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From the hot-tub you peer down over one of Tasmania's more spectacular landscapes: mountains coated in tight, fur-like scrub and a deep gorge flashing with oversize trout.
A 90-minute drive from Hobart, the cliff-top lodge was originally a chalet for executives from the hydro-power scheme nearby and the showpiece of a village of 2,000 migrant workers, mainly from Poland and Yugoslavia. The huts on Ticklebelly Flats are gone their ghostly outlines recollected each spring in lupins and daffodils but the 1930s lodge remains, along with 10 chalets, Tasmania's highest golf-course and the Highland Arms pub. The new owners, Julian Homer and Tony Harrison, have employed local architect Monty East to replace Tarraleah's Central European past with a Scottish theme. Opposite The Lodge, which has a bar with 80 malt whiskies, grazes a herd of shaggy Highland cattle, hair from their coats providing fishing flies such as recently caught a 20lb trout in the River Nive. For The Lodge's nine rooms, Sydney designer David Swan has created the atmosphere of a Malay planter's house: mushroom-coloured walls, wooden-slatted blinds and Kohle spa baths. The food is first-rate. At the Wildside Restaurant, chef Will Godman cooks one of the finest rib-eye fillets you'll eat in Tasmania. The best thing about The Lodge, though, is its fishing and wildlife guides. The track to the dramatic Wilson's Falls was laid out by wildlife biologist Hans Naarding, possibly the last man to have encountered a Tasmanian tiger in the wild.
WHEN TO GO
January to April is best.
ROOM TO BOOK
Number 5
CONTACT
The Lodge at Tarraleah, Tasmania, Australia (00 613 6289 1199; www.tarraleahlodge.com).
COST
Doubles from A$445 (about £180), including four-course dinner for two and green fees
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