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Queenstown
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QUEENSTOWN
is worth a visit, but not for the normal reasons. Its infamous "
lunar landscape
" is chilling evidence of the devastation that single-minded commercial exploitation can wreak in such a sensitive environment. If you approach the town from Strahan you're confronted by the hideously ugly
Mount Lyell Copper Mine
; from Hobart, the road winds down to the town around bare, reddish-brown rock.
Queenstown has been a mining centre since 1883, when gold was discovered at Mount Lyell, and it looks like a typical mining-town, with its wide streets, two-storey hotels and identical, pokey tin-roofed weatherboard houses. In 1893 the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was formed and began to mine copper at Mount Lyell, which it has continued to do ever since. The weird-looking mountains here, chalky white and almost totally devoid of vegetation, are the result of a lethal combination of tree-felling, sulphur, fire and rainfall. Since the smelters closed in 1969 there has been some regrowth on the lower slopes, but it's estimated that the damage already done has had an impact that will last some four or five hundred years. In late 1994 the Mount Lyell mine closed down, but the lease was taken over by Copper Mines of Tasmania, who foresee another ten years of operation with the remaining ore. Tailings from the mine are now dumped into a multimillion-dollar dam instead of the town's Queen River , where aquatic life is beginning to return. The Queen eventually flows into the King River, however, and the moonscaped banks of the King River delta near Strahan attest to the lasting and wide-ranging environmental damage of the past century. There are tours of the Mount Lyell Mine (daily: May-Sept 9.15am & 4pm; Oct-April 9.15am & 4.30pm; 1hr 30min; $13.20); it's hard to stifle a lingering cynicism, even though the plans for reforestation are explained. Bookings and departures are from Lyell Tours, at the Empire Hotel (tel 03/6471 2388), which also provides tourist information . Next door to the mine is the Parks and Wildlife Service office (tel 03/6471 2511), the base for the Franklin Lower Gordon Wild Rivers National Park and the place to pick up the department's rafting and bush walking guidelines. While in town, you could also check out the old photographic displays in the Galley Museum (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 1-5pm; $2), housed in the old Imperial Hotel . There's also a rather joyless chair lift just outside town on the Lyell Highway (daily April-Sept 9am-5pm; Oct-March 9am-6pm; $8), to help you get an even better view of those frightening hills.
If you're
staying
in Queenstown, try the
Empire Hotel
, at 2 Orr St (tel 03/6471 1699, fax 6471 1788; $20-50), a lovely, old-fashioned building noted for its blackwood staircase; it has a good range of reasonably priced rooms, including several budget singles, plus good-value meals.
Mountain View Holiday Lodge
, at 1 Penghana Rd (tel 03/6471 1163, fax 6471 1306; motel units $50-70, dorms under $20), has been converted from the mine's single-men's lodgings. For something special,
Penghana
, on The Esplanade at no. 32, provides B&B-style accommodation in an imposing stately mansion set in rainforest overlooking Queenstown (tel 03/6471 2560, fax 6471 1535, B&B $90-115). There are
banking
facilities in Queenstown at the Trust Bank, but no ATMs. From Queenstown you can drive to Strahan on the B24 (40km), which starts as a steep, winding road through bare hills, or you continue along the A10 (called the Lyell Highway from Queenstown to Hobart) 86km east to the first fuel at Derwent Bridge, surrounded by the World Heritage Area (see Franklin Lower Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, and Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park). Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Australia,
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