DAY 11 - December 20, 2022 - Richmond

It was an easy and slow morning. Since Richmond is only 30-40 mins from Jess and Alex’s house we didn’t have to rush anywhere. Outside it was a nice day – not too hot, a few clouds, overall very pleasant.

Around 10:30am, we left the house to drive to Richmond passing by Alex’s childhood’s first house up in the hills. The drive wound through fertile farmlands with orchards, vineyards, and cattle.

Richmond is a quaint charming village with a long historic past. The town was considered one of the most influential areas in the foundation of Tasmania. Most of the village was constructed by convicts serving time at Richmond Goal (Gaol as it is spelled down under) between the 1820’s and 1840’s.

We parked on the main street and walked toward some of the highlighted sites, starting with the famous Richmond Bridge.

After taking some photos of the Richmond Bridge, Jess bought a board game at a game store that had lots of classic games as well as newer games – all board and card games in view of our trip to Corinna where there is no TV, no Internet, and no cell connection. This little store made me want to learn how to play all these games… it was fun to browse through all these games spanning across many years.

Since we had time for our 1:00pm lunch reservations at the Coal River Farm, approximately 10-15 minutes from Richmond, we relaxed in the backyard of a quaint café/cottage called the Czeg’s Café. Jess and Alex enjoyed their very fancy smoothie drink…

Afterwards, we did some window shopping of the many shops and antique stores Richmond has to offer. Most of them are filled with local artisan wares, some very exquisite and expensive. I bought one Christmas ornament (our long-time tradition for our Christmas tree) made by a local artist following the beautiful aboriginal artistic style.

We strolled a bit more in the village and took our time to photograph the historic buildings, one being the Richmond Arms Hotel (see photo on the left and above).

I also took photos of the paintings on the Village Store, depicting the history of the village (see photo gallery below)

Next, we visited and photographed St John’s Church. Perched upon a small hill overlooking the Richmond Bridge, this small church lays claim to being the oldest catholic church still in use in Australia.

Candid camera of Jess and Alex walking down the church gardens… nice to be able to take photos in “motor-drive” mode.

After all this sightseeing, we were rather hungry. There wasn’t enough time for us to visit the Richmond goal. Got to save things to see and do for our next trip!

It was now time to head to the Coal River Farm for our late lunch. The farm/restaurant was very busy and we could see it was a very popular spot for people living in/around Hobart – and for tourists like us as well.

Unfortunately, the service was not very good as the waitress forgot to place Jim’s order. We asked to be comped (which they did, that is they didn’t charge us for his entree). Jim finally got his meal when we were all finished eating ours.

The food was good but the place is overrated and I wouldn’t recommend it as a stop for lunch due to poor service (or maybe we had bad luck that day).

Nevertheless, we did buy some chocolates and cheese (their triple brie) as treats. And all of this was very tasty.

We drove back to Richmond as Jim wanted to take photos of the bridge without so many people around and I wanted to go back to the Copperstone Gallery to buy a couple of gifts: a tote bag for Jess, a postcard from Maman, and Tasmanian coasters for us.

The rest of the day was spent playing computer games, talking, catching up on blogs and photos… chilling. I could get used to doing just fun stuff ALL DAY LONG…!