The Iris Skirt In Tasmania!

In my last post I wrote about the crazy skirt that I made to resemble an iris garden.  I decided to make it because I was going to Tasmania to visit a friend for the weekend.  Its cold in Tasmania, so a wool skirt is just the thing to wear.

I've been heading to Hobart in Tasmania a fair bit in the last six months.  I've been travelling with a friend of mine - he visits a tattoo artist, and I visit with my friend, MsKatt.  Well, sometimes I visit the tattoo artist too, but thats another story!

On this visit, MsKatt (who owns a wonderful vintage inspired fashion store called Ms Katt's Kustom House), her boyfriend Justin, daughter Poppi, and I went out for a day of treasure hunting!  Well half a day... we got off to a late start because of this:

In this game, you roll a dice and whichever number comes up you push a stick in that many clicks.  Basically this game only decides a loser.  You pop the balloon, you lose.  Everyone else didn't win, you lost.  What are we teaching our children here?

And everyone knows this game.  But when you play it after midnight its called Drunktionary.  Or should be.

We intended to head to the Huon Valley but got completely sidetracked in Margate.

The first stop was a train.  A whole train - engine included - which is 'parked' beside the road.  Cleverly, they have constructed a platform that runs the length of the train, and each train carriage is a shop.  There was a second hand book store, a quirky homewares store, a pancake cafe, and a beautiful children's store.  I'm sure there were others but I can't remember!  Anyway, we worked our way down the platform, and at the end was a big shed crammed with antiques (mostly furniture).

Which is where I found this, and fell in love.

This original 1930s Art Deco tea trolley was in amazing condition, and the cream to bronze etchings on the top piece of glass were just spectacular!  Even though the price was really good, I walked away from it because there was just no way for me to get it home. 

I also found these wall pockets:

Most of the time the wall pockets I see are really sweet and pretty and girly.  These aren't.  They are strong, and un-tizzy, yet they are still made to hold flowers... go figure!  I just loved them, and they can easily be taken on a plane, so I bought them! 

After giving Poppi some time to run around and play in the playground, we headed off to the Tip Shop.  This is a garbage dump / rubbish tip that has a shop to sell the good stuff that people dump.  According to Katt its a bit hit and miss.  There were plenty of old sewing machines, which I didn't photograph cause they made me sad, and a beautiful pair of deco club chairs that also made me sad because I couldn't rescue them.  This visit to the Tip Shop was a miss.

On the way to the Tip Shop, we had passed an old church that had been converted to a cafe, and we decided to head back there for lunch, because we were all hungry.

Not my photo - I borrowed it from TripAdvisor

It was called Heavens Above, and the name alone was enough to get me in the door.  I assumed that it would be run by a couple of little-old-ladies and the cream for the scones would come out of a can.

Boy was I wrong!

The interior was gorgeous.  Colourful and quirky and elegant all at the same time.  I really loved the touches of fun and whimsy in the room - not to mention the incredible wall paper!

I have not photoshopped this image in any way, this is just how beautiful the light was.

We ordered tea, and then I saw something intriguing on the menu - a Margate Fog, which was earl grey tea, vanilla syrup and plenty of hot milk.  We all changed our orders to a Margate Fog each.

MsKatt and Justin enjoying their tea.  It was seriously good.

And the food, THE FOOD!  Because I have coeliacs disease, getting food can be difficult, and to be honest I didn't expect to find anything I could eat, mostly because of my misplaced belief that it would be a cafe run by Nannas... but wow.  This is what I had.

This magnificent offering is called a salmon pot - smoked Tasmanian salmon, cucumber, boiled egg and minted yoghurt, with gluten free bread on the side.  To.  Die.  For.

Not only was the food divine, and the service friendly, helpful and efficient, they had the perfect wall to photograph my skirt against!

And couch - the most perfect purple couch ever!

I should have done some standing ones with the skirt held out to show the full sweep, but to be honest, I didn't think of that until just now!

Over lunch, we brainstormed how to get the deco tea trolley back to the mainland and came up with the perfect plan.  They don't know it yet, but a friend of ours who is driving (and taking the car ferry) over to Tasmania will bring it back for me later in the year.  So we went back to the train and I bought it.

Its now at MsKatt's house for safe keeping.

I really did have a wonderful weekend.  Thank you to MsKatt for hosting Josh and I (again), and thank you for minding my tea trolley. 

In closing - has anyone else been completely surprised by a cafe (in a good way)?

Beccie
xxx