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| Looking over
Queenstown from the hills above the town
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Queenstown
Copper and gold mining town set in a surreal
landscape
Queenstown, its hills stripped of timber to fire
the local copper smelters and permanently
denuded by the noisome sulphurous fumes which
belch from the smelters, is a surreal nightmare.
Its river is polluted. It has the appearance of
a deserted moonscape. Yet beyond the reaches of
its devastation lie undulating hills covered in
the morning mists. In winter its skies are still
heavy with dark, low clouds which are such a
distinctive part of the climate of the western
coast.
By any measure Queenstown is one of the
wonders of the world. It is a profound reminder
of humanity's capacity to destroy and pollute
and, in that sense, it deserves to be seen by
everyone.
Located 256 km west of Hobart and 180 km
south of Burnie, Queenstown is a copper mining
town. The area was first explored by Charles
Gould in the 1860s but its inhospitable
environment deterred settlement and it wasn't
until 1881, when Cornelius Lynch found gold in a
creek near Queen River, that prospectors and
miners began to move into the area. Many of the
miners came from the Pieman River diggings to
the north. They travelled down the coast to the
port at Strahan and walked inland to the
diggings.
Two years later three miners - Bill and Mick
McDonough and Steve Karlson - discovered the
rocky outcrop known as Iron Blow. The find was
opened in 1883 and by 1888 the Mount Lyell Gold
Mining Co. had been formed. It operated out of a
town called Penghana. The area has been mined
continuously over the past 110 years. There was
little alluvial gold and consequently heavy
equipment was required. An eight stamp battery
was brought in in 1889 but the gold deposits had
been exhausted by 1891. It was then that the
mining company turned its attentions to copper.
A new company, Mount Lyell Mining Co, was formed
and the first smelters, created by an American
metallurgist Robert Carl Sticht, were in
operation by 1895. The following year Penghana
was destroyed by fire and a new settlement at
the present site of Queenstown was established.
The copper smelters wreaked havoc on the
surrounding landscape. Not only did the sulphur
fumes kill off plants in the area but the eleven
furnaces required vast quantities of timber and
the mining company simply cut down the forests
to fuel the fires. It has been estimated that
hundreds of men were employed as timber cutters
and that over 3 million tonnes of timber were
cut down between 1896 and 1923. At its peak the
furnaces were consuming 2,040 tonnes of wood
each week. The combination of timber felling,
the sulphur fumes and the heavy rainfall in the
area (which washed away the top soil) ensured
that by 1900 the whole valley looked like a
desert.
The establishment of Queenstown in 1896 saw
the construction of a hotel and a general store.
Three years later a railway from Strahan (it is
located on the coast 41 km away) was completed
and in 1901 the Empire Hotel, which still
stands, was completed. It was a suitable symbol
of the town's increased prosperity.
By 1903 the local mining companies (Mount
Lyell and North Lyell) had combined and
Queenstown had become the area's major mining
centre. By 1914 a hydro-electric scheme had been
completed at Lake Margaret and by 1928 a major
refinery had been opened. The first road (prior
to that all traffic had been by sea from
Macquarie Harbour) to Hobart was opened in 1932.
Mount Lyell Mines continued to operate the
mine until 1972 when they were taken over by the
Renison Gold Company. In 1995 the mine became
part of Copper Mines of Tasmania (CMT - Mt
Lyell). It still operates today but is always in
danger of fluctuating prices in the world copper
market.
In recent times there has been an argument
about the reforestation of the hills around
Queenstown. Some locals, quite correctly, have
claimed that the denuded hills are a tourist
attraction. Others have felt that the rainforest
which characterises the area should be
encouraged to regrow.
Things to see:
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Visitor Information Centre
Lyell Tours on Duffield Street operate as the
Tas Visitor Information Centre. They can be
contacted on (03) 6471 2388. Fax: (03) 6471
2222. They can arrange tours of the mines and
advise of trips around the town and the
hinterland.
