Tag Archives: History

Launceston. Not the one in Cornwall.

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Thursday 12 September 2024 – Long post alert! Time to get a drink and settle down, I think.

Our task yesterday was quite simple – get ourselves from our Peppers hotel in Cradle Mountain to one in Launceston, some 150km away. With no excursions booked at the far end, we had the rare luxury of a relaxed schedule; Jane had found a couple of Things To Look At en route, one of which closed at 3pm, but we had plenty of time. Strolling over to breakfast took us past yet another pademelon

(which you can see was soaking wet from the ceaseless rain) but otherwise the morning was unremarkable.

Since kangaroos, wallaroos, wallabies, pademelons and quokkas are so similar in overall appearance, Jane did a bit of research to try to understand how to tell them apart. It turns out that the only obvious criterion is size. There is a bewildering variety of subspecies of each animal, but the only way to tell many of them apart is by examining their DNA, which is complex. So: size, it is, then. Consider the whole macropod phenomenon to be several varieties of quopadewallaroo.

As we set out, we passed through a landscape that could have come from the blasted heaths which make up the army-controlled areas near Aldershot.

Otherwise the landscape continued to be wet and marshy, and occasionally mountainous

as it had for what seemed like several days now. We stopped to admire the scenery caused by the Cethana hydro electric works

and also to look at a couple of murals plastered on the outside of a hydro-electric facility.

I’d have got better photos, but the layby was being actively used by some very large lorries which were attaching and/or detaching huge bits of plant machinery on trailers, so our freedom of movement was not what it might have been. But the point of the murals is important; they are part of an expanding project started in the nearest town, Sheffield.

During the 1980s, Sheffield was going through hard times. At a public meeting in 1985, the idea of painting murals around the town was proposed, with the hope of emulating a similar program’s success in the Canadian town of Chemainus. From this idea, a mural by John Lendis was commissioned, becoming the first of now several dozen murals in the town. There is even an annual Mural Fest, with a mural painting competition that gives nine new installations an airing.

Street art such as this is catnip to us on our travels, so we stopped there and went for a walk. Obviously. The town is a pleasant enough place anyway,

but it’s unique because everywhere you look, there are murals, and it makes for a splendid sight.

By the visitor centre is an area – Mural Park – with lots and lots all set up together.

I don’t want to bore you with all of the photos I took, but you’re welcome to overdose on them in my Flickr album if you’d like. But one of those in the Visitor Centre area display is worth pulling out.

It’s a picture of Greg Duncan in front of a section of The Wall, the astonishing installation he has created that I wrote about a couple of days ago. If you didn’t read about it then, shame on you – go and take a look. NOW!

By the time we’d reached Sheffield, the countryside had changed; we were driving through farmland. It hadn’t quite stopped raining, but the landscape was more open and bucolic and a lot less wild.

We had planned to stop at a steam engine museum in Westbury, but we had spent so much time in Sheffield that it had closed by the time we got there. However, seeing Sheffield was a delight and I’m glad we did spend time there.

Our destination, Launceston, was not much further on. We arrived at the Peppers Seaport Hotel in mid-afternoon and were awarded a splendid apartment, with kettle, mugs, Earl Grey, milk in the fridge and – praise be! – laundry facilities! “These things are important, you know”*.

The Seaport in the hotel’s name is a nicely gentrified area

which features many eateries, among them the rather oddly-named but very decent Rupert & Hound, where we availed ourselves of such local produce as Gummy Shark, which goes nicely as part of a fish’n’chip meal, and then retired for the night.

That was yesterday, Wednesday 11th. Today, we had a full day in Launceston with no activities or excursions formally booked. So when we woke up to find that

the sun was shining brightly, we sprang out of bed with a song on our collective lips and went for a walk. Obviously. In fact, we went for two walks, because Launceston (pronounced “lawn cess ton”, by the way, not like what they do in Cornwall) has a variety of attractive things for walkers to walk around.

To start with, we headed for Cataract Gorge, through which the River Esk flows. There are very well-organised and clearly marked trails along each side of the river, and we headed for the one that started on the far side of the Esk, the Cataract Gorge trail. To get there, we crossed King’s Bridge,

passing a sort of adventure centre with accommodation, created and run by Penny Royal.

There’s a water mill there

and various other entertainments

including a cliff walk which requires you to get a safety harness so you can navigate the cliff face. We didn’t do this. We just went for a walk beside the river,

which one can now do free of charge, but for which there used to be a toll, payable at the toll house.

