A LOCAL ICON BUILT INTO THE LOCAL IKON

Above the office of the Burnie local icon and Tasmanian Senator, Jacque Lambie, is the Ikon Hotel. I returned to Burnie after decades away with some trepidation to support my mother during some routine surgery. My childhood memory of Burnie was a dirty industrial town where the ocean was so polluted that the joke maps of Tasmania at the airport called it “The Red Sea.” However, the addition of Ikon and a few local discoveries transformed a filial obligation into a Goddess-worthy excursion.

WHAT MAKES IKON IN BURNIE SPECIAL

Ikon has less than twenty rooms including several King Deluxe rooms – worth the extra dollar for a space as big as my Sydney apartment with a spa. Every room is dominated by an enormous gilt mirror that proves an impressive backdrop for the occasional Zoom call. I was apprehensive about maintaining a comfortable temperature in such a large room as Tasmanians are impervious to the cold – a skill I have lost. However, I did not suffer thanks to an impressive French panel heater.

All the rooms have a usable kitchen with a microwave and toaster, including complementary cereal and yoghurt. Thanks to this maintaining my keto diet was easy, I simply heated salmon and tofu from Coles supermarket next door and seasoned them with Japanese condiments from my luggage.

The common areas have been restored to their former grandeur and hung with huge prints by Leonetto Cappiello. Balconies along the hallways allow you to spy on the locals in the street below. There’s a laundry room with a huge industrial washer and dryer for guest use.

TRAINING & BUSES REPLACE TRAINS

Reception can lend you a 24-hour pass to the Burnie Surf Saving Club gym. Well-equipped, quiet, and overlooking the blue ocean was a morning reminder that Burnie had changed. I’m sorry to say, Goddesses, that I didn’t see any Surf Life Savers while I was training, though you may be luckier.

The Ikon Hotel is a comfortable base for exploring the northwest coast of Tasmania. Having not driven for years I dreaded getting around, recalling the train we were so dependent on during my childhood – the timetable was minimal, meaning on one occasion the last train departed just before the end of the screening of “Star Wars” at the movies, depriving me of the generational dilemma of Chewie’s injustice in not getting a medal. However, now there are very clean efficient Kinetix buses that link the towns with a swipe of a credit card. Within Burnie, you can use a bus Green Card from Service Tasmania.

A GODDESS DAY IN BURNIE

For a fulfilling ‘Goddess Day’ in Burnie my suggestion is:

• Start with Coffee at The Chapel. It’s a block away in a deconsecrated church, making perfectly acceptable coffee, complete with pews to perch and drink it. If you’re staying in Burnie a while, join the loyalty program for an eventual freebie.
• A quick Zoom call at Burnie Library as a Goddess also has to work. The librarians were reassuring when I promised not to be too loud, saying they weren’t like that anymore.
•  Hellyer Road Distillery tour, lunch, and a few drams. The tour can be booked online and includes your first snifter of the day. I caught the local bus quite easily though beware; the return bus stop is behind a telegraph pole and a stop sign so be sure to eyeball it before entering the distillery for a more leisurely exit.
• Communion Brewing Co. happy hour. A block from Ikon, on Chesterfields, on the wifi and in front of the fire for local brews and a whisky chaser and dinner.
• Dunno Mate. If you need a local bevvy in the spa head up Wilson Street to see George who opens his shop selling only Tasmanian beer for just 3 hours a day.

Essential Tips

–              Except for during reception hours, Ikon felt pretty much deserted – like your personal mansion. However, the owner assured me that if I lost my key, he would begrudgingly come back to the hotel to save me.

–              Each room has one of those curved Bose CD players/radios. While having no patience to tune the radio to a preferred station, I regretted not having a couple of favourite CDs to spin.

–              Hotel Microwave cooking is possible with the supplied crockery and some Glad  Wrap from Coles next door.

–              Packing my Japanese stock and soy proved unnecessary as I could get everything I needed for Microwave cooking at Asian Flavours Supermarket located near Dunno Mate.

–              You can apply for a Green Card for local travel online a few weeks before travelling.

–              Try calling before you book online, reception said they can often match the price of the online bookers.

Overall, what I expected to be a bleak reliving of childhood turned out to be comfortable and enjoyable and, of course, my mother made a fine recovery.