AROUND - OZ - Best Smoko Spots in Australia

Tandara Motor Inn - South Eastern Tasmania - extremely CMCA friendly and terrific value at $5.00 with hot showers

Once in a while you stumble onto a real gem, and Triabunna certainly falls into this category. Triabunna is your first encounter with the ocean after leaving Hobart heading east. It is delightful yet sleepy little town with a lovely village atmosphere. Now the hotel/motel is something else again! It is not hard to find as it is right on the main highway - look for the welcoming CMCA blue sign. The first thing that strikes you is the huge size of the complex bearing in mind that Triabunna is only a town of a few hundred souls. The motel has over 50 rooms but rarely are more than 10 occupied.

This is where CMCA comes in. The charming manageress Julie hit upon the idea of attracting more customers and what better way than encouraging CMCA members to use some of the facilities. It works like this. You book in and pay your $5.00 PVPN. Julie opens up a motel room and this is used for showers and toilet. If there are several motorhomes you are expected to share these facilities to reduce Julie's cleaning load and this is certainly fair enough.

The piccies above show part of the huge grounds suitable for motorhome parking. It doesn't interfere with the running of the motel at all as Julie cleverly uses the other side of the motel! Apart from the extremely good value the big attraction here is the fantastic dining room! We first heard about Triabunna on the famous CMCA on the road bush telegraph! Everyone was raving about the huge servings of food and very reasonable price as so many of us are on fairly strict incomes. It turned out that you could get a half sized Fisherman's Basket for around $8.50. Now don't be fooled by the term "half sized"! This is Tasmanian country folks and you STILL need a doggie bag with these serves! Our Border Collie Rex certainly enjoyed finishing off any leftovers!

The photo above left was taken on the wharf. We collected up the motorhomers down there and took them to Triabunna and we all had a great time. You can if you wish overnight in the wharf area and some not in the know certainly do so. The water tap at Tandara Motor Inn is out the front on the left hand end of the drive in area - you can turn around on the grass if needed. Tandara is also very "doggie friendly"! Tandara Motor Inn is a very popular weekend rally venue for the CMCA Tasmanian chapters.

Accolades of praise to the wonderful people who man the Information Centre. We received help well beyond the call of duty - a million thanks to the co-ordinator Joy for bending over backwards to help us at such short notice with some urgent Internet problems we had. Internet access for email etc. is available 9 till 5 most days. They also have showers if needed. There is a water tap in the park behind the Information Centre, but access is not brilliant. There is another tap on the right hand end of the wharf and again access is poor. Signs suggest you boil all water before drinking.

Triabunna is a great little town to explore on foot with lots of beautifully restored free stone buildings. We discovered the best scallop pies we have ever come across in the little takeaway. The bakery is also very good. We also got a few bits and pieces from the large hardware store. We must apologise for the photos being a bit on the dull side as we arrived late and had to leave on a dull day. In summing up Triabunna is a great little spot to visit for a couple of days - we forgot to mention that Julie also has a great little low cost laundry with a very cheap dryer. Tandara Motor Inn would have to be the best full facilities value overnight stop for CMCA members in Tassie. We will certainly be back next year!

Absolutely totally recommended.

Chrissy Eustace

HEMA 53 E 12

UPDATE 26/1/06

Just an update on the above smoko spot. As at the end on Nov 05, the TOTAL refurbishing of the motel is almost complete. The contractors are the ones in charge at the moment & there are no showers available. The folks at the info centre are not sure whose money has gone into the rebuild etc as everything has been relaced from beds to TVs & electric jugs. Your site is a wonderful boon to others also living the wandering life.

Thanks.

Ian Warlters

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