A few minutes drive outside of Rosebery sits the impressive Montezuma falls, one of the state’s highest at over 100m. The falls are situated at the end of a 5km trail, which follows an abandoned railway that once served as an arterial route for silver miners in the mid-1800s (we think the falls are named after one such mining company). Despite the drought currently hurting Australia the waterfall was raining hard, testament to Tasmania’s incredible environmental diversity.
In the 1870s speculators struck gold near the Tamar River, while tin was unearthed in the north east. The finds sparked a rush of international proportions, particularly among the Chinese. Mining was / is a tough way of life for most, with the first few prospectors to arrive sweeping up the rich, surface deposits. Once news travelled that there was wealth to be found, more and more companies entered Tasmania to try their luck. On the west coast, discoveries of large deposits of silver and lead prompted the 1880s boom, the epicentre of which was Zeehan.
There is simply no reason to stop here – the town might still be home to a league of miners but there was nothing outside the habitual pub and post office. Equally impressive was the river side town of Strahan, a once rugged west coast town at the mouth of Macquarie Harbour that shot to fame in the 1980s as the centre for the Franklin River Blockade – an intense protest by environmentalists against the damming and subsequent flooding of huge portions of Tasmanian land.
A staggering 46 per cent of Tasmanian voters wrote “No Dams” on their ballot paper in the 1981 federal government election as confrontation between the Tasmanian Wilderness Society (TWS) and Hydro Electric Commission (HEC) intensified. Despite the west being awarded World Heritage status the then premier tried to get the listing dismissed! The damming and flooding of Lake Pedder (previously the largest glacial outwash in the world) in 1972 caused such a public backlash that proposals to do the same to the Franklin River were canned and the area was instead designated a national park.
Strahan seemed popular with the aging tourists, perhaps attracted to the relaxing Gordon River cruises. To us, Strahan was less a town and more a strip of brightly painted, but ultimately uninspiring shops pandering to tourists’ needs. We sunk a couple of local beers and headed for Queenstown, another Tassie town hanging on to modern day life by the thinnest of threads.
So rich was the land with minerals that mining towns started popping up everywhere, the biggest being Tullah, Rosebery, and Queenstown. But geological exploitation went unchecked for years while the land was raped and pillaged. Today, much of the land, especially around the once tin rich Queenstown, looks like the surface of the moon. Absent are the trees and vegetation that cover the rest of the state; the winding descent into town is unforgettable for barren sulphur scarred slopes. The town itself is a long time dead, little more than a crossroad of vacant pubs and empty shops.
A few minutes drive outside of Rosebery sits the impressive Montezuma falls, one of the state’s highest at over 100m. The falls are situated at the end of a 5km trail, which follows an abandoned railway that once served as an arterial route for silver miners in the mid-1800s (we think the falls are named after one such mining company). Despite the drought currently hurting Australia the waterfall was raining hard, testament to Tasmania’s incredible environmental diversity. 
In the 1870s speculators struck gold near the Tamar River, while tin was unearthed in the north east. The finds sparked a rush of international proportions, particularly among the Chinese. Mining was / is a tough way of life for most, with the first few prospectors to arrive sweeping up the rich, surface deposits. Once news travelled that there was wealth to be found, more and more companies entered Tasmania to try their luck. On the west coast, discoveries of large deposits of silver and lead prompted the 1880s boom, the epicentre of which was Zeehan. 
There is simply no reason to stop here – the town might still be home to a league of miners but there was nothing outside the habitual pub and post office. Equally impressive was the river side town of Strahan, a once rugged west coast town at the mouth of Macquarie Harbour that shot to fame in the 1980s as the centre for the Franklin River Blockade – an intense protest by environmentalists against the damming and subsequent flooding of huge portions of Tasmanian land. 
A staggering 46 per cent of Tasmanian voters wrote “No Dams” on their ballot paper in the 1981 federal government election as confrontation between the Tasmanian Wilderness Society (TWS) and Hydro Electric Commission (HEC) intensified. Despite the west being awarded World Heritage status the then premier tried to get the listing dismissed! The damming and flooding of Lake Pedder (previously the largest glacial outwash in the world) in 1972 caused such a public backlash that proposals to do the same to the Franklin River were canned and the area was instead designated a national park.
Strahan seemed popular with the aging tourists, perhaps attracted to the relaxing Gordon River cruises. To us, Strahan was less a town and more a strip of brightly painted, but ultimately uninspiring shops pandering to tourists’ needs. We sunk a couple of local beers and headed for Queenstown, another Tassie town hanging on to modern day life by the thinnest of threads.
So rich was the land with minerals that mining towns started popping up everywhere, the biggest being Tullah, Rosebery, and Queenstown. But geological exploitation went unchecked for years while the land was raped and pillaged. Today, much of the land, especially around the once tin rich Queenstown, looks like the surface of the moon. Absent are the trees and vegetation that cover the rest of the state; the winding descent into town is unforgettable for barren sulphur scarred slopes. The town itself is a long time dead, little more than a crossroad of vacant pubs and empty shops. 
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