Planet Trekker

Yesterday was more than a little disappointing.

It started out okay, I found the house where my Grandmother had been born in 1916. It stood on a corner, looking a little old and nondescript and now inhabited by a doctors surgery. I took a few photos for my mother and then continued on to the Museum, wanting to be there at opening time.

I should have known that it was not going to be good from the moment I found the cost of parking. From there they seemed to have a problem getting the doors to open and I was in a little group that found ourselves stuck outside. Someone inside had to wave their arms frantically at the sensor to get the doors open.

Finally inside I made my way up to the History Centre and this is where I ran into a brick wall. The gentleman did know of the phones and had heard of Biggs (I think) but they were no longer on display. He did offer that his colleague would be in shortly and possibly, maybe there was a chance I could see a photo of them. Given that I had just shown him a photo of them when I was describing what I was looking for made the gesture a little hollow. My lack of enthusiasm from the day before for the Museum as a museum was just reinforced as I made my way out to my car. It’s found it’s way onto my list of places not to see in Launceston.

It was time to leave Launceston and also time to leave the ancestral trail I’d been following. My next port of call was Stanley, way up in the top left hand corner of the island on a spit of land that looks on the map as if it is a wannabe  island  slowly pulling itself free of the mainland.

The drive was exactly the thing I had come all this way to do. I followed the highway from Launceston to Devonport for the most part but would impulsively pull onto side roads just to visit small towns. There are a number of them; in fact most of the towns marked on the map as seeming to be on the highway are on side roads. Usually just one or two kilometres out of your way but so worth the effort. The towns may start to run together into an amalgam of sandstone and timber but the scenery between them is some of the greatest rural beauty you will find in this country.

As long as you like the English pastoral type of beauty that is because you will find yourself driving along narrow country roads with hedgerows flanking both sides that suddenly open out onto green rolling hills with small ponds and lakes. It was a fine day so the sky was a brilliant blue, the grass a brilliant green and the ponds a shimmering silver. Small farmhouses sat back off the roads, up long gravel driveways, their chimneys usually complete with tendrils of smoke and promising a kitchen replete with smells of baking bread.

Okay, I may be waxing overly lyrical but it was a nice drive and did much to improve my mood.

I skirted around Devonport and made my way across the north coast, through Penguin, Burnie (a much bigger town than I imagined) and Wynyard. The weather was good for the most part as the road alternated between views of the ocean before dipping back inland and farm scenes.

Bambi brought me safely to the Bayview Guesthouse, my home for the next couple of nights and I carried my bag up to the front door. Only to find something that could truly only happen in a small country town. Taped to the door was a note from my hosts explaining that they had had to go out, where my room was (outside access) and that it was open, with the key on a table inside. They wished me a goodnight.

I found my room and immediately knew that I was going to be pretty comfortable. I had planned these last couple of days here to be ones of leisure and the armchairs in front of the large window giving me a view across the bay was just what I was after. I made myself a cup of tea and settled in.

This morning I checked in with Denis, another Queenslander (although technically he’s a pom) who’s escaped down here. We chatted for a while about why he had moved to the other end of the country but he ultimately failed to convince me that cold is better. I got a real example of the cold when I set off for a walk around town, clutching a walking guide kindly prepared by Denis.

Stanley is a fishing town. It’s hard not to notice that. From my window I can see boats pulled up onto a slipway and just a little down the road is Hursey Seafoods, a wholesale and retail fish shop selling the catch from the Hursey fishing boats, a few of which are undoubtedly those I can  see pulled up on the Hursey slipways. It’s a Hursey town. The crowning glory of the Hursey Seafoods building is the big crayfish so I have at least managed to tick off another of those “big” things.

Following Denis’ guide I first walked around to the Fisherman’s Dock. Probably a hive of activity in Summer the dock seemed a little forlorn this morning but it did give me good view up at the “Nut”. The Nut is a Gibraltar like rock outcropping that protects the bay from the open ocean. It is also the source of a good story that i am going to shamelessly quote from the guide.

“The bluff face of the Nut looms above you at this point. In 1892 an attempt was made to blast rock from the vertical face, to be used to reinforce the breakwater. The day of the detonation drew a crowd who were disappointed to see nothing but a cloud of dust and smoke spurt from the drillings where literally tons of dynamite had been set. It was another twelve years before the rock finally fractured enough to shear off. Fortunately the fall occurred before work in the early morning, and no lives were lost.”

Pretty cool, huh?

The rest of the town didn’t take long to walk around, mostly due to the fact that everything is closed for the winter. The Post Office (which is also a B&B) and the bank/newsagent/general store were open but the places that rely on the summer tourist trade were taking advantage of the lull to do renovations or take holidays.

