Country pub lover Holley Lees loves old pubs with soul.
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Historical pubs from the early 1800s exist across Tasmania.
Filled with a town's memoribillia, they are the keepers of community secrets and survivors of economical boom and bust.
Ms Lees, an engineer, chooses to stay overnight in these historical grand dames as she travels across Tasmania for work.
She bypasses the "generic" or "trendy" hotels in favour of her beloved pubs, and documents her visits on Instagram page pubsoftasmania.
She photographs their architectural facades; the grand and not-so-grand entrances, the pitched roofs, colonial bricks, hanging balconies, or the retro typographical signs.
Poker machines will not receive Ms Lees' tick of approval, but fireplaces, excellent food and a comfortable bed will see pubs rate highly.
"I just really like them. They are so varied and so different, so interesting. I stay in them whenever I have the opportunity. They are different to your generic hotels, so full of character," Ms Lees said.
"It is not every day that people can walk into a 200-year-old building and have a sticky beak. People should get out there to visit these pubs and have a look, wander in, have a beer, chat to the bar staff and have a poke around."
With a majority of Tasmania's regions experiencing ageing or population decline, there are fewer people living in regional areas and fewer people to visit the pubs.
Add in the changes to Australian drinking culture, where people are drinking less or drinking at home, and it becomes apparent that pubs must work harder to maintain strong patronage or bring in patronage at all.
Country pubs in the mainland are reportedly moving into other business avenues to keep up and survive, opening contemporary art galleries or pie and gift shops within the pubs, or holding festivals and special events.
Accommodation, and the pub as an inn, has started to surge, with savvy vacationers looking for cheaper, unique or character-driven pubs to stay in, and companies like Airbnb pushing the market.
Beer on tap is not the alcohol stronghold anymore, with wine and boutique spirits pushing for extra shelf space.
Food is now more important than ever before.
Market research in this area has found that 44 per cent of the Tasmanian population go to a pub for a meal at least once in three months, where 16 per cent attend for just a drink alone.
For pubs such as the Stanley Hotel, a focus on food has allowed publican Julian Jacobs to attract a strong-tourist trade.
"We are probably almost a restaurant with a bar attached, rather than what the old pubs used to be," Mr Jacobs said.
But he added that the Stanley Hotel still remained committed to the old pub mentality.
"This pub has been here for a long time. It has always catered to the locals and the travelling public, and the formula hasn't really changed. Good service is key," he said.
"If everyone gets back to what the pubs always were, they will survive quite well ... the definition of pub is a public lounge room, so you know, it just needs to offer quality hospitality ... and a great menu."
New operators at the Carrick Inn Hotel Isabel and Steven Gillane celebrated their two-year anniversary as publicans in October.
"We just treat everyone like family," Mrs Gillane said.
"Working in a pub was all very new to us but I've always wanted a pub since I was a little girl. We kept coming down to Tasmania on holiday and fell in love with the place, its history and its peacefulness."
While they have the history covered, with the Carrick Inn Hotel having been established in 1833, peace is not on their radar.
"Since we took over we have been very busy, with new customers and a lot of regulars. The main challenge is the long hours, and that is the one thing we didn't realise, even for a small country pub."
The Gillanes have combined Steven's passion for cooking with Isabel's lifelong dream to own a pub and it is a mix that is working.
"My husband is a king cook. He smokes all his own meats and has his special smoked brisket on the menu," she said.
"We also have a very good chef and we are gaining such a good reputation because of the food, as well as the customer service."
Mrs Gillane said they are slowly putting the history back into the pub, expanding on the tale of their resident ghost Charlie Frost the blacksmith, and telling its stories, such as a tunnel being built under the road to the court house in the 1800s.
"It is important to create an atmosphere, to serve good quality food at competitive prices, give a warm welcome in the bar, and treat everybody with respect," she said.
"A lot of our customers travel around to all of the local pubs and we encourage that. If all the old pubs are thriving and doing well, then that is good for Tasmania."
Another pub vying off the challenges is the Bischoff Hotel at Waratah, ran by the Ekman family, Liz, Paul and their two daughters Ingrid and Yvette.
A snake in greening formaldehyde sits on the bar, a deer head on the wall, old antique chairs surround a pool table, photos crowd the walls and board games and books are placed on the fireplace to entertain patrons.
The bar, and the dining room with its home cooked offerings, has character in spades, and now the upstairs accommodation has had a stylish makeover with a $50,000 upgrade from the Air BnB country pub project.
"It was a business that, at the time when we bought it, was very run down. It wasn't really running at all, hardly ever open, so we needed to put some effort into it to build it up and make it something worthwhile," Mrs Ekman said.
"We had no doubt that we would have challenges. It is very seasonal, you have a quieter winter in terms of tourists, but a busy summer. And you need to offer different and new things, and also cater to the locals."
Mrs Ekman said it was imperative that the pub stay open, not just for their business but for the town, where the pub is a community meeting place for Waratah, and the only place to go of an evening.
She said historically, the pub had always been that.
"This pub was part of the rescue mission for two RAAF planes that crashed in 1937. There was very thick cloud at the time, and one crashed on Waratah Road and one crashed in the Gorge. The hotel was set up as the command centre for the rescue," Ms Ekman said.
"It took two days to find the pilots, but everyone survived. The wooden propeller is up on the wall, and we have photos on our walls. This history is something that we hope to advertise out the front, to draw people in."
It is these stories that make the pubs unique, and which when highlighted, can prompt patrons inside.
Ms Lees' certainly thinks so, and her goal is to stay overnight in every one of them, to learn something more about the town's in which she finds them.
Above all, she hopes that her Instagram page, that is a form of free advertising, encourages other Tasmanians to get on the road and support the old pubs.
"I would be sad to go into these small towns to find that there was nowhere to stop in and visit, or to have these Mcdonald-like, ordinary venues.
"It would just be devastating if we lost our pubs. They are part of our Australian and Tasmanian culture. If we can support them, and give the ones who aren't making their money off gambling a chance, then they will survive."