Brave hearts and beasts

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This was published 12 years ago

Brave hearts and beasts

Rich history ... the Tamar River at George Town.

Rich history ... the Tamar River at George Town.Credit: Lee Atkinson

Lee Atkinson explores the river towns and epic tales north of Launceston, meeting cheeky natives on the way.

THERE'S not much space inside a 1.5-square-metre cage. Not even enough room, really, for a decent-size dog, especially if you half fill it with rocks. But for miners Brant Webb and Todd Russell, it was all the space they had for two weeks, when they were trapped almost a kilometre underground in a gold mine in northern Tasmania.

It's been five years since the Beaconsfield mine collapse on April 25, 2006, had everyone glued to their television sets as they watched the drama unfold over 14 days while rescue teams achieved what many thought was impossible: burrowing deep into the rock to bring the two men back to the surface, alive.

It's an incredible story of perseverance and resilience but it's not until you crawl inside a replica of the tiny crushed cage that you realise what an astonishing story of survival it really is.

To reach it, you have to crawl through a concrete pipe and there is barely enough room to poke your head through the space to have a look around once you're there.

The cage is a centrepiece of the Beaconsfield Mine and Heritage Centre, which has a floor dedicated to the rescue and is right next door to the working gold mine where it all happened.

In the early 1880s, Beaconsfield was the richest gold town in Tasmania, with more than 53 companies working the mines, although by the beginning of World War I they had all closed. The Grubb Shaft Gold and Heritage Museum was established in the mid-1980s and was a dinky affair, housed in the ruins of an old engine house. But in 1999, the mine adjacent reopened, and in 2006 hit the world headlines.

Two years ago, the museum reopened after a $1.28 million makeover and has been pulling in the visitors ever since. Most come to see the rescue display, which includes the torn overalls the miners were wearing and details how they survived and what the rescuers faced as they tried to reach them. It's harrowing and inspiring in equal measure. There are also rooms of mining and local history exhibits and you can climb to an elevated walkway to watch the miners riding the steel cages in and out of the mine shaft below.

Beaconsfield is just down the road from Beauty Point, a pretty hamlet at the mouth of the Tamar River where it spills into Bass Strait. Most people combine the heritage centre with a visit to the Platypus House and Seahorse World, next door to each other on the wharf.

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The platypus is notoriously hard to find in the wild but at Platypus House, a breeding and research centre, you can get a close look and learn about how this monotreme (and its cousin, the echidna) eats, lives and breeds. But be warned, you might end up getting closer than you think: the free-roaming echidna in the echidna garden has a toe fetish and having your toes licked by one is a slightly disconcerting experience, especially when it happens in public with people clamouring to take a photo.

As far as wildlife encounters go, it's about as weird as it gets but it becomes even more surreal when I'm told that the tongue wrapping itself around my big toe is 18 centimetres long.

Seahorse World is a commercial farm where you can join a guided tour to learn everything you never thought you needed to know about these odd fish. For example, it is the male sea horse that gets pregnant and gives birth to live babies; they eat sea monkeys, just like those you ordered in comic books as a child; and, according to Asian herbal apothecaries, dried and ground sea horse is a potent aphrodisiac.

Across the river is George Town. Settled in 1804, it boasts it is the oldest "town" in the country. Of course, the devil is in the detail: Sydney and Parramatta, both established in 1788, are cities, as is Hobart, founded in 1803. Even so, George Town is still one of the country's oldest settlements and the first in northern Tasmania.

To get here, you'll need to backtrack from Beauty Point and cross the river via the Batman Bridge, averting your eyes as you pass by Bell Bay, where the controversial pulp mill will be and which is already the site of a power station and aluminium smelter.

The first Europeans to explore the area were George Bass and Matthew Flinders in 1798, in the sloop, Norfolk, and there's a beautiful huon pine replica at the Bass and Flinders Centre that you can board and go below decks. The quarters are not a lot bigger than the cage Webb and Russell had to endure, so it's astounding that the explorers managed to cross Bass Strait and spend three months in it circumnavigating Tasmania.

Drive north to Low Head on the edge of Bass Strait to the red and white lighthouse. The old Pilot Station, built by convicts in 1835, is now a maritime museum with 12 rooms of displays and if you time your visit right, you can hear the fog horn sound on Sundays at noon. Even if you don't visit the museum, it's worth the five-kilometre drive just to admire the views.

The writer was a guest of the Mantra Group.

Trip notes

Getting there

Virgin Blue (13 67 89; virginblue.com.au) and Jetstar (13 15 38; jetstar.com) have daily services between Sydney and Launceston.

Staying there

The huge one- and two-bedroom apartments ($179-$259) at Peppers York Cove have great views. Hotel rooms are also spacious but lack the views. (03) 6382 9900, peppers.com.au/yorkcove.

See + do

Bass & Flinders Centre, 8 Elizabeth Street, George Town, open daily 10am-4pm (3pm in winter). bassandflinders.org.au.

Low Head Pilot Station, Low Head Road, open daily 10am-4pm. museum.lowhead.com.

Low Head Penguin Tours, daily at sunset. penguintours.lowhead.com.

Beaconsfield Mine and Heritage Centre, West Street, open daily 9.30am-4.30pm. beaconsfieldheritage.com.au.

Seahorse World, Inspection Head Wharf, Beauty Point, tours daily 9.30am-3.30pm September to April; 10am-3pm May to August. seahorseworld.com.au.

Platypus House, Inspection Head Wharf, Beauty Point, open daily 9.30am-3.30pm. platypushouse.com.au

More information

discovertasmania.com.

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