It’s not called Cascade Gorge for nothing,

but the cascades are not the only attraction along the walk. The views are quite nice, as one might expect,

and after a kilometre or so, one reaches a suspension bridge which allows one to cross to the other side.

Careful examination of the photo above will reveal that there appears to be someone suspended in the middle of the bridge. This is an illusion caused by the presence of the slowest chairlift in the world, in which one can ride in a very leisurely fashion, from one bank to the other. To get to the lift station on our bank (in pleasant gardens, with a bandstand and a cafe, albeit not open today as this side of the river was suffering a power outage!), we passed a peacock and several wallabies

and gravely allowed the attendant to explain how to get on the lift for the ride without mentioning the several hundred chair lifts I have ridden during my skiing years. The chair may be slow, but it does have the distinction of having, at 308 metres, the largest single span of any chairlift in the world. The ride down gives a nice view of the suspension bridge and the park on the other bank.

The park features a café, which we stopped at for a coffee, before exploring the suspension bridge further,

Looks just like Bristol, don’t you think?

and then heading back towards Launceston along the Zig Zag Trail, which is clearly signposted as being “steep – hikers only”. And with good cause, too;

the trail climbs a good 80m before descending 100m to King’s Bridge. En route, we got a good look at a Tasmanian Nativehen (called a “turbochook” by the locals, apparently)

and a curious crystal formation on the rockface.

This is zeolite, a hydrated alumino-silicate mineral, rarely seen in such an accessible site, probably derived from molten magma associated with the cooling rock.

We also got a nice view over Launceston,

at around the same place as we passed a group of climbers who were, erm, climbing the rock.

As we headed back to the hotel, we noticed that the mural virus had spread to Launceston; the wall surrounding the King’s Park beside the hotel was decorated

on both sides,

although the picture above does seem to be of more informal decorative work.

By this stage we’d covered about five miles, but we still hadn’t explored the city of Launceston itself. So we went for another walk. Obviously.

Heading into the city, we passed the Custom House

and could see a huge brewery.

This is James Boag, which produces beer that’s very popular in Tasmania, although it’s not a major player in the overall Australian beer market. As we passed it, a chap sat on a bench recommended a visit, which seemed a good idea. But first we thought we’d explore the Tramway Museum (Launceston had a tram system between 1911 and 1952, apparently). We headed off to where Google told us it was and pretty much failed to find it. We eventually realised that we’d actually walked past it at about 3pm

but it was closed, despite a notice telling us it was open until 4pm. We did find an old tram station, though – Inveresk Launceston.

By this stage, the brewery seemed an attractive idea, so we walked past the vast array of buildings that it is comprised of and went into

The Brewery, where we were able to sample various of Boag’s beers,

and visit the Brewery Museum. This had pretty much normal brewery museum-type stuff

with a couple of exceptions. One was a photo of the vermin elimination machine

which was always called Oscar, whichever gender it happened to be, and whose vets bills were passed off in the books as repair costs for the machine. The other was a mystery object.

It’s called a Meteorphonium. It’s a musical instrument. No, really. Please spend a minute watching a very charming video about it. (Sorry, for technical reasons, I can’t embed it here. Grrrr.)

After this refreshing interlude, we walked around Launceston in order to take a look at the old buildings for which is well-known. We started by going past the Albert Hall

towards the City Park

(note how the brewery dominates the skyline). The park gave us an opportunity to get a closer look at Masked Lapwings

which have really spooky faces

but very cute chicks.

Then we walked along Cameron Street, where most of these old – and very attractive – buildings are.

The Post Office stands out particularly

and one can go in; but although they’ve kept a lot of the fabric of the original building, they’ve filled it with a modern post office in a box, which I think rather ruins its interior charm.

Of course, not all the buildings are old or attractive,

but we enjoyed looking around the parts of the city that we saw. And the beer was quite good, too.

We ended our walk with a meal back at Rupert & Hound, a choice of staggering unoriginality but one which gave some confidence of a decent meal.

