The Carrington

Ah the Carrington Hotel. A "place we won't be visiting again", you might remember I told you about it before.

The Carrington is the grand old lady of hotels and like most old ladies, if you look beyond the make-up, the decorative brooches and the whiff of Yardley perfume, you'll find things are crumbling a little backstage. Things like the sash windows, which rattle like buggery in the mountain wind.

The hotel was originally called The Great Western and was opened in 1880. It became popular as the railway advanced out west from Sydney and the monied folk began to come to the mountains for the supposed rejuvinating quality of the air. By the early 1900s, The Carrington was seen as the premier tourist resort in the entire southern hemisphere. It's only rival in the whole British empire was Raffles in Singapore.

And then it went into decline because the mountains went out of fashion. It finally closed in 1985 then stood derelict until 1991 when it was bought up and renovated over an eight year period, reopening in 1998. Whoever is in charge of the continuing renovations is either plundering the profit or working at their own pace; the hotel has improved since our stay in 2002 but there's still a long was to go before it's completely restored.

Still, we had a lovely room with a mountain view. The Carrington is Darren's favorite hotel in the world (he has a penchant for personality over perfection, which is handy) and the memories came flooding back right away.