There is an independently owned and operated
site devoted to Queenstown at
http://www.queenstowntasmania.com. Check it out.
Copper Mines of Tasmania (CMT - Mt Lyell)
- Tours
Lyell Tours operate a number of tours of the
mines. There is a surface tour (lasting about 1
hour) which runs at 9.15 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. and
the underground tour, lasting 3 1/2 hours starts
at 8.30 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. There are strict
controls on the underground tour. It cannot take
children under the age of 12 and it caters from
groups between 2 and 6. It is wise to book for
the tours in the summer months. Contact (03)
6471 2388. Fax: (03) 6471 2222.
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| The monument
at Queenstown with the Empire Hotel in
the background |
Mt Lyell No 3 Engine at the Miners Siding
(a Bicentennial Project)
The first railway in the area travelled from
Strahan to Queenstown and was opened in 1896. It
used a rack and pinion system and was known as
the ABT. This historic ABT engine, which is now
located opposite the Gallery Museum and near the
Queen River, is a vital part of the town's
heritage. It is part of a Bicentennial Diorama.
At periodic intervals a strategically located
pair of loud speakers let out a loud toot-toot
and then proceed to make steam engine noises.
The Engine has now been restored, along with the
Mt Lyell No 1 Engine that was housed at the West
Coast Pioneer Museum at Zeehan, as part of the
Rebuilding of the ABT Railway as a tourist
railway, and both are now working on the
re-built line. The Miners siding site is soon to
be re-developed and its main display item will
be a Jumbo Underground Drill Rig.
Historic Walk
There is a brochure titled 'The Walkabout
Queenstown' published by the Project Queenstown
Committee. The town is now a classified historic
town and it is not surprising that the brochure
lists 25 locations (all within easy walking
distance of each other) which take the visitor
past most of the town's significant buildings.
Empire Hotel
At its height Queenstown was home to 14 hotels.
The Empire, at 2 Orr Street, is one of the
finest still standing. Completed in 1901 it has
a beautiful handmade blackwood staircase.
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| The Galley
Museum |
Galley Museum
Located in Queenstown's first brick hotel, the
Imperial (1898) (corner of Driffield and Sticht
Streets), the Galley Museum was established by
Eric Thomas. As the brochure explains: 'there
are in excess of 800 photographs displayed in
seven rooms. All have been collected by Mr
Thomas with a great amount of detail typed under
each photo. The photos cover the history of the
West Coast from the establishment of Mt Bischoff
at Waratah to the development of Queenstown and
Strahan.'
Around Queenstown
Views of the Valley
No visit to Queenstown is complete without
getting some kind of overview of the damage done
to the valley. The best vantage points are on
the Queenstown-Hobart road which winds down into
the valley and offers spectacular views of the
devastation. The other popular lookout is known
as Spion Kop and is located in the centre of
town - follow the signs on Hunter Street.
Gormanston
Gormanston had a population of 1,760 in 1901.
Today there are about ten families still living
in this historic mining town. Located 6 km from
Queenstown (ask at Lyell Tours for directions)
it was the original mining settlement being
established in 1881 by miners and growing
rapidly with the discovery of Iron Blow. In 1884
the first post office on Tasmania's west coast
was built here and in 1897 it was so important
that it was the base for North Lyell Copper Co.
Linda
Once a prosperous mining town Linda is now a
ghost town. It is located 8 km from Queenstown
and is well worth a visit by people interested
in seeing how towns, once they have outlived
their usefulness, simply die. Linda was the site
of a serious underground mining disaster when,
in 1912, a fire killed 42 miners. Its last
hotel, the Royal, closed in 1952.
Lake Margaret Power Station
Australia's second oldest working
hydro-electricity station (the one at Moorina is
older) lies north of Queenstown in the Yolande
River Valley (ask at Tourist Information for
directions). It was completed in 1914 and still
contains machinery from that period.