The town itself didn’t really remind me of Australia. It had an American Cape Cod feel to it. The houses are predominately timber and stand facing the water and winds with a defiance that says “I’ve been here for well over a century and I have a lot longer to go”. They may appear to be a little weather beaten, and they are, but it’s that  toughness that gives them so much character. I spent quite a while walking the streets, gleaning facts about the buildings from the guide and as I went I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a bearded and salt encrusted man in a bright yellow raincoat or cable knit jumper walk past me.

About the only thing I didn’t do was climb to the top of the Nut itself but that was purely because of my perfectly rational fear of heights. I’m sure that the view would have been spectacular.

I’m back in my room now, cup of tea close to hand and view of the water before me. I’ll probably wander down to Hursey’s this evening for some fresh seafood before getting a good nights sleep. Tomorrow I plan to hit the west coast.

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• Denis Backhouse posted on July 17, 2010
  Hi, This is Denis, Greg's host (along with my wife) at the Bay View Guesthouse in Stanley. We're flattered, and ...

I’m looking back at what I’ve written so far I have realised that I’ve never really explained the ancestors I’m here to look for. Maybe it’s that natural hesitancy to whisper when you admit any connection to Tasmania or just simple forgetfulness on my part but here’s a quick rundown.

In 1833 my GGGGGrandfather, Abraham Biggs, his wife and 5 children arrived in Hobart Town from England. Abraham was a carpenter and established a business in town. He then decided to go into farming, something he failed at, before coming back to Hobart and eventually going into the kit home business. One of his sons tried his luck in the new goldfields of Victoria but noticed that houses couldn’t be built fast enough for the influx so he ended up as the Victorian agent of the family business, selling kit homes as fast as he could land them on the wharf from Tasmania. The family went on to spread itself out in Tasmania and Victoria with my Grandmother being born in Launceston. When she was really young she moved to New Zealand and I was lucky enough to be born on the better side of the ditch.

Another of Abraham’s sons is also of interest. My GGGGranduncle, Alfred Biggs had a pretty full life that included being a teacher, bank clerk and amateur scientist. He made the first long distance phone call in Tasmania (and likely the southern hemisphere) using handsets he built himself. He was one of the founding fathers of seismology in Australia  and was a keen amateur astronomer. He assisted in the observance of the transit of Venus in 1874 and was popularly known as the Astronomer  Royal of Launceston. It was a memorial to his observatory that I was searching out when I first arrived in Launceston.

So, now that the background history is sketched out, on with the story.

I’d seen Hobart as it is now and tried to picture it as it must have been in 1833 and it was now time to move back the way I’d driven but forwards in the story. I knew that Abraham had tried his hand at farming because he was a keen letter writer, as I suppose many were in those days. The advantage of Abraham is that his letters have survived and I have copies of them. Starting with one before he leaves England and continuing on to 1853, the detail is amazing, entertaining and informative of the times.

In 1836 Abraham moved to a small village called Jerusalem, something that must have pleased him as a devoutly religious man. It is still a small village and it’s necessary to turn off the highway to get to. Now called Colebrook it is somewhere that you could pass through without noticing. I was really only there to get a feel for the place and to walk in my ancestors footsteps but I spent a pleasant few hours talking with Allan, a volunteer in the Colebrook History Room.

The History Room is a small single roomed building that stands alone in a park and is crammed with displays and artefacts attempting to tell the story of Colebrook. Despite the protestations of some locals the Room is there and Allan is justifiably proud of its existence. Allan struck me as a man who is not attempting to escape from society so much as happy to observe it from a small distance. Having moved to Tasmania from the Sunshine Coast only a few years he has been working at the History room as a volunteer and trying to win the trust and confidence of the locals as he battles to gather the rapidly disappearing resource of local memories. I left with the promise that I would send him copies of Abrahams letters which paint a vivid picture of life there in 1836.

While I was there I also got to meet the Hon. Dick Adams, the local federal MP for the region, who dropped in to shake hands and meet and greet. I was impressed with his knowledge of the area, even in the short time that we talked. Dick would not have looked out of place in 1836 with his generous girth, waistcoat and bristling beard.

On Allan’s recommendation I drove on to Oatlands and visited the History Room there. This one really felt like a second hand store. It was in an old service station and was crammed with so many artefacts that it was hard to sort through them and get any coherent idea of the towns history. I had coffee in a coffee shop that boasted an open fire and then walked up and down the main street admiring the substantial collection of sandstone buildings that have all managed to survive from the early 1800’s. It may be a little off the main highway but well worth a look.

I was now leaving the trail of Abraham, after failing at farming he moved back to Hobart and went back in carpentry, and now picked up Alfred’s story.

A little further along the highway is Campbell Town, the place I had stopped at on my trip down and where I had raved about the roast beef and yorkshire pudding. Alfred had moved with his family 1871and took the position of teacher at the local school. It was here that he made friends with the local doctor who seems to have ignited his passion in science. In his time at Campbell Town he assisted a group of American scientists who had been sent to Tasmania to observe the transit of Venus. In thanks the Americans left Alfred many of their instruments. His interests were wide ranging though because, when he heard of Bell’s success with the telephone he decided to build his own. Once he had his two handsets he sent one to Launceston and used the telegraph wires to “make a call”. The phones are now in the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston although they no longer seem to be on display. I’ll be trying to make some enquiries in the morning to see if I can get a photo.

