Official Photos of King Island - 1950 style

The archaeological dig in my parents' house continues, and more forgotten souvenirs are coming to light.

In 1950 the family left King Island and went to England, where my father worked for two years before bringing us all back to Hobart to live. It was easy to see why they had kept this particular copy of this particular magazine. No better way to introduce it, than by quoting the first paragraph on the first page:

This is the second issue of Volume VII of AUSTRALIA – a monthly review published by the Australian News and Information Bureau, Australia House, Strand, London, W.C.2. Its aim is to present factual accounts of life and affairs in Australia. Any of the material in the Review may be used with or without acknowledgement.

Wonderful – I don't even have to worry about copyright! This issue is dated May-June 1951 and here is the centre spread:

King Island (1,800 people; 272,000 acres) in Bass Strait, between the Australian mainland and Tasmania, is a busy and beautiful place.

And here is a closer look at the images, with the original captions:

Currie Harbour, the island's port

Currie, the sleepy capital

(sorry about the Great Staple in the Sky, but it IS a centrefold, after all)

On the south-east shore is Grassy, built for the workers in the scheelite mines

Hospitality is a big part of island life

As everywhere, the local bar is a meeting place

Breaking new land for soldier settlement

Pre-fab house parts arrive

Shipwrecks were once common. This stone commemorates a tragedy of 1874

The "King Island News," hand-set and printed, has appeared weekly since 1910

A recent visitor to England tells me Australia House is not nearly so friendly and inviting these days; in the 1950s it was quite different as our government applied itself to encouraging Englishmen to emigrate to the colonies.

Queenstown and Lake Margaret

The Towns in the Valley

Tasmania's West Coast used to be a very busy place. Zeehan, in its heyday, was the third largest town in Tasmania, and at the turn of the 19th century Queenstown had a population of about 5,000. Over the hill in the Linda Valley Linda, Gormanston and Mt Lyell together had a population of over 2,000. 

This is a view of the Linda Valley today, with Gormanston (centre) at the foot of Mt Owen. Linda consists of three or four houses and the ruins of the old Royal Hotel on the corner of the road in the left corner of the photograph.

The rock face in the foreground is one wall of the old Iron Blow open cut mine.

down the other side of the hill - approaching Queenstown.
It isn't quite raining.

Queenstown - dominated by the landscape

Queenstown

This is what Queenstown looked like late in the nineteenth century.

And here are some photographs of what it looks like today.

view from my window. It's raining

The West Coast of Tasmania is one of the wettest places in Australia. There is an urban myth that once it didn't rain in Queenstown for ten days. Nobody knows when that was, but it must have been a terrible drought.

There is plenty to look at in Queenstown – the Galley Museum (in the background of this photo) has a splendid collection of – well – everything.

Miner's Siding monument

what it's all about - copper

There are mine tours and monuments and, of course, the resurrected Wilderness Railway.

An unexpected find is the nicely restored Paragon Theatre. Its new owners Francisco and Fabiola Navidad intend screening films regularly again. You can get a nice cup of coffee and home-made cake in the cafe while you wait.

Art deco elegance, and gorgeously comfortable  leather lounges

movie-going in real style!

Late afternoon on Hunter Street – and the sun is shining!
Mt Owen is still hidden by clouds, however.

Once Queenstown was infamous for its barren hills and lack of vegetation, but today everything is growing back. And it is encroaching on the town itself.

You mustn't think Queenstown is all run-down and overgrown, however. I just like that sort of photograph.
Here's the post office and store in Orr Street, all nicely spic and span.

Lake Margaret

If you head about ten km north from Queenstown you pass the turnoff to the Lake Margaret power station. And yes, I am going to show you some more photographs of penstocks and turbines. Lake Margaret gets the highest rainfall in Australia after Tully in Queensland. It is a glacial lake and the source of the Yolande River. In 1914 a concrete dam raised the water level, and a 2.2 km long wooden penstock delivered water to the power station below. Originally of Oregon, it was replaced in 1938 using King Billy Pine and again in 2009 with Alaskan yellow cedar.

