My mum took one last holiday with me, just before she died. She loved it
May 10, 2026 — 5:00amSaveYou have reached your maximum number of saved items.Remove items from your saved list to add more.AAAMum has all her clothes laid out neatly on her bed.She wants my advice. “Is the pink silk blouse too dressy? Maybe the cream jacket isn’t sensible for travelling? Should I wear shoes with covered toes or sandals?”The author with her mother.Lee TullochIt’s November 2024, and we are going to Saffire Freycinet in Tasmania for two nights. Mum is 94, as fashionably put together and brightly engaged in life as ever.Looking back, it’s hard to believe she only had three more months to live.Another Mother’s Day has come around, and I miss so much the travels we had together. Not only the childhood adventures but the more recent ones in her last 10 years of life as a widow.Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletterGet exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.The Cunard cruise to New Zealand. The multi-island romp in the Maldives, where she won so many hearts due to her tremendous charm.Luxury resort Saffire Freycinet, Tasmania.The trips to Sydney from her home in Hobart, where she’d splurge on a room at the Fullerton. These days, whenever I’m in the city, I visit the atrium cafe there that she loved and order “a cappuccino, extra hot,” which was her drink.But our two trips to Saffire are forever in my heart.We went together the week the resort opened in 2010. We returned for its 15th birthday.The author’s mother with the swimmer statue from the Saffire Freycinet lobby.Lee TullochMum – always Betty to us – was brought up in abject poverty during the Depression in the slums of Richmond in Melbourne.Her father and mother separated when she was very young, and she was left in the care of her paternal grandmother and grandfather, a violent drunk. Over the course of her childhood she was separated from her siblings, placed in orphanages and handed to relatives who didn’t want her.When she met my father, things dramatically improved. She worked in Manton’s fashion store, gave birth to two daughters, and later would become the personnel manager at George’s in Melbourne.She always loved fashion and when we travelled, she would bring dozens of outfits, changing several times a day. She wore a full face of make-up every day of her life and I had to get up very early indeed to catch her without her blue eyeshadow.Even on her last day in the wonderful Whittle Ward hospice in Hobart, my sister came in early to do her make-up because Mum would have been mortified for anyone to see her without it.The trips to Saffire were very special for her. It was a luxury that she wasn’t accustomed to and an opportunity to dress up, to meet new people – her greatest love in life.She adored every single thing about it, from the thrill of having a car pick us up and drive us there, to the dramatic view of the Hazard mountains from our suite, and to the staff, who she thought were “so lovely and natural”.When she admired the sculpture of a seated swimmer in the lobby, hotel management delivered it to our room so she could enjoy it during her stay. She couldn’t get over the kindness of the gesture.Mum never met a silence she couldn’t fill with questions. She was always hugely empathetic, so she chatted to everyone. An incurable romantic, when she heard that two of the staff were keen on each other, she was an active matchmaker.Related ArticleShe was physically frail, but she wanted to do everything on the program. She visited the resort’s Tasmanian Devil Experience and joined me on an excursion to nearby Craigie Knowe vineyard, where we followed the winemaker through the vines.She still enjoyed a drop of pinot noir. And despite having painful oesophageal cancer, she ate the “fabulous” locally sourced food heartily – breakfast, lunch, dinner and hors d’oeuvres by the fire.It was an effort, but she didn’t want to miss out. “Use it or lose it is my philosophy,” she told me. “I’m not giving in to things.”She deserved to be spoiled.What was so precious about the days at Saffire was that we had time alone together in a cosseted environment. She was reflective and revealed things about her childhood I never knew.“I never saw my mother until I was nine or 10,” she told me. “My grandmother said, ‘Do you know who this is?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, her face is familiar.’ I remember, tears came to Mum’s eyes.”Her verdict on Saffire? “I loved it last time we came, but this time has topped it.”The writer and her mother were guests of Saffire Freycinet.SaveYou have reached your maximum number of saved items.Remove items from your saved list to add more.Lee Tulloch – Lee is a best-selling novelist, columnist, editor and writer. Her distinguished career stretches back more than three decades, and includes 12 years based between New York and Paris. Lee specialises in sustainable and thoughtful travel.Connect via email.From our partners
