Sunday, 2 December 2007
On Sunday morning, once breakfast was out of the way, we had time for a brief stroll around the grounds, the surrounding outbuildings, including a dairy, a butcher's shop, a bakehouse, a large stable, a gardener's cottage and a walled inner garden. Once that was out of the way, we retraced our steps to Evandale since Madam wanted to take a walk through the Sunday Markets.
Evandale is a classified historic town with superb heritage buildings in what looks to be pretty close to original condition. Once we’d completed a lap round the markets, we headed along the main street, past well preserved cottages (one with a magnificent display of lavender along the front fence), antique galleries and art and craft shops before hoofing it back to the vehicle for a short excursion in search of a historic bridge or two.
We stopped briefly in Campbell Town, but since the bridge was a fair step away from where we’d parked the car we decided to head on towards Ross and check the bridge out on the return journey.
The main road between Hobart and Launceston by-passes Ross but, turning off the highway we came to the third highlight of the previous twenty-four hours.
It definitely seems that Ross has not been greatly effected by modern tourism. The town is beautifully preserved and while we were by no means the only tourists rubbernecking round the relics there was plenty of elbow room.
What brought most of them to Ross was, of course, the convict-built stone bridge dating back to 1836. It might be the third oldest bridge still in use in Australia, but the real highlight is the the intricate carved work on both sides of the bridge. Simply spectacular. No wonder they won convict stonemason Daniel Herbert a free pardon from his sentence.
After a lengthy wander round the village the subject of lunch was broached and the simplest option seemed to be a scallop pie from the bakery - an option that we’d heartily recommend to anyone else visiting the vicinity.