And that has been it for our time in Launceston. It has been a delight to walk around in sunshine, after what seems like an age of cold and wet weather. The forecast for tomorrow seems to return to some degree of moistness, but we move on towards the north-east corner of the island, near a town called Scottsdale. Some wildlife adventures are promised there, as well as some impressive-sounding landscapes, but, to be frank, we’re not quite sure how things have been organised for us. So, please join us over the coming days as we find out.
* © Chris Walker

Diversion: The Henry Jones Art Hotel, Hobart

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Sunday 8 September 2024 – I promised earlier (and earlier) that I would write about the hotel we stayed at in Hobart, the Henry Jones Art Hotel, because it made such an impression on us as we arrived a couple of days ago. For a first impression, the only place to have exceeded it was the Singular Hotel in Patagonia, and for a similar reason – the elegant reuse of a historic space as a hotel. The Singular saw the transformation of an old lamb canning factory; the Henry Jones was a redevelopment of a waterfront warehouse that was once used in the whaling industry and then repurposed for making jam. Henry’s story is a remarkable one; he started in the jam factory, sticking labels on tins, rose through becoming foreman to buying a controlling interest in the business and reconstructing it in his own name, with the “IXL” (“I Excel”) brand name.

Like so many waterfront properties the jam factory fell into disrepair and was practically on the point of collapse when the current owners rescued it a quarter of a century ago and reimagined it as the hotel it is today. The construction of the hotel preserved as much of the surviving jam factory as possible, with only four beams being replaced for safety.  So the fabric of the building exudes the history of its links to its jam-making past.

And the connection with the art world? From the 1970s through to the 1990s, art students from the adjacent Tasmanian School of Creative Arts partied (and maybe lived) in the dilapidated building – and photos we saw of that time show that it looked more like a multi-storey carpark that had been destroyed by fire than anything else. The once-students were subsequently invited to walk through the new building and create art based on what they saw. This art became the first art displayed in the hallways upon opening. Ever since then, the hotel has been a living, breathing art gallery. So its charisma comes from the combination of its historic fabric and its unique art displays.

Its fabric: the corridors are redolent of its warehouse origins.

Its walls betray some of its origins: in the mortar, one can see traces of possum hair (compare the use of horsehair in old European buildings)

and fragments of shells, originally taken from an indigenous midden and ground up to use the calcium in the mortar.

There is a great open area, under a uniquely-designed roof, available for conventions and other gatherings

and the hotel’s other spaces have wonderful decor.

Some of the original equipment is used for decor touches

or just pictured

and some places betray its history, such as this leakage of ancient jam down a wall as it was released when the room was warmed up.

What adds to the impact of this fabric is the art on display. We went on an official Art Tour of the hotel (led, it has to be said, by a very irritating lady, but revealing some great stories). Everything in the hotel is available for sale, which means that the pieces around the place do change over time; and there are specific areas which are dedicated as galleries.

I’m not a great one for spending time wringing the meaning or significance out of artworks, but some were very impressive pieces of work.  This one, for example, a photo-realistic depiction of an indigenous woven basket

is not, as you might think, a photograph; it is done in, of all things, crayon on sheets of black paper.

This picture of woodland after a forest fire

was created from its actual ashes, individually selected, mixed and dropped in specific patterns – nine months’ work.

Many of the other pieces have political or historical significance; some are winners of the John Glover Art Prize, a competition sponsored by the hotel.

As well as all that intellectual and historical stuff, it does other good hotel things. There is a good bar

where chief cocktail wrangler Jenn will give some good cocktail theatre;

and, in the room, some good attention to detail in little extras provided: a trawl through the historical records to see if there were family connections to the convicts who were transported here; and I draw your attention to the bottom left of this drawer, which was next to the thoughtfully-provided kettle and fridge.

We enjoyed our time in Hobart immensely, and the unique nature of the Henry Jones Art Hotel added unique memories for our time in the city.

OK, then.

Back to the mainstream of our Australian travels in the next post, as we travel across Tasmania to the west coast. Do come back and read about that, won’t you?

Escape from Melbourne, and Day 1 on Tasmania

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Friday 6 September 2024 – Our entry to Melbourne was not entirely straightforward. Neither was our exit, which laid bare the sheer opacity of the airline ticketing process. We had been booked on a Virgin Australia flight yesterday morning from Melbourne to Hobart, a relatively short flight of an hour and a quarter or so. When we came to check in online, we found we were not allowed to do so; seats had not been allocated, there were no free seats except extra cost options (extra legroom seats, basically), and when I tried to pay the extra, all my various credit or debit cards were declined on the incomprehensible basis that I was trying to pay in a currency different from that of the original booking. I think it was something to do with it having been a travel agent booking, a suspicion which was reinforced later.

Some moments after failing to check in online, we received an e-mail from VA apologising for changing our flights. Instead of a direct flight at 10.40am, we were now on a 3.30pm flight. Closer examination of the e-mail revealed that the flight was to Sydney, and would be followed by a 5.50pm flight from Sydney to Hobart. None of the options we could explore online revealed that there were any direct flights available from Melbourne to Hobart. So we checked in for our multi-stage flight thinking that VA must have cancelled the original one.

