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Revisiting the west coat. In fact, revisiting a site that I posted photos for back in January because that is what we did, and we discovered the more interesting parts.


So this is the lookout that I showed last time. The area was the site of a processing plant operated by the Tasmanian Metal Extraction Company (TME) in 1913/1914. This lookout is just off the Williamsford Road, and gives you a view over the site, but there's no access down to it.


However, if you leave turn off the main path just before the lookout and go around to the right and then around to the left, you eventually end up on the area below the lookout.

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Former Roller World skating centre, Merino St, Launceston.

Back in the 1980s, the roller skating centre was in the city proper--a warehouse on the cnr of Cimitiere & Tamar Sts--and it was where the teenagers went of a weekend. (A large main rink, smaller rink, kiosk, separate room with a wall-screen for films, lots of seats and corners for doing teenagery things in, all in enclosed area.) I'm not when it moved, but in the 1990s, the rink was out at the former Elphin Showgrounds. A smaller complex, without all the extra facilities. Then I assume it moved to the Merino St site when the showgrounds were closed. By this time, roller skating certainly wasn't as popular anymore. Nothing on the internet about the earlier sites, and my memory is mixed up. (There was also an older rink at Elphin, at the Cypress St end, which I seem to remember was operating in the 1970s and is possibly the same one in use in the 1950s. It had a different owner to the Cimitiere St rink, and possibly they were both operating at the same time at one point. Memory is a fuzzy thing.)


Anyway, the Merino St site seems to have closed about 2005. An archived copy of their website was last updated November 24. Then in February 2005, City Mission was looking to buy the site to replace their Youngtown warehouse after it burnt down. The fire at this site was in 2009. That we can't remember this, even though it was just a few years ago, probably shows how roller skating has declined in popularity.

I assume the fire is why the buildings is so well closed up now. No useful broken windows or gaps in the timber to take photos through.

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