12 minute read

Queen of the west

QUEEN

OF THE

Lyell Hwy

The Paragon Theatre Soggy Brolly

QUEENSTOWN

Press West Photos: Name Here

WITH A MOUNTAIN BIKE network poised to transform the western town of Queenstown once again, Elspeth Callender meets a creative and tight-knit community used to weathering changes.

Photos Oscar Sloane

WEST

Horsetail Falls Royal Hotel

LINDA QUEENSTOWN IS NO STRANGER TO CHANGE.

Born of a boom-and-bust industry, disaster and sudden loss have repeatedly rocked Tasmania’s largest west coast town. The population has exploded and drained. Before the Mount Lyell mine closed in 2014, Queenstown was already adapting to the inevitable through art, festivals, building revival, eco-tours and outdoor adventure. Yet as mountain biking takes off, or takes over, ‘Queenie’ will work to maintain its identity.

Hobart to Queenstown via the Lyell Highway is a 260-kilometre road trip that I relish. By Lake Burbury I’ve seen frosty button-grass plains, dense cool temperate rainforest and am now travelling beneath pink-tinged conglomerate peaks of the West Coast Range.

Sun drenches everything. I pay my respects to the Lowreenne and Mimegin who sustained the health and wellbeing of their traditional lands and each other, here in south-west lutruwita (Tasmania), for thousands of generations. That was before clear-felling, pyritic smelting and sulfurous rain.

On a sweeping bend near Gormanston looms the former Royal Hotel at Linda. This off-form concrete establishment opened in 1911 and last drinks were poured in 1952. It has since been stripped of everything but its potential. “All this for less than a car park in Sydney…” was what caught chef Zara Trihey’s eye.

Mount Owen

The adjacent former Hydro building is now Linda Cafe. Zara, along with business partner Noona Auderset, poached chef Cassundra Hope from Byron Bay. Inside, where the decor is vintage and the wood fire is crackling, a cheery Gormanston resident brunches in overalls.

I order coffee and fish stew from a chalkboard menu listing favoured ethical Tassie producers. They have loose-leaf tea, milkshakes, outdoor couches and a water bowl for visiting dogs. “We just want to create something we’d want to come to,” says Zara. Closed for winter, the cafe reopens permanently in mid-September. Plans are also underway for the heritage-listed ruin.

Hi-vis vested Aaron Stewart collects me from Linda Cafe in his West Coast Council vehicle and, minutes later, we’re hiking a future black diamond trail that winds around a ravaged hillside of reed grass and snowberries.

THIS PAGE (Clockwise from above) The Paragon with its saviours Anthony Coulson and Joy Chappell, Iron Blow Lookout, the atmospheric Royal Hotel.

Aaron is project coordinator for Queenstown’s free-to-use mountain biking trail network, which will open in stages later this year.

Trail development company Dirt Art is sculpting but not overly compacting the gravelly surfaces. “That’s going to be a bit of a surprise to some people,” says Aaron. “We’re not hiding the fact they’re all pretty gnarly.” There’s nothing else remotely like this in Tasmania; aesthetically, I’m reminded of the North American high desert.

Despite being an experienced rider, Aaron admits he’s still learning to gauge speed and even avoid near-vertigo when negotiating the more elevated trails through treeless landscapes.

Eleven beginner to double black diamond trails will make up four routes. Shuttles will transport riders to mountain tops with views to Frenchmans Cap. Below Horsetail Falls and on the slopes of Little Owen are rare undercanopy riding opportunities through remnant rainforest. Mount Owen will be ever-present. “A lot of the trails are a real journey,” says Aaron.

From Gormanston it’s a short, yet epic, drive to the Gold Rush Inn, where I’m staying. After Conglomerate Creek and Queenstown’s famed gravel oval, it’s a sharp left at the original Evans store. At Orr Street, where the 120-year-old Empire Hotel stands across the road from the 125-year-old West Coast Wilderness Railway, I dogleg to the Paragon Theatre.

“We bought it to preserve it and bring it back to life again,” says Anthony Coulson in the dreamy interior of this restored 1930s former grand talkie theatre. I’ve been here before for films, live music, Friday evening drinks in summer, and joyful festival after-parties.

“I’m always interested in people making connections on the west coast and finding the positives in it.”

Anthony and partner Joy Chappell fully support mountain biking but are increasingly horrified by proposed tourism developments encroaching on the nearby Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. They suggest all Queenstown visitors engage, in some way, with conservation-focused companies such as King River Rafting, any of the Franklin River operators, and their own RoamWild.

“We’re hoping what we do can become the mechanism for conservation,” says Anthony, a former miner. “Come and help us help the cause.”

I pass many murals walking to the nearby home-based studio and gallery of artists Helena Demczuk and Raymond Arnold. They have recently formed a collective, along with other

THIS PAGE (Clockwise from above) Art colours the streets of Queenstown, Lea Walpole, Soggy Brolly gallery, Raymond Arnold at work. artists including Shane Miller, to create Press West. The disused Queenstown Central Primary School will soon be a printmaking space, kitted out with new and antique presses for various techniques.