We took a small amount of comfort from the later departure time, were able to have a relaxed morning exiting our apartment, and got ourselves to the airport for about 2pm. At this point, Jane’s caution about the whole thing paid off, as she was concerned about whether our bags would be checked through all the way to Hobart. So we looked around for an operative to help us and, as luck would have it, he, Irwan, was brilliant. He took us to a manned bag drop and started chatting with the lady there; between them, they figured out that there was a 1720 direct flight from Melbourne to Hobart. Irwan then spent quite a lot of screen time basically, we think, getting around all the objections that the system was throwing up against us being allowed on this flight. Again, the fact that this was a travel agent booking was mentioned as a complication. To cut what is already a long story short, he managed to cudgel his computer into allocating us extra legroom seats on this direct flight for no extra charge, proving that he was a Good Man. We had some time to kill before our flight, but would still arrive earlier than VA’s rather eccentric re-routing.

My suspicion is that VA had overbooked all the Hobart flights that day which is why it was rerouting us via Sydney; and further that we were lucky to find in Irwan someone who could get round the technological barriers put in place to make our lives more miserable.

So, we had three hours to kill before our flight. This could mean only one thing.

As it happens, our departure was delayed a further 30 minutes by the late arrival of air crew, but we still got to Hobart

earlier than we would have done had we gone via Sydney.

Awaiting us to transfer us to our hotel was a young Taiwanese chap called Stephen who was very proactive in helping us with bags and so forth, and so we were soon enough at the frankly quite amazing Henry Jones Art Hotel on Hobart waterfront. Only once before had we walked into a hotel which made such a striking impression – the Singular Hotel in Patagonia. The Henry Jones has a unique vibe and quite a history to it and I shall write about it in more detail in due course. For now, suffice it to say that we have a very large and very comfortable room and the lady who runs the bar knows her cocktails.

All that was yesterday. Today, we were booked to go on an excursion to Bruny Island, a very oddly-shaped island south of Hobart.

(By the way, the empty bit shown on the left of the map really does look like that on Google. That’s because it seems to be empty – it’s the Southwest National Park and appears to be devoid of anything which looks like civilisation.)

Our tour was billed as offering “spectacular landscapes and tastings of gourmet local products”, so I thought we were in for a day of mainly majestic scenery. Since it was raining when we were picked up, I also hoped that we would simply be ferried about to gawp at (and, of course, photograph) the views without getting too soused. The day didn’t turn out like that, actually.

Our guide for the day was Alan

who was wrangling a coach and 24 guests. We had a drive to the ferry terminal,

where there was also a marina.

As we crossed the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and looked back, it was clear that the Tasmanian scenery was going to be quite different from almost any we’d so far encountered.

Having expected majestic landscapes on our arrival, I was a bit surprised that the first thing that Alan was talking about was a cheese stop. As we headed there, Alan gave us a few facts about Bruny Island, and it was clear that it was reasonably close in spirit to French Island, where we’d been just a couple of days before. Larger than French Island, its population is just 600. It’s not so off-grid – there’s electricity, for example, and a greater range of retail options than just the one general store – but it’s still mainly national park, state forest and some grazing areas, popular as a holiday location with some surfing beaches.

And so this was our first destination on the tour:

the Bruny Island Cheese Company. It is the first time in my life that I have had a tutored cheese tasting.

The tasting was led by Paola

who did a great job of explaining about the company, its products and its ethos, all of which are rather impressive. The cheese business has been going since 2003, after its founder, Nick Haddow, spent 10 years working with specialist cheese makers in many different countries around the world. The milk used is from their own farm, Glen Huon, which is actually on the mainland and which raises three rare breeds. Unusually, it allows the calves to stay with their mothers and drink their milk for several months, which lowers the stress levels for the cows, thus improving the quality of the milk yield. The focus on solely Tasmanian produce shapes the way they make their cheese and what ingredients are used in its production. We sampled four cheeses.

(Apologies for the photo of food, which is normally against my principles, but it is rather the story, here.)

You’ll notice a glass of beer in the photo. That’s there because in 2016 the company also started brewing its own beer, again using only Tasmanian-grown ingredients.

It was clear that there was a lot of passion, dedication and expertise at work. As a result, the cheeses are award-winning.

As we trooped back on to the bus and moved on, Alan mentioned the other tastings we would be doing during the tour – chocolate and honey. So it became clear that this was to be a major component of the day.

