It’s dusk on a chilly winter’s afternoon in Braidwood in the NSW Southern Tablelands, and I am soaking in a steaming outdoor spa admiring the view over Mona Creek towards some museum-quality artworks. They’re part of Mona Farm, one of the finest privately owned sculpture parks in Australia.

“Did you see any platypus in the creek?” the farm’s owner, Bill Pulver, asks me later. “They nest here at the Shearer’s Quarters, but feed at the lake on the far side of Monet Bridge.”