New hotel The Tasman in Hobart starts taking bookings
Bookings have opened for one of the most hotly anticipated Australian hotel debuts this year.
Bookings have opened for one of the most hotly anticipated Australian hotel debuts this year. The Tasman, in the heart of Hobart’s heritage waterfront precinct and just steps from Salamanca Place, is scheduled to reveal all on December 1.
The 152-guestroom property is the first in the country to join Marriott’s Luxury Collection portfolio, placing it in esteemed company with the likes of Matild Palace in Budapest and The Mitsui Kyoto.
The Tasman building has plenty of history behind it, having housed a hospital, the lands department and the mining ministry. The new design embraces a trio of architectural styles across three zones: the original 1840s structure; a 1940s art deco wing (pictured); and the striking glass-encased Pavilion. Inside this modern addition are two “blackwood rooms” featuring fixtures and blackwood joinery meticulously reimagined from old offices. Original sandstone, fireplaces and floorboards have also been restored.
Taking carriage of dining is culinary director Massimo Mele and head chef Glynn Byrnes, who will deliver a taste of Italy with Tassie twists at 190-seat Peppina. A wood-fired oven and fire pit are centrepieces of the restaurant, which takes pride of place in an internal courtyard. Meanwhile, renowned mixologist Charlie Ainsbury of Proof & Co is in charge of drinks at intimate cocktail bar Mary Mary, where Tasmanian tipples will play a starring role.
From $398 a room a night. Reservations for stays from January 4; earlier dates to be made available closer to opening date.
marriott.com.au
PENNY HUNTER
View from here
INSIDE CENTRAL STATION
SBS, Sunday, 7.30pm; On Demand
Sydney’s Central Station, built in 1906 partly on a colonial graveyard, is at the heart of Australia’s busiest rail network on which 1.3 million journeys are made every day. In normal times, that is. In Covid lockdown, ghost trains with passengers few and far between arrive and depart from near-empty platforms. On a recent morning, I see six people alight from an eight-carriage train on the Newcastle via Central Coast line; twice as many workers in orange vests wait to sanitise the carriages for the return journey.
Inside Central Station was filmed in more eventful times. The series opens on New Year’s Eve 2020. Sydney is out of its first hard lockdown, there will be midnight fireworks, but no one is encouraged to travel to the city to view them. On the Harbour Bridge, however, workers are ready to start a project 10 years in the planning but with 10 days to execute – to tear up and replace the 88-year-old railway line. The weather turns bad; the clock ticks on the time the bridge rail can be out of action; nerves fray.
This is a series on a different track to the train journeys of Michael Portillo, Tony Robinson, Michael Palin, Joanna Lumley and a caboose of other colourful characters. If their programs conjure the romance of rail, Inside Central Station, narrated by Shane Jacobson, is about the nuts and bolts.
It’s “observational TV” based on open access to the Rail Operations Centre. Lightning strikes a signal box at Granville and disables the entire network (I remember the night); a passenger faints and they fall against a moving train; and, guess what, Central has a secret heritage clocks room. Hop aboard, train enthusiasts, but in 10 episodes who knows where our destination lies?
GRAHAM ERBACHER
Book Club
PRISONER
S.R. White
Hours after leaving his cell, a parole prisoner is found dead. Why? It‘s a question that defines the plot of this mystery set amid swallowing swamps outside a tin-pot town in northern Australia “near nowhere … glorying in a clear view of an oil refinery …” The description of landscape is gothic and foreign, like the bayous of Louisiana. “Come for … the sucking quagmire; stay for the mosquitoes and sense of death,” observes veteran cop, Detective Mike (Mikey) Francis. The corpse is that of convicted rapist Curtis Mason Monroe, released “after serving nine of 15 years” into the care of two sisters, Suzanne and Marika, who live in a dilapidated one-bedroom house near the site of his original crime. They’ve never met Monroe, but letters were exchanged for two years, gestures of help made and accepted. They offered him a place to stay. But did they murder him? The rape victim is quickly ruled out as a suspect. Back to the sisters.
It’s a linear plot strongly based on the carriage of police procedurals and this is where S.R. White, a former British copper, really shines. We are in the hands of Detective Dana Russo as she looks into drug connections in prison and the background of the siblings, both damaged by early years of trauma from an abusive mother. Russo’s childhood experiences were similar and demons are stalking. Russo is not “a political animal” but is intuitive, thorough and determined. White introduced her, and colleague (and blossoming love interest) Lucy Delaney, in his successful debut novel Hermit (2020).
It’s rare to feel so “present” in the mechanism of an investigation, although White admits to inventing “useful aspects of legal process”. It’s a bit like an episode of BBC-TV’s Line of Duty, showcasing the gathering of facts, the foraging for clues, the mind skills of interrogation, the inter-departmental argy-bargy and eternal threat of legal implications. Then there’s the grimness of the murder. Monroe’s body was found near a remote quarry. “He’d been tied to wooden posts in a cruciform; his left abdomen was gouged out.” No witnesses, fingerprints or DNA at the scene, his wallet had not been touched; any other potential clues were washed away by overnight rains. The story takes place over less than 48 hours but the pace is slow-burn, relying on considerable psychological depth. It’s a brave departure from the usual go-getter crime template, with no escalating action but the denouement hits like a knockout punch.
SUSAN KUROSAWA
Spend It
A Fluffy Slide might sound like a risque fireside cocktail but it’s a style of Australian-made UGG Express slipper that’s design miles away from the classic UGG Boot and with a lighter, trans-seasonal feel. The soft and cosy Tarramarra Nala women’s slides are made with fluffy sheepskin and come in three size groups and five colours: black, grey, baby blue, pink, and red with a hint of orange (pictured). There are also crossover designs with fuller and fluffier straps and a Cinderella style with thong-style toe hold. $132.25; look for seasonal online specials.
SUSAN KUROSAWA