Bush trip: arriving
Oct. 30th, 2010 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithLast Sunday Northern Midlands Business Association members and guests visited the Long Marsh Dam site. The advertisement for the visit says "The construction of Long Marsh dam by convict labour commenced in 1840 but was not completed. The site is Heritage Listed and has remnants of convict engineering works, settlement ruins and a gravesite." I don't think it counts as probation station though I have seen it referred to as such. (There is a cache at the site too.)
There were about 16 people on the tour, in five vehicles, and our guide was David Downie, a Northern Midlands councillor and farmer, who has a 4WD ute and isn't afraid to use it. The convoy left Campbell Town just after 10 am and three hours later we reached the start of the walking track.
It doesn't usually take 3 hours. The first road we went down, the bridge was out, but the sign saying this was very helpfully just before the bridge, not up where the road started.
Road sign, bush style
So we backtracked and took the longer route, but this time the road conditions were different to what our guide remembered and he couldn't find the right track.
Not this way. Go back.
Did I mention these are forestry roads, and the last past is only accessible by 4WD vehicles?
Although the roads in my photos don't look too bad for the most part, even if they are taken through a dirty windscreen. That's because on the "interesting" bits were bumpy
and came out sort of blurry.
That's through an open window while we were working out where we should be.
There's no mobile signal out here. I mean nothing, no searching, no intermittent dropping out for a few minutes connection but nothing at all. Although back on "main" road, there was a short patch where phones worked and our guide was able to confirm the directions and found out he'd been right in the first place.
I'll use rest of the trip to give a background on the site. There is a wonderful book called Lifeblood of a Colony: a history of irrigation in Tasmania by Margaret Mason-Cox, which puts the various water schemes in the greater political and social context. I'll use quotes from the book to provide the background, because she says it better than I can:
On 11 June 1842 Sir John Franklin agreed to provide a probation party for the construction of the dam, on condition that the settlers erect barracks to house the labourers and supply the wages and rations of a government appointed superintendent.
That's actually from the return trip, which is why the convoy is reversed.
Adam Jackson again surveyed the Long Marsh on 2 July 1842 and confirmed his earlier opinion that the site would answer well as a reservoir dammed to the height of 70 feet with earth or stone, of which there is an abundance nearby.
The party finally arrived at the beginning of August. Lovell was accompanied by thirty-two men: three pairs of swayers, one blacksmith, one carpenter, one brick maker, one bricklayer, and the rest labourers, four of whom were cripples.
[Towards the end of the year] some of the barracks at the Long Marsh had been completed and Philip Smith, for the committee, was pressing for a number of the probation party [who were doing repair work at nearby Tooms Lake] to be sent up to commence work on the dam.
Crossing the river...
there's a ford here just below the weir
The last part of the track is a bit steep, although it doesn't in this photo taken from above. The lead vehicle managed it on the third attempt.
The second vehicle coming over the top.
The driver of third vehicle thought better of it, so the drivers and passengers of the last two vehicles (the fifth vehicle having left behind at an earlier intersection) walked up instead.
Then we had lunch.
While we eat, back to October 1843...
...works at both places were proceeding as satisfactorily as circumstances would admit considering the "wretched state" of some of the men with regard to slops (clothing), which in many instances were a month overdue, and still more as to shoes and boots: "Many of the men have not a boot or shoe and they protect their feet in the best they can by a wrapper of cloth". According to Smith, the constant wet weather and the rocky terrain made these hardships double what they would be in ordinary cases. One only has to visit the area to realise how inhospitable the bush must have been to these ill-prepared men
Finally, we start along the track. Yes, that's a track.
To be continued...
Part 2 - Dam & Quarry
Part 3 - Town
There were about 16 people on the tour, in five vehicles, and our guide was David Downie, a Northern Midlands councillor and farmer, who has a 4WD ute and isn't afraid to use it. The convoy left Campbell Town just after 10 am and three hours later we reached the start of the walking track.
It doesn't usually take 3 hours. The first road we went down, the bridge was out, but the sign saying this was very helpfully just before the bridge, not up where the road started.
Road sign, bush style
So we backtracked and took the longer route, but this time the road conditions were different to what our guide remembered and he couldn't find the right track.
Not this way. Go back.
Did I mention these are forestry roads, and the last past is only accessible by 4WD vehicles?
Although the roads in my photos don't look too bad for the most part, even if they are taken through a dirty windscreen. That's because on the "interesting" bits were bumpy
and came out sort of blurry.
That's through an open window while we were working out where we should be.
There's no mobile signal out here. I mean nothing, no searching, no intermittent dropping out for a few minutes connection but nothing at all. Although back on "main" road, there was a short patch where phones worked and our guide was able to confirm the directions and found out he'd been right in the first place.
I'll use rest of the trip to give a background on the site. There is a wonderful book called Lifeblood of a Colony: a history of irrigation in Tasmania by Margaret Mason-Cox, which puts the various water schemes in the greater political and social context. I'll use quotes from the book to provide the background, because she says it better than I can:
On 11 June 1842 Sir John Franklin agreed to provide a probation party for the construction of the dam, on condition that the settlers erect barracks to house the labourers and supply the wages and rations of a government appointed superintendent.
That's actually from the return trip, which is why the convoy is reversed.
Adam Jackson again surveyed the Long Marsh on 2 July 1842 and confirmed his earlier opinion that the site would answer well as a reservoir dammed to the height of 70 feet with earth or stone, of which there is an abundance nearby.
The party finally arrived at the beginning of August. Lovell was accompanied by thirty-two men: three pairs of swayers, one blacksmith, one carpenter, one brick maker, one bricklayer, and the rest labourers, four of whom were cripples.
[Towards the end of the year] some of the barracks at the Long Marsh had been completed and Philip Smith, for the committee, was pressing for a number of the probation party [who were doing repair work at nearby Tooms Lake] to be sent up to commence work on the dam.
Crossing the river...
there's a ford here just below the weir
The last part of the track is a bit steep, although it doesn't in this photo taken from above. The lead vehicle managed it on the third attempt.
The second vehicle coming over the top.
The driver of third vehicle thought better of it, so the drivers and passengers of the last two vehicles (the fifth vehicle having left behind at an earlier intersection) walked up instead.
Then we had lunch.
While we eat, back to October 1843...
...works at both places were proceeding as satisfactorily as circumstances would admit considering the "wretched state" of some of the men with regard to slops (clothing), which in many instances were a month overdue, and still more as to shoes and boots: "Many of the men have not a boot or shoe and they protect their feet in the best they can by a wrapper of cloth". According to Smith, the constant wet weather and the rocky terrain made these hardships double what they would be in ordinary cases. One only has to visit the area to realise how inhospitable the bush must have been to these ill-prepared men
Finally, we start along the track. Yes, that's a track.
To be continued...
Part 2 - Dam & Quarry
Part 3 - Town