“That equipment draws people in, to work together,” says Raymond. He speaks of visual literacy, community spirit and a medium for activism. Press West aims to attract Tasmanian printmakers, as well as newcomers, and will hold workshops. “I’m always interested in people making connections on the west coast and finding the positives in it.”

Press West will launch in mid-October during the Unconformity, a visual and performing arts festival. The festival invites artists to interrogate Queenstown’s past through site-specific works and, this year, offers two residencies for lutruwita-based First Nations artists.

Graphic designer Lea Walpole is in her Orr Street studio and gallery Soggy Brolly, which features the work of local artists, such as David Fitzpatrick’s industrial material sculptures. Lea says she’s ordered an electric mountain bike but is conscious of the social impacts this next exciting chapter could have on her home town. “I don’t want us to get lost. I don’t want the authenticity of us to be erased.”

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Western Escape on a Wilds

road trip

In Tasmania it holds true – it really is wild out west. The townships along a Western Wilds road trip combine heritage with grit, surrounded as they are by one of the world’s last great wildernesses. Discover historic mining settlements, grand lodges and quirky towns. Beyond town limits, there’s iconic mountainscapes, pristine waterways, verdant rainforests and myths and mysteries waiting around every bend in the road.

Throw yourself in

Western Tasmania’s rugged environs inspire adventure. Saddle up to hit Maydena Bike Park or the remote West Coast mountain bike trails (and plan your return for when Mount Owen’s trails are complete). Join King River Rafting for a whitewater ride on King River or drift on King River Gorge. Or forge amberhued Lake Pedder and the majestic River Derwent with Tassie Bound Adventure Tours. Don hiking boots at Lake St Clair or Mount Field. And brace yourself for Aardvark Adventures’ 140-metre Gordon Dam abseil, the highest of its kind.

Go with the flow

Water sustains and shapes the landscapes found on a Western Wilds road trip. Step aboard with Gordon River Cruises or World Heritage Cruises to follow the glassy Gordon into the wilds; ride the world’s only Huon Pine river cruiser with Corinna Wilderness Experience or float into the Tarkine with Arthur River Cruises from September. On dry land there’s endless waterfalls to chase beyond Mount Field’s iconic Russell Falls, from Waratah Falls (which plummets off a cliff at the heart of its namesake town) to Montezuma, Nelson, Philosopher Falls and seasonal Horsetail Falls.

Venture left of field

In the sparsely populated west, creativity has room to flourish. Hear the salty tale of The Frederick and its convict crew with Strahan’s theatrical production The Ship that Never Was. Discover open-air artworks commissioned to share the story of the land and its people with travellers exploring The Sentinels and Franklin River. For souvenirs, browse antiques and fine crafts at New Norfolk boutiques such as Flywheel or secure a piece of handcrafted Huon Pine at Wilderness Woodworks Strahan.

Stay a while

As befitting a Western Wilds road trip, accommodation is anything but predictable. Stay frontier-style in quaint cottages on the Tarkine’s fringes at Corinna Wilderness Experience. Don your flannies for a farm stay at Curringa Farm and Rathmore, or cast a line in private ponds at 28 Gates’ luxury farm stay. Wrap yourself in the New England-style surrounds of New Norfolk’s Explorers Lodge or stay in a National Trust house overlooking Queenstown at Penghana Bed and Breakfast. Find atmospheric lodgings in transformed Hydro town Tarraleah Estate, while Pedder Wilderness Lodge and Thousand Lakes Lodge offer comfort on the verge of untamed wilds.

Make history

The history of Tasmania’s west is filled with tragedy, triumph and big characters. Its legacy remains in former industrial sites transformed into wilderness experiences. Explore the ancient rainforests of Maydena on abandoned train tracks using Railtrack Riders’ pedal-powered vehicles. Discover pioneer mines among prehistoric forest with Queenstown’s RoamWild. Depart Queenstown or Strahan and chug through dense greenery with West Coast Wilderness Railway. Or join Magnet Tarkine Tours’ small-group trips to meander through the forest in an all-terrain vehicle to the abandoned mining town Magnet.

Taste the region

Locavore habits might have been borne out of necessity out west, but it’s evolved into a highlight of gourmet experiences on a Western Wilds road trip. The Agrarian Kitchen redefined regional restaurants with its farm-tofine-dining feasts. Lawrenny Estate Distillery produces one of the world’s only paddock-to-bottle single malt whiskies in the Central Highlands. Biodynamic winemakers Stefano Lubiana bring a taste of Tuscany to Granton, while nearby Derwent Estate offers cool-climate drops from an 1820s Limestone cottage. Great pub grub and a warm welcome await at National Park Hotel and Derwent Bridge Wilderness Hotel. Discover fine ciders and ales crafted with estate-grown hops at Two Metre Tall Brewery, prop an elbow at The Eleventh Order Brewery’s New Norfolk brewery cellar door and pick up a craft beer four-pack at The Welcome Swallow Brewery. Try small-batch spirits at New Norfolk Distillery and stock up on local goods at Providore.

To plan your Western Wilds road trip, visit

discovertasmania.com.au/western-wilds

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