Week 44/2025: A weekend in Launceston
Week of 27 October 2025
Ahhh. The week after the week of the final public holiday before the end of year break.
This post is wholly researched and written by me. I do not use AI in my writing. I will always bring you my stories in my real human voice.
A weekend in Launceston
We travelled to Launceston for a fancy weekend away.
Well, a night, at least.
It was a chance to discover somewhere new and to revisit some old friends.
We stayed at Peppers Silo Hotel, which is very fancy, and is part of the redevelopment of a former industrial area in Invermay.
Photographer Thomas Ryan has documented this area and it’s fascinating to see what it used to look like. I don’t think I ever went there and I had no idea any of this had existed until I saw these photographs.
The hotel was originally grain silos, and we stayed in one of the rooms on the silo side of the building overlooking the river, the park and back to the city. These rooms have curved exposed concrete walls, which makes them much cooler (I think) than the rooms on the other side of the hotel, which are more traditional rooms and overlook the carpark and the big box businesses on the other side of the road.
The best part about this room, apart from the concrete walls, was the day bed.
Fantastic!
Another cool thing about this hotel that I don’t think I’ve seen before was having the room numbers on the floor.
Walking
Tempting as it was to stay on the day bed all day, I also wanted to go for a walk. I had places to see and to photograph, and I could see them from the room.
So out I went.
That was my Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning sorted.
Check out some more photos on my photobolog.
Dinner
We had dinner in the Grain restaurant at the hotel, which enabled me to learn about a type of cheese I’d never heard of before, namely barrata. As far as I can tell, this is a very soft cream cheese encased in a mozzarella coating.
The dish was served with smoked beetroot and it was amazing!
Then I had the fish dish, that came with carrot saffron vinaigrette, fennel and green olive. The server gave me a spoon “for the fish” and I was like, why? But as soon as I got the dish I realised. It was for the carrot vinaigrette, which was a cross between a puree and a soup, and yes, I know this was a fish dish but the fennel was unbelievable!
I could have had the dish without the fish and more fennel. It was that good.
I also explored some non-alcoholic beverages and, okay, I always used to bag no-alcohol beer, but Notto Blotto “sparkling hop soda” by Moo Brew was kind of beer-like and was very refreshing. It’s not something I’d drink regularly, but it’s a good alternative to plain water for a special occasion.
Habit tracker
Existing habits
- Go outside first thing (7 days): 7/7
- 15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 6/7
- Hip exercises (5 days): 5/5
- Walk (7 days): 7/7
- Carry a notebook with me when I walk (7 days): 7/7
- Thinking time (4 days): 6/4
- Mid-day journalling (7 days): 4/7
- 9.30 shutdown & dim lights (6 days): 1/6
- Evening routine (6 days): 2/6
New habits
- Set timer for morning planning (4 days): 0/4
- Work shutdown (4 days): 0/4
Summary of the week
This week I learned
The word ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ means a work of art that merges many art disciplines to make a single coherent whole. In architecture, it can also mean circumstances where the architect is responsible for the entirety of the building including its accessories, furnishing and landscape. I imagine this also means making sure it matches the environment in which it will be located (aka it “fits in”).
Someone asked in the 367 Collins Falcon group how the birds clutch on (to the perch) when they are sleeping and why wouldn’t they lie/crouch down on their breast on the ledge? The answer given was that birds stay perched while sleeping because bending their legs tightens a tendon locking mechanism in their feet that automatically grips without using any muscle effort.
Science ABC explains:
When a bird squats, its talons automatically and involuntarily bend and clutch tightly to the branch. Until the leg is straightened, the talons will not release. The key behind this mechanism is the bird’s flexor tendons.
Many perching birds’ feet have three toes in the front and one in the back. These toes are connected to a tendon that begins at the knee. A tendon is a tissue that connects muscles to bones. This tendon is called the flexor tendon. The locking mechanism happens as the knee and ankle of the bird bend, and the flexor tendon stretches, thus bending the bird’s toes.
That is such a great question! I had no idea but would never have thought to ask it.
Burrata cheese comes from the area of Puglia in southern Italy. The outer shell consists of firm mozzarella cheese, while the inside contains stracciatella and cream, which give it a rich, smooth texture.
The macaques in Launceston’s City Park came from Launceston’s Japanese sister-city Ikeda in 1981.
But after 45 years, their time is up. Launceston city councillors have voted to sterilise them, in line with a recommendation from officers, which will prevent further inbreeding in the troop. This means that over the next 25 years the troop will die out. I believe this has caused quite a debate, with the council believing that continued inbreeding would weaken them and result in potential mutations. Options to refresh the genetic pool are, apparently not feasible. This is the council’s statement.
Rabobank is a co-operative agricultural bank, founded by a group of Dutch farmers in the mid-1800s to cater for the rural areas that urban financial institutions weren’t well supporting at the time. It started in Australia in 1994, and offers finance to farmers and agribusinesses as well as online savings products which are reinvested to support the Australian food and agri sector.
This week I noticed
Someone at the coffee shop asked for a ham and cheese toastie but not toasted. That would be a sandwich, right?
A seagull replaces Crowther.
The bronzewing pigeon that sometimes comes into the chickens’ yard. It is huge!
A goat on a windowsill in Sandy Bay.
Is there a seagull on the Launceston Coat of Arms?
Yes, I know it’s a wattlebird. But the first time I looked at it, I thought it was a seagull and was amazed that Launceston would love seagulls so much it commemorated them on its coat of arms.
What’s making me think?
George Orwell apparently said, “If people cannot write well, they cannot think well; and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”
The best thing this week
Obviously the day bed. And the fennel.
But aside from that, the most wonderful thing was going to see Bell Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet at the Theatre Royal.
Romeo & Juliet
Bell Shakespeare is legendary in the Australian theatre world. They do education programs as well as their performances of Shakespeare’s works and Kramstable was lucky enough to have a school visit from them in his theatre class last year, which must have been a great experience.
I was excited to be going to see this play as it’s the first Bell production I’d been to. I was expecting it to be different from any other Shakespeare performance I’d seen, and indeed it was.
In an interview Madeline Li, who plays Juliet, says director Peter Evans wanted to make the performance “minimal to put the emphasis on the language and make the show as intimate and vibrant as possible”.
That describes what it was like perfectly. And the physicality of the performers was intense, as well as intimate.
The show was amazing. I’d never seen Romeo & Juliet before, any version. I knew the basic outline of the story but I wasn’t prepared for how emotional the ending was. There were also many funny parts.
Perhaps I should read it.
I loved the set. It was two low blocks on the stage, which could have been two room in a house, two houses, inside a house and outside in the garden, two sides of the street, inside and outside of a crypt . . . and they used rugs and things on the floor to indicate where we were. Definitely minimalist, and so were the costumes, which were basically black so they could dress them up with coloured layers as required so they could to go to parties and for other occasions.
Madeline Li was breathtaking. She had this presence, I don’t know what it was, but her performance drew me in completely. According to the article, Peter Evans felt like the play becomes Juliet’s play. He said, “She becomes the one voice talking to the audience, and she takes over.”
She really did. It was an unforgettable night.
There are some stills and videos here if you want to have a look.
Reading
- Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Bang
- “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov
- Vagabond by Tim Curry
Watching
- Resident Alien
- Romeo and Juliet by Bell Shakespeare
- Absolutely Fabulous
Listening
- The Mighty Several by Paul Heaton
About The Author
