay walk. We had loaded our water bottles and snacks in a backpack that the hotel provided. Thankfully it wasn't too warm (probably about 60 F). However we had been mindful of the UV Index which had been 8 on a scale of 10. Because of a large hole in the ozone layer, the sun can really do a number on you here. If you are in the Caribbean at a beach and it is sunny, it is also almost always going to be very hot - 90 F or more. Your body will sense being hot and that should also be an indication that the sun could be doing harm (I guess it is always doing some harm - we can only try to keep it to a minimum). Here in Australia while the climate can often be cool, the sun will still be strong. Hats and broad spectrum sun screen are a must. We used 100 SPF spray here and still have had some issues.
We drove to the parking lot and made our way to the entrance. The sign let us know what awaited us.
And there were many steps. It was like deja vu - we kept seeing this same set of stairs every time we turned. I am guessing there were probably over 500 steps in total to get up to the top.
Once we got to the top, the views were worth the trek.
And some interesting rock formations.
The trek up had taken about 50 minutes. Now the hike down - and there were lots more stairs. It took us about 45 minutes to hike down. They had you go down a separate one way trail so you didn't know what was coming next or really how close you were to the end. Finally we saw a car and knew we had done it!!
After that adventurous morning, we were ready for some lunch. There isn't really a major town in Freycinet. My wife and I joked that we would see lots of "City Centre" signs throughout Tasmania, expecting that to lead us to some major stores or other sites. Usually not the case, and also true here in Freycinet. We followed the City Centre sign which led us to a small superette with gas station and a restaurant that was attached to an RV park. Didn't seem to "city" to me. But we did need some lunch and the options at the hotel weren't too interesting. We decided to give the Iluka Tavern a try. It was a smart decision.
I ordered a pub burger and chips which sounds very basic. If you have been following along in my other blogs, the Australians have been doing something very interesting with beets: Putting them on burgers!! And that was what they had done here. This was a well cooked, thick patty which had spinach greens on the bottom bun so it didn't get soggy!! That is another pet peeve I have when a place doesn't have anything on the bottom bun to keep it from getting soggy after a few bites. Here the bun was both toasted and had the greens for a double win!! In addition to a nice slice of tomato,thin slices of red onion and a bit of BBW sauce was the magic ingredient: A thick slice of pickled beet!! It is really the perfect addition to a burger - or really any meaty sandwich. It adds some needed moisture and the vinegar from the pickling but through the fattiness!!
I also got some buffalo wings. Or as they were called on the menu, American Chicken Wings. I guess if we are to be known for something, crispy chicken wings is okay with me. It could be worse. They were served with what they called a blue cheese mayo, but it was really just blue cheese dressing, The wings were good by themselves without the sauce.
My wife ordered a roasted pumpkin salad which has lots of fresh spinach, crumbles of salty feta, chopped tomato, walnuts and surprisingly lots of chunks of well seasoned roasted pumpkin. Too often I see salads on a menu that are misleading. Beet salads are a great example I have seen many times where you order a beet salad and what shows up at the table is a large garden salad with four slices of beets - and maybe they have both red and yellow variety for color. This salad really respected that it was a pumpkin salad and that we prominently featured and so delicious. Well done!!
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| Pumpkin Salad from Iluka Tavern in Coles Bay |
Tomorrow we would be checking out of this our fabulous resort. But not until after we got our breakfast hamper. What is a breakfast hamper? Look for details in the next blog to be uploaded soon.
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