MOT Tour Day 22 - Launceston

Crossing Cataract Gorge
on the suspension bridge

A day which started with ums and ahs and never really got any better.

Before the tour, one of the highlights for me was to be the drive up Ben Lomond and the infamous section of six hair pin bends and extreme slope called Jacob’s ladder. It looked like something serious for the Forester to do, especially descending under its specifically designed drive train and breaking system. Unfortunately, Sue had grave reservations (and nightmares) about the drive and in the end, that was enough for me. Satisfying my desires at the cost of causing her fear wouldn’t ever be part of the equation these days. It would be reckless and I no longer do reckless.

Instead, we drove into the city and parked on the other side of the North Esk River, by the University of Tasmania (UTAS) and then walked back across the river and along Tamar St. The first corner we came to, clearly an old pub, hosted a gentleman’s club, although no gentlemen I know boast of their enjoyment of “personal lap dancers”. Maybe that’s because their service is “discrete", despite being advertised on the windows outside.

Yet a block up, we found the prestigious Albert Hall, once the focal point of cultural and social activity in Launceston. Melba sang here in 1909. A further block and we were walking in City Park. It occupies a full block. In the first corner we arrived at a permanent enclosure of Japanese Macaque monkeys! A full range of family relationships, all seemingly quite happy. I did find it a tad bizarre.

Chairs by design

We walked down to have a brief look in a rather large conservatory at the centre of the park - yawn - and then up to the south corner and Design Tasmania. It’s a place where design is king and practicality is whimsy. Sue loved it. Peter, not so much. It was like looking at scenes from hip movies of the mid to late 1960’s. All that was missing was David Hemmings. There was some pretty cool pottery and one or two tables that caught my eye but in the main I was left wondering why art doesn’t stay on the wall rather than tempt me to sit on it. Every chair in the place had no entry signs on them.

We walked up Brisbane St for a bit, in search of a cafe, eventually finding one in an alley, where we sat to one side while people brushed past. Around the corner, a more conventional establishment allowed people to spread out and sold cakes I could eat. In leaving, we stumbled through back alleys and eventually out onto St John’s St, near St Andrew’s Church and from there onto Cameron St and the Civic Square.

Civic Square

What a lovely space they have created in what must be the centre of Launceston. Cameron St seems to have been the commercial street of city, running from Royal Park and the junction point of the Tamar River and the two Esks in the south west, up to City Park and the Albert Hall in the north east. City Square sits in the middle, with the Post Office and it’s imposing circular tower on one corner, the Town Hall on another and big public building we could not name the third.

Back through the square - which isn’t really a square - you’ll find Macquarie House, originally built in 1830 as a warehouse for wines but then the barracks of the Red Coats from the 1840’s for many years. It’s built of convict bricks and sandstone lintels.

A wonderfully appointed public library is prominent on the square. It has its own cafe! In the middle of the square is a wet area for kiddies to play in small jets of water.

Walking north east along Cameron St, near the City Park, we found the impressive Hotel Grand Chancellor, completed in 1989 and designed so it would fit in with the older buildings of the precinct. It cost $44 million.

Back to the UTAS car park, lunch and then some shopping requirements met at Bunnings but not at other nearby shops.

We went back to Cataract Gorge, as promised, walking the track which passes over the suspension bridge first opened in 1903 but destroyed and rebuilt since. It has a distinct wobble just passing over it but offers unparalleled views of the area. We stopped for afternoon tea at the cafe high above First Basin and the South Esk River. It reminded us both of Katoomba, with its gardens and trees established more than a hundred years ago.

Crossing Cataract Gorge
on the chairlift

The final fun activity for the day was the chairlift ride which spans the downstream side of First Basin and large areas of bush. It’s a deliberately slow progressing ride, which allows plenty of time to take it all in. My primary concern was to not drop phones, cameras, backpacks, hats … born out as we approached the climax of the ride by the numbers of items strewn on the roof of the cafe on the car park side as we approached our dismount.

The remaining hour was a frustrating succession of housekeeping duties made far more difficult by missing turns, being in the wrong lanes and programming the GPS incorrectly so that we returned to Cataract Gorge instead of going to Woolworths. The wrong lane cost us 25 minutes as we had to leave town on the highway and wait until we could get off and return.

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In the last gasp, Sue saved the day, spotting a Green Parrot, a bird only found in Tasmania. Not surprisingly, it not really that green. Slightly bigger than an Eastern Rosella with the colours rearranged.

Our last day in Launceston. It’s been enjoyable but neither of us like cities much. The weekend beckons and friends of our longest acquaintance. Looking forward to the weekend.

MOT Tour Day 21 - Entally House & Tamar River Cruise

On the Tamar River

So many things to do, including trying to catch up with a former Tamworthian, so we spent the day juggling around the one commitment we had for the day, a cruise down the Tambar River.

A large part of the morning was spent at Entally House, one of those old, early white overlords houses that are dotted about the place. This one is just a few kilometres away from us and we arrived there not long after it opened for the day.

Built in 1818 - yes, that’s 200 plus years ago - that places it’s construction during the time Lachlan Macquarie was doing things in Port Jackson that would lend his name to streets, bays, public toilets and mountain pass all over Australia. The original owner was Thomas Reiby, son of renowned early Sydney businesswoman and ex convict Mary Reiby and the first Thomas Reiby. Young Thomas came to Tasmania with his wife Richarda, the daughter of King George IV’s physician and the great grandmother x3 of lady who gave us our talk this morning. Thomas II received a land grant at Hadspen and called it Entally after the town his father where his father had served in India.