Unfortunately I arrived in Campbell Town too late and the museum and information centre was closed so I over-nighted and was up early this morning to walk around town.

It was a clear blue sky and the frost had left so much ice on my car that it sparkled when the light hit it.

Campbell Town is not big and it wasn’t difficult to find St Luke’s school, the building still standing on the side of the road.

From there I found “The Grange”, once the doctors residence and still a private residence. I stood staring at the impressive building that wouldn’t look at all out of place in an Agatha Christie novel and imagined Alfred sitting in the doctors study, in front of a fire and possibly with a port in his hand while the two men discussed the latest scientific marvels and discoveries of the day.

In front of the Grange is a park that was the site where the Venus transit was observed.

By now the museum was open and I walked in with high expectations that there would be an entire display devoted to my GGGGrand-uncle. There wasn’t.

The lady in there was a volunteer and new to the area so she didn’t actually know Alfred and was quite impressed when I said that his name appeared in a few places around the town in connection with it’s historic past. She was even more impressed when I pointed out the book for sale which was his biography. I bought a copy of the book so that I would have my own, I’ve been using a battered copy of my Mothers and it, along with Abrahams letters, have been my guides to this trip.

I walked back to my car, past a butcher selling mutton birds, and continued on up the highway to Launceston.

My intention was to find Alfred’s telephones in the museum but I made a small detour to the Cataracts where I had a nerve wracking walk over a suspension bridge and then a wonderful Devonshire tea. Just as a side note, which goes on the scone first, the jam or the cream?

On to the museum I found that it has moved and the original building is being renovated. the new one is on the former site of a railway yard and while the displays of trains is good there doesn’t seem to be any displays relating to any other part of Tasmanian or Launceston history so I couldn’t find the phones. The Community History Centre part of the museum was closed by the time I got there but I intend to be back at opening time tomorrow to see if anyone can help me to get a photo of these elusive handsets.

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If all that time on the cruise ships taught me anything it’s that one day is not time enough to really get to know a place. It did however teach me to be able to get a feel for a place and I tried to put that to work today as I walked around Hobart.

The problem is that the place didn’t really do much for me. I will stand by my comment of yesterday that it has the feel of a large country town that is falling on hard times. Don’t get me wrong, it is certainly a city, a state capital in fact, it just feels like it is actually only a suburb of a much larger place.

I wanted to just walk around today and for the first time in a week the grey ghost didn’t get used. I could almost hear the sigh of relief from the poor overused engine.

I spent the morning poking through both the Maritime Museum and the Museum museum. The Maritime one was interesting if a little static in it’s displays and probably just scraped in as earning it’s $7 entry fee in value. 

The Museum museum on the other hand was a free admission and took a bit longer to wander through. It was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of displays, going from minerals in cases that barely got a look from the kids racing through, to an impressive display on Antarctica and Tasmania’s relationship to it. That was pretty interesting but the one real highlight. I had been hoping for much more on the colonial and convict past of the town but that seemed to be seriously lacking. I couldn’t help wondering why.

From there I walked aimlessly up and down the city streets.The problem I have in doing that as a way to get a feel for a place is the sense of familiarity. I’m so used to foreign places where every shop is new and even the signposts and rubbish bins have an exotic appeal that streets of business I can find within walking walking distance of my own home just fail to hold my interest.

I did find Elizabeth street though, a place named prominently in letters my GGGGGrandfather sent back to England after landing here in 1833. The family spent their first few weeks living on that street and I sat there for a while, in the middle of a pedestrian mall, and tried to imagine how it must have been all those years ago.

After a lunch of an unimpressive chicken wrap and even less impressive coffee I walked on and eventually found myself in Sandy Bay. I sat and watched the dogs playing in a park that was the place where Errol Flynn lived. I even walked on the little piece of sand where he learnt to swim, a skill that probably came in extremely handy doing all those pirate movies.

I walked back into town around Battery point and followed a trail of signs giving historical information. That I found interesting although I got funny looks from a few people as I stood contemplating overgrown plots of land or rusting steam boilers almost completely buried beside storm drains.

It was also interesting to see the street side of some of the houses on the Point. From Sandy Beach they had looked like old, rundown buildings perched on the cliff but from the road it was obvious that a lot of money had been spent on most of them and I can only imagine what the insides would be like, especially with the magnificent view they have over the harbour.

Back past Salamanca Square, a refurbished area on the waterfront that may do okay in the height of tourist season but seemed to be struggling a bit at the moment, and I ended my day by having fish and chips from a small takeaway that is actually moored at the side of the wharf.

I’m heading back to country Tasmania tomorrow and leaving the big smoke of Hobart behind.

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