100 Australian Geographicdreaming AG 148) reinforced a divide in the state between people
desperate to save the environment and people desperate for work.
Significant operational changes following the sale of the Mount
Lyell mine lease in 1993 marked the beginning of the end of the
town’s legacy of industry dependence.
Following three more mine-related deaths in December 2013
and January 2014 – altogether more than 200 people have died
at Mount Lyell – the mine’s operations were indefinitely shelved.Q
UEENSTOWN HAS THE look of a mountain town despite
its negligible elevation of just 129m. Morning mist can
hang above its colourful rooftops or cling to surround-
ing valley edges at any time of year. For a town that receives
about 2400mm of annual rainfall spread across 250 days, a sunny
afternoon is a glorious rarity. Winters are cold enough that
people can miss ‘town’ appointments in Burnie, 150km away,
due to being snowed in. Some locals say you need to be com-
mitted to live in Queenie. Others reckon you just need to be
able to put up with a bit of rain.
“For me this place is about authentic experience. It’s raw.
You need to bring a sense of humour and an open mind,” says
Lea Walpole, who left at 17. More than two decades later, she’s
recently moved back, married to a born-and-bred Hobartian
who was already Queenstown’s pharmacist when they met. Lea
has opened a graphic design studio on the main drag of OrrStreet. Her father, aged nearly 80, plants tree ferns and azaleas
on a nature strip the town council considers too steep to mow.
Coming into Queenstown, near the final bend of the
rust-orange Queen River, are the original Evans store, Galley
Museum, Empire Hotel and West Coast Wilderness Railway
buildings. The railway was resurrected in 2002 and that got
Queenstown onto the tourist radar. Now you’ve got places like
Tracks Cafe, at the station, which is popular with locals and
visitors. King River Rafting fits people for thermals and wetsuits
in an open-air storeroom above it.
The claim to fame of Orr Street, which is left at Mt Lyell
Motor Inn, is Memorial Hall where AC/DC performed in 1976
and Cafe Serenade, which still serves milkshakes in anodised
cups. The street is characterised by second-storey verandahs,
the striking Q Bank Gallery and alleyway murals. Dramatically
backdropping it all is Mt Owen.
Evans IGA and the Marketplace, a shop that stocks everything
from fridges to handmade leather thylacines, are both owned
by fourth-generation Queenstown retailers. Among them is
matriarch Joan Evans, now retired, who genuinely misses
Queenstown’s totally barren hills when everything was line-
of-sight accessible. She isn’t alone in calling the mainly radiata
pine regrowth “overgrown” but Joan isn’t stuck in the past. Her
son, Phil, says she’s “very popular with the youngsters because
she kicks on”.The claim to fame of Orr Street
is Memorial Hall where
AC/DC performed in 1976.
Lea Walpole (below) sees
beauty in her home town’s most
weathered buildings. Queenstown
teens (bottom) soak up the
weekend sun on Drield Street.Mt Lyell MotorInn, the
Empire Hotel and West Coast
Wilderness Railway buildings
mark the entrance to
Queenstown’s main street.Continued page 103 PHOTO CREDITS, OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: TAILORED TASMANIA; ROAMWILD TASMANIA; ELSPETH CALLENDER; ELSPETH CALLENDER; JESS BONDE