Lizzie Smith chose to write a diary in 1914 which was discovered 100 years later by her granddaughter, Margaret Deacon.

The research and re-creation of her journey to Tasmania from Queensland delves into Lizzie’s adventures with her friends and her mother during their 38-day holiday.
 
Many questions remain unanswered. Why did Lizzie decide to maintain a diary for this trip, despite not keeping one before or after? Why did the group decide to travel so soon after the outbreak of World War I, and why to Tasmania? How could the family afford such a holiday, including first-class passage on the SS Manuka from Sydney to Hobart?
 
Lizzie’s diary displays her humble origins as a farmer’s daughter. Together with Margaret Deacon’s re-creation of the journey, it provides a charming insight into an earlier and gentler era when trains, steamships and horse-drawn vehicles  governed the life of the patient
traveller.

From Helidon to Hobart, Lizzie’s ‘glorious’ adventure takes in Sydney on the way, and all the tourist spots of Tasmania — Port Arthur, Launceston, Queenstown, Strachan — as popular in 1914 as they are today.