Our next stop, though, was a scenery stop, with a historical twist. From the map above, you can see that the two major lumps of the island are joined by a narrow stretch of land, which is about 70m wide at its narrowest. We could take the opportunity for a good view over it, provided we were prepared to walk up

some 240 steps. I did this, and the view was, indeed, worth the climb. You can clearly see The Neck, the strip of land that connects North and South Bruny.

The historical angle could be found at the top;

a monument to Truganini, a powerful aboriginal woman who fought for the rights of the indigenous people against the early colonists. She witnessed the murder of her mother by sailors and the kidnap of her sisters by sealers. She formed an association with a lay preacher, George Augustus Robinson, who hatched various plans to relocate those aboriginals who had not been killed of by colonists and their diseases, and enlisted Truganini’s help in executing those plans. The various plans and promises came to naught – it is a depressing story to read, and her treatment after her death reflects even more badly on the colonists. Her life has become representative of both the dispossession and destruction that was exacted upon Indigenous Australians and also their determination to survive the colonial genocidal policies that were enforced against them.

The area around the lookout is also home to Little Penguins and Mutton Birds (Shearwaters), and their burrows can be seen in places, and beside a lower boardwalk in the same location.

The bitumen of the road running along The Neck was changed from black to white

in order that the penguins could better be seen by motorists. We saw no penguins – it’s the wrong time of year for that here – but I did spot a blue wren.

We moved on past the pleasant scenery of the island’s settled areas,

and stopped for a short walk in the Mavista area, where there’s a walking track through rainforest.

It has a very prehistoric feel to it, due to the ferns and moss that dominate the environment.

Our next stop was to be lunch, in an area called Adventure Bay. En route, though, Alan spotted something quite unexpected – a white wallaby.

It was actually nearby another, conventionally grey, wallaby,

and the two of them seemed quite unconcerned by a coachload of people taking their photos; Alan said they actually relished the attention.

The lack of predators, the indulgence of the local people towards their cuteness, and the lack of colour prejudice amongst the animals themselves means that the white wallabies prosper on Bruny. (The jury seems to be out when it comes to deciding whether their colouring is leucistic or albino; whatever, it’s quite striking). It is also the name of a gin which is used as the basis for a local spritzer-type drink

which we drank to accompany our fish-and-chips lunch.

In the same area is the Bligh Museum of Pacific Exploration,

established in 1954 to display historic maps, paintings and other artifacts relating to the landings at Adventure Bay by various famous explorers, such as Tasman himself, James Cook and William Bligh. It’s quite small, but has masses of content

including the very tree stump to which Captain Cook moored his ship, the Resolution, in 1777.

The stump had been left in its original location, with a plaque attached describing its significance, until some utter wanker removed the plaque, leaving the V-shaped gash you can see. At that point, it was moved to the museum for its own protection.

Further up the road is Two Tree point (I’m still trying to work out a gag around one Two Tree, but have so far failed). This is thought to be where Cook’s artist painted a picture, of which a reproduction is on display.

This is my version of it.

You can see a beach there, but the recent violent weather which marooned us on Kangaroo Island and which has made south Australian lives a misery over the last week actually caused much of the sand to be washed away.

All those rocks used to be covered in sand.

Enough of this history; it was time for some more artisanal experience – the Bruny Island Chocolate Company. Actually, we didn’t get sucked into the vortex of possible chocolate purchases, but instead joined Alan and a group of others in exploring the neighbouring gardens of the chaps who have created and run the chocolate company. One of them got his love of chocolate from years of work as a chef; the other is a dentist, which seems rather a neat partnership for demand generation.

The gardens – normally private, but open for our group to visit – are rather lovely.

You’ll notice, in the final picture above, that the cock appears to have, well, a cock. It doesn’t; it’s actually its foot you can see (the one on the right, below).

There’s a lovely globe, made out of bits of scrap from the garage of one of their fathers

and various other nice exhibits.

After this, it was time for our final artisanal experience of the day – the Honey Pot.

The honey made here comes from bees which are moved around the island, following the nectar flows so that they can create their honeys from a variety of flowers. One can taste them, so when a coachload of people turns up, there’s a bit of a feeding frenzy.

We were given some honey ice cream and a taster pot of our choice to take away with us.

That was it for the tour – we headed back to the ferry

and thence to our hotel, after a day which was very enjoyable but nothing like what I had expected. We have no formal programme for tomorrow, bar a tour of the Henry Jones Hotel, but I expect that the obvious thing for us to do will be to go for a walk. Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to report about it here, so do please keep in touch to find out how the day unfolded.