3 October 2013 - Treasure Island Caravan Park, Launceston, Tasmania

Only the birds and holidaying school children woke me this morning, a change from heavy rain pounding on the roof. The bathroom window revealed blue sky and filled me with optimism; we were up and ready to address the day; breakfasted, lunch packed and down to the office to pay for a few further days. I suggested three more, Chris returned after paying only for two, which created some discussion between us. He had however asked that we be pencilled in for days beyond, in case we decided to stay even longer.

I was keen to get a good overview of the city apart from the city map, so we headed up a steep street to the east of the camp, straight up and tightly turning onto High Street, passing many beautiful very old homes and pulled into Windmill Hill Reserve, from where we had views of trees rather than the city. This was a case of enjoying the journey rather than the destination, and so we did enjoy our descent down into the city centre, across the North Esk River and into the Inveresk Precinct where the QVMAG Museum at Inveresk is located. This spot also provides reasonably priced parking, a feature that seems quite rare in this city; here one can park all day for a mere $3.

The museum had yet to open so we jumped on the Free Tiger Bus we spotted at a nearby bus stop, asking the driver whether this was a loop tour and how long it took. She was so welcoming and chatty, told us she would have us back in half an hour and asked where we came from. Unfortunately we had taken seats toward the back, elevated for views but too far from the driver to converse intelligently. Soon we were off, picking up and dropping a variety of passengers, driving up and down the steep streets travelled earlier and along streets still new.

Most of us left the bus back at the Museum, now open and we joined the throngs of families to explore this treasure trove, promoted as being the largest regional complex in the country; this does however include the art gallery which is elsewhere and was to be visited later in the day.

It really is an excellent museum, pleasantly and surprisingly so. We did not bother with the exhibition titled Southern Skies: Astronomy in Tasmania or the Phenomena Factory, an interactive science centre, today just full of small children and their minders. Instead we enjoyed the exhibitions included in the Tasmanian Connections. Here there was an excellent section on transport covering horses, bullocks, trams, trains and motor vehicles, where I considered that the replacement of Launcestons’s trams in 1952 to trolley buses further evidence that New Zealand’s Wellington has much in common with this regional city here in Tasmania. There was an excellent section on Female Factories, the quaint name for the institutions which were the holding pens for convict women and any others out of favour here in Tasmania (and in Sydney). I recently read Bryce Courtney’s “The Potato Factory” which covered the conditions and history of these places, and today the evidence supported his fictional work.

Another section of this section of the museum covered the shipwreck of the merchant vessel, the Sydney Cove in 1797. This ship was the property of a private trading firm, Campbell and Clarke, operating out of India, providing provisions for this southern land when few other traders would bother when there was little in the way of back loading. After grounding on Preservation Island to the north of Tasmania, a party of seventeen men set off in a small boat three months later to seek help. Wrecked at the northern end of Ninety Mile Beach, they then set off on foot for Sydney, over six hundred kilometres away. Three of these survived and were able to enlist salvage voyages which in turn came to grief. The whole saga is recounted well in the museum and like all such tales, quite fascinating.

Excellent displays of Tasmania’s fauna and geological history complimented the exhibitions, and as I said, made for a thoroughly admirable museum.

Upstairs on the mezzanine floor we wandered about the marvellous photographic exhibition of the ANZANG Nature Photography. We saw this travelling exhibition when it was in Freemantle and while today’s viewing was more a browsing wander-by, we were as impressed with the content and the talent as much as we been in Western Australia.

The museum complex is housed in the old Railway Workshops which operated from 1909 through to 1994.  Outside one can visit the The Blacksmith Shop where blacksmiths and other tradesmen worked, shaping heated metal with either hand tools or a variety of mechanical hammers. The workshop is expansive, dark, depressing and that together with recordings of workers voices and machinery sounds conveys what a horrible place it must have been to work. But then such is the lot of many male occupations and something we should remember when we, as women, are spouting forth about occupational equality.

We returned to the landcruiser and had our lunch before heading off for our afternoon’s walking tour. We had been handed a map by the young receptionist here in the caravan park and thought that the weather today was perfect for such an expedition.

We crossed the North Esk River and wandered along the southern bank until we reached Home Point, where both Esk Rivers converge and become the Tamar River, which is also defined as a fifty eight kilometre estuary. Here is the location of the marina, the wharf area for river cruises and a very pleasant river walkway bordered by cafes and bars. We followed the shore around, soon reaching the mouth of the North Esk River, crossing the bridge by the mill and heading up the Cataract Walk along the northern wall of the North Esk River gorge.

I remarked a couple of days ago how fierce the river had been running, even though it was far below the level of the historical floods which had washed the original Duck Reach Power Station and swing bridge away, however that was nothing compared with the vision below us today. I cannot ever remember seeing the force of water so, a massive volume racing through the canyon walls, high waves as it came into contact with rocks, throwing logs into the air, boiling, rushing, terrifying, mesmerizing! We followed the well graded walkway up the gorge walls, often cantilevered out from the rock and all the more terrifying to be standing out over this fierce flow.

Flooded Cliff Grounds

After just over two and a half kilometres we reached the Cliff Grounds, directly across the First Basin from where we had stood two days ago and remarked on the swimming pool, the café and the chair lift terminal. Today, the swimming pool complex was nowhere to be seen, drowned beneath the swirling chocolate brown waters of the flood. It was all very impressive!

We turned and retraced our steps; back down to King’s Bridge at the edge of the city and made our way along the streets until we reached the Art Gallery at Royal Park also part of the QVMAG. Here we spent some time on the ground floor enjoying two photographic exhibitions, the first titled Into the Wild, which highlights the artistic talent of key Tasmanian wilderness photographers and the impact that this type of photography has had on Tasmania. We had actually watched a short film in the museum about one particular photographer, Peter Dombrovskis, whose work had been used to highlight the beauty of the Franklin River and together with the political protests of Green’s ex-senator Bob Brown and his comrades, been instrumental in saving that river from being dammed. Here in the art gallery his work was again celebrated with many others, all whose work was so wonderful that one did not want to move on from one work to another; it was all so very beautiful. In all fairness however, the natural beauty of this State must be more than a little responsible for that overwhelming wonder.

And then if that was not enough, just through the door in the next room was another photographic exhibition titled the 2012 Wildlife Photographer of the Year which unlike the  ANZANG Nature Photography exhibition at the museum, is drawn from photographers from ninety eight countries all around the world. We could have spent an hour or so here, appreciating the work and the descriptions that accompanied each one, however there were a couple of dozen noisy children sharing the experience, which diminished our own.

Upstairs we gave cursory attention to a temporary exhibitions, The Nude in 20^th Century Australian Art, and the permanent exhibitions, A Portrait of Colonial Tasmania, Tasmania and Beyond 1870 – 1931 and collections of furniture and porcelain, cursory because the crowd of children and their minders had the same itinerary.

Grand Albert Hall

The afternoon was getting on and we still had not walked through the main street and Mall. We hurried on and found the centre of the city busy, vibrant and not showing any signs that any shops might have moved out to be relocated in some suburban shopping centre. We found the Information Centre and voiced our concerns about the roads north east of Launceston to the attendant. She was not at all sympathetic and had she been less polite, would have rolled her eyes, I am sure. And so we came away from there, confused yet again about our touring schedule immediately ahead. I think I will leave the decisions to the driver now; I do not wish to be held accountable, coward that I am.