The power station, constructed in 1914, is the oldest working hydroelectric power station in Australia, and is on the Tasmanian Heritage Register. The seven original turbines are still there, still working. Four were installed in 1914, and the last one in 1929.

Nobody lives in the village at Lake Margaret today, but there are plans to develop it for tourism.

Corrugated iron was used for much building construction; it is durable, easy to transport and quick to put up.

You can see more photographs of Queenstown and Lake Margaret on my Facebook page - Tasmanian Gothic

THE WILD WEST - Queenstown Heritage and Arts Festival 2012

Last weekend I went to Queenstown for the 2012 Heritage and Arts Festival. 

This year is the centenary of Tasmania's worst mine disaster. Forty two miners lost their lives when a pump house fire in the North Lyell copper mine filled the shafts with toxic carbon monoxide. More than fifty men were trapped a thousand feet underground for more than a hundred days before they could be rescued, and there are many tales of tragedy and heroism to be commemorated.

The first event I attended was the unveiling of a memorial plaque to Albert Gadd. He was one of the lucky ones able to get to the surface when the mine filled with toxic fumes. Then he turned round again and went back down in vain attempts to rescue his workmates.

Crowd at the unveiling; a typical Queenstown day. Why did I leave my umbrella at home?

Tim interviews members of the Gadd family for the ABC

The only transport to and from Queenstown in 1912 was by rail. Experts and rescue equipment, including emergency breathing apparatus, were rushed from Strahan and Burnie by train, some having first to come by steamship from Melbourne. This weekend the West Coast Wilderness Railway was busy re-enacting events and taking visitors to Rinadeena for Devonshire Tea.  

On Friday morning the train took a specially reconstructed funeral car to the cemetery for a memorial service. This stone marks the mass grave of the forty two miners who died.

On Friday evening stallholders set up bain-maries under the wide verandahs in Orr St and the huge marquee covering the street was packed with happy diners. Later, after a very moving lantern parade down Orr St to the station, bands performed.

The Hobart-based Grass Roots Trade Union Choir cheered everyone up with an enthusiastic performance accompanied as required by piano accordion, harmonica and guitar played by choir members and ending with a good, rousing version of Solidarity – The Union Makes Us Strong, with the audience joining in the chorus.

There really wasn't enough light to photograph the
Grass Roots Trade Union Choir, but I tried anyway.

They were followed by Alma de Vida, a Flamenco/jazz group, and I have been told a very prominent politician was seen dancing with some of the artists exhibiting in the festival. Of course, this is only hearsay and should not under any circumstances be repeated.

Saturday evening was far more refined, with everyone getting all tarted up in their formal attire for the Festival Gala Evening at the Queenstown Memorial Hall. As an impoverished artist, I do not own formal attire and baulked at the ticket price so have to rely on the word of somebody who did attend and said it was great fun. There was an art auction, and one or two people sobered up next morning to find themselves owning a fine painting they hadn't intended buying. Not that I mind, one hastened to assure me – it's lovely. Just didn't mean to . . .

Mt Lyell Heritage Centre

You'd have to try very, very hard not to find something to do, see or hear over the weekend.

There were extensive exhibitions of historic photographs, at the local library – sorry, Community Hub – more photographs, artefacts and movie footage at the railway station, and art installations among the desks and mining memorabilia at the Mt Lyell Heritage Centre and in the old West Coast District Hospital.

 Helicopter rides, underground mine tours and visits to historic sites were on offer. Children of all ages enjoyed free movies in the marvelous art deco Paragon Theatre and a student circus while art-lovers crammed exhibition openings at LARQ (Landscape Art Research Queenstown) and Art Frontier galleries. IHOS opera performed in an old transport warehouse; folk singers performed at a sawmill, books and a new Memorial Park project were launched, and so it went on.

Things were beginning to wind down by Sunday, but the street market still drew a crowd.

On Monday morning it was all over. Queenstown reverted overnight to a sleepy, shabby, damp mining town as the last of the artists, performers and visitors packed up and went home. But, by golly, the little community put on a damned good show! I'll be back.

You can find out about some of the art I saw here: http://www.writeresponse.blogspot.com.au/2012_10_14_archive.html.