Entally House

A special wing was added to the house called the Governor’s wing, so that powerful political visitors would have their privacy. That was the circles they mixed in. Thomas III was born in 1821, one of three. He and his brother were sent to England for an education, which culminated in Trinity College, Oxford but they both returned to Australia before finishing they theological training, when Thomas II died.

Thomas III married Catherine McDonald Kyle in Plymouth on his way back to Australia. Soon after arriving, he was ordained and began his ministry locally, using his own money to begin the building of a dolerite, blue-stone church in nearby Hadspen. However controversy descended on him, when he was accused of trying to seduce the wife of a member of the local aristocracy. He withdrew from society, taking his money out of the many local organisations which relied on him, including the church in Hadspen which had to stop the building.

When he eventually resurfaced, it was to accept the nomination to stand for the state electorate, winning the election handsomely and every election that followed, over the next 29 years. Early in his political career he became Premier and finished as speaker of the House.

The Good Shepherd Church at Hadspen

He restarted the building of the Church of the Good Shepherd when elected and both he and his wife are buried behind it. A visit to the church, which was sold by the church to pay for reparations for victims of child sexual assault, reveals a clear line of demarcation between the first part of the build and the second.

We had a morning tea of scones and jam and I stupidly and temporarily forgot I was allergic to gluten. I don’t know why.

Not returning to the van, we did a few chores and then headed to Home Point and our afternoon cruise with Tamar River Cruises.

It was a fine afternoon and the commentary was informative and occasionally funny on the way down the river. The Tamar is actually an estuary - a very long one - which is fed by the south and North Esk Rivers at their junction very near to where the cruise commences.

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We covered 40km down and back and finished with a short detour up the Cataract Gorge on the North Esk. A spectacular cleft, it has a walking track, mainly tacked onto the wall. There used to be an aqueduct running along the opposite wall, high above the waterline and held there by iron posts driven into the hard volcanic rock by convicts suspended in wicker baskets. It could take up to a week to drill and drive a post into the rock.

After the cruise, we picked up our click and collect from Woolies and headed home.

A full day.

MOT Tour Day 20 - Launceston

Museum day today.

The drive into the city was a bit hectic. Actually, it was the bit in the city that was difficult. Not knowing that the centre of the city is a grid of one way streets didn’t help. In the end, we turned into the Woolworths undercover car park and bought ourselves two hours.

We walked the few blocks to the Queen Victoria Art Gallery on Wellington St. The building originally housed the QV Museum as well but it has since moved across the Tamar to Inveresk.

Maybe it’s because of the museum roots of the building but a lot of the exhibitions weren’t art. They were really good but, they weren’t art.

Just as we were pondering that, an alarm started up and increased in intensity and in the seriousness of the warnings being spoken. By the time we got to the main door, it was obvious it was a drill. The smiling firemen gave it away.

The exhibition of aboriginal life from the early days of the area was excellent. Lots of interesting detail which I didn’t know. For instance, did you know that it was aboriginal women, in the main, who did the diving to hunt sea creatures?

In another room, the making of chairs as household furniture - called Jimmy Possum chairs - was fascinating. The origin of these homemade chairs is unknown, although much is guessed at. If Jimmy Possum actually existed, he’s a shadowy figure at best.

We returned to the car and drove across to the Queen Victoria Museum. This was a brilliant experience. So well curated. So much information. Such brilliant exhibits.

The natural history section was fabulous, although you do realise all those fabulous exhibits were once alive. The display of the Tasmanian Tiger included video footage of thylacines in captivity and the news that many were given away to foreign zoos before the danger of extinction was fully realised.

One of King's motor bikes

The shipwreck of the Sydney Cove had oodles of items salvaged from the wreck and information about how they went about it. In 1797, she sailed from India bound for Sydney and off the Tasmanian east coast, started taking on water. Her captain decided to ground her on Preservation Island. In order to be rescued, 17 set out for Port Jackson in a long boat, only to shipwreck themselves off Ninety Mile Beach. They then set out to walk the 900kms to Sydney. Only three made it. Two boats - the Eliza and the Francis - were despatched to Tasmania and picked up crew and much of the cargo. Would you believe the Eliza sunk on the return journey.

There were displays of trains: only fair since the site had been a railway switching yard. The Planetarium was shut for maintenance but the technical equipment on display and the story of Apollo was well told.

Our favourite exhibition was of the life of Herbert John King. Fabulous photographer who was so far ahead of his time. He was an adventurer, made and sold his own motorbikes and was one of the first to record Tasmania’s wilderness. He married Lucy when she was just 18 and they were a good match. King was a Christadelphian, not believing in war or hurting others and that’s how he loved his life. It amazes me that we have revered Damien Parer and idolised the work of Max Dupain but we have never heard of King.

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Somewhere in there, we grabbed a coffee and visited the Tramway Museum.

On a whim, we detoured on the way back to our digs and visited the Cataract, a gorge the Tamar comes
through right on the edge of Launceston. We’ll return here on Thursday for some walking and a ride on the chair lift. Beautiful place. More later.