Title
Shelter pavilion, Fern-Tree Bower, Hobart, Tasmania. During the summer season it is visited by thousands of tourists
Description
Fern Tree Bower is one of the most charming of the many pleasure resorts around Hobart, and is first favourite with the local picnicker. The water from two creeks is collected in a basin at the spot, which has been richly endowed by Nature with indigenous trees, forming a magnificent background to the picturesque avenues of ferns. Rustic tables, shelter sheds, and other evidences of the attention paid by the authorities to the comforts of the visitors abound. Coaches and brakes make daily excursions to the Bower, which is situated on the waterworks fluming, and within a few hundred yards of the main road, beyond the Fern Tree Hotel. From the Fern Tree Bower, close to the Huon Road, a level track leads through charming brush and fern scenery to St. Crispin's Well, one of the sources of the Hobart water supply, which can be also reached by a shorter walking route by driving to the eighth milestone on the Huon Road, and taking the track from that point. Hobart's temperate climate - due mainly to its insular position and its latitude - combined with its beautiful scenery, has made it the sanatorium for visitors from the hotter States of the mainland and from India. Tasmania has been aptly described as a land of mountain and lake, of rocky precipices and ravines, of smiling homesteads and fertile meadows, of dense forests and undulating grassy plains, affording a wide range of temperature, from the warm sheltered lowlands by the seashore to the alpine plateaus of the Lakes district. Hot winds are unknown, and, however warm the day, the nights are cool and reFrenchshing. The Derwent, on the shores of which stands the beautiful city of Hobart, is an estuary of magnificent proportions, its salient feature, in addition to its broad expanse of water, deep enough for the largest ships afloat, being a charming succession of bays and smaller inlets.
