Tattersalls Hotel Armidale, NSW

ARMIDALE’S DEBONAIR Tattersalls Hotel is perhaps the most underrated time warp in all of country-town Australia. The Victorian-era gold-rush hotel received its first Art Deco makeover back in the 1930s, but a 2019 refurb by Sydney-based interior design studio Luchetti Krelle is next-level artisanship. The tight detail in every room and public space of the three-storey building, from exquisite geometric rugs to top-shelf parquetry, is an Arts Décoratifs eye-bath. Featuring deep, soft bespoke furnishings, graceful drapery, subtle metallic highlights and French-washed walls, the Chancellor’s and Governor’s Suites are refined chambers of retrospective excellence. The ground-floor restaurant (headed by chef Jean-Luc Morcellet) is a natural centrepiece and gathering place, its modern-classic food and cocktails making it one of New England’s culinary highlights. Steve Madgwick

FROM THE MOMENT I ‘TIE UP’ my 4WD next to the log cabin on the lake, 20 minutes from Jindabyne, I feel as though I’ve entered a parallel universe. A gaggle of chooks and a border collie rush out to greet me, and a rocking chair snuggles up one end of the verandah. Suddenly I am The Woman from Snowy River, and I am home.

It’s a clever place that manages to merge authentic pioneer style with luxury but the Lake Hut does it. Beyond the rustic wooden door (there are even tiny gaps at the bottom of it) are wood and stone walls, hessian sack curtains and a wood-fired cooking stove. A homely kitchen dresser contains genuinely old crockery and bone-handled cutlery. But it’s also a place with a deeply cosy bed with electric blanket, luxury sheets and faux-fur throws, and the huge stone fireplace keeps the polished concrete floor releasing heat all night long. It’s charming in the extreme and with a corrugated iron-lined en suite, there’s no running to the outhouse at 2am.

To say it transports you to another place and time is an understatement. Moonbah Huts (moonbahhut.

com.au) is somewhere to hole up with a loved one, explore the Snowy Mountains, or just kick back on the verandah and read a book. The fly-fishing in the Moonbah River, a few minutes’ walk away, is world-class, but the private trout-filled lake on my doorstep is where I have my first try at casting. Owner and fishing expert Brett Smith reckons they ‘always’ catch a fish during a two-hour lesson. I don’t even get a bite but with so much serenity around me it doesn’t matter one bit. Laura Waters

Retreat to a quintessential log cabin in the mountains with maximum rustic charm and none of the hardship. Fly-fishing in the private lake is a bonus.