STONE AND STEAM

In a city where saunas float and prisons speak, Hobart spins a tale of creativity and contrast – hot and cold, luxe and raw, old and original – inviting travellers into its ever-evolving story.

- By Angela Mollard

It was always going to be foolhardy putting four writers together in a floating sauna. Never mind the hot mess of metaphors, the mild dehydration and the spirited debate about the merit of “perspire” over “sweat” – someone was guaranteed to start a yarn.

The problem with launching into a story with gusto when your audience has variable tolerance to the 80°C heat is timing your punchline. Which is what I should have considered when I decided to regale my fellow scribes with my recent investigation into the sex lives of the over 60s.

Let's just say that not all of them made it to the climax. Pink-cheeked and dripping, they threw open the sauna door and launched themselves into Tasmania's North West Bay, where the 15°C water soon had them squealing and clamouring back up the ladder on to the Kuuma Pontoon Boat. Naturally, I joined them.

As Nathan Gore, the creator of this ingenious enterprise that slowly pirouettes in the picturesque bay around 20 minutes from Hobart, revealed - Kuuma is Finnish for ‘hot’. I don't think he was referring to my steamy storytelling.

And yet this simple barge with its huge sauna window and its hot and cold running thrills captures exactly what makes Hobart such a compelling destination for a minibreak. Like so much of this quietly assured city, it takes an old idea - in Kuuma’s case the Scandinavian tradition of sauna - and repurposes it for a generation who doesn't just want to see a destination they want to feel it.