Linda Valley & Royal Hotel

This is Linda, population not very many.

The internets are being unhelpful at giving up useful information, and I obviously have boxes of books to unpack somewhere. So I’ll have to rely on what I know, which is, um, not much. Still former mining town, you can probably tell the story yourself 🙂

I did find some old postcards in the State Library’s collection, so you can see that early in the 20th century it was town of some substance, with multiple hotels (I think four at one point) and boarding houses, a hall and shops. It was, at one point, the main town for workers at the nearby North Mt Lyell mine, and the end point of the railway. A busy little place, with a population in the hundreds.

Then it faded over the years, and the buildings went away, until it is as you see it today.

It does, however, have a phone box!

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Gormanston

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Gormanston, population 170. About one tenth what it was about a century ago when the town was home to employees of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, along with all the services a town needs: shops, hotels, local government, school, post office.

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Cut from a photo from the State Library of Victoria. Their photo is larger, if you want to look at details.

Another early view of the town

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Williamsford

Just outside Rosebery there is a dirt road that runs off the south. There are number of signs at the turn off that point to “Williamsford 6 km”, “Car Park 6 km”, Montezuma Falls.

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This area is a bit, well, uninhabited and has lots of trees. This photo and next one are taken from the car.

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And more trees. It’s rather long drive when there’s nothing to look at but trees. (I’m not sure what sort of trees. They’re mostly rainforest species–sassasfras, laurel, beech–and occasional gum trees. (Beeches are easy to pick in winter because they’re the only deciduous native tree, also they have distinctive small leaves.))

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Queenstown

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Alluvial gold was discovered near Queen River in the 1880s. From “Let’s Talk About Queenstown, put out by the then Tasmanian Visitor Corporation:

The news of the rich gold reef was welcomes by Pieman River diggers who found it hard to make a living from the worked out creeks, and many walked down to F.O. Henry’s store at Long Bay (Strahan) to get stores and mining implements before going up the King River.

The going was very rough. After reaching the navigable part of the King River there were rapids to be negotiated at frequent intervals, and often the boat had to be towed from the banks. The land journey was worse — through almost impenetrable jungle, packs had to be carried on men’s back. Incessant rainfall soon turned tracks in quagmire, stinking with rotten vegetation — a trap for man and later for horses used on the trail.

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