West Tamar - Beauty Point

Last one :)

Beauty Point developed as a port for Beaconsfield. It's seen a resurgence lately with developments like Seahorse World. The pub got upgraded to a swanky drinking place, which is where the first three photos are taken from.

The Australian Maritime College has a campus here (their other campus shares the site with UniTas just down the road from me) and moor their ships here.




There's a park that runs along the edge of the river.




That's Bell Bay, the industrial port on the other side of the river.


We actually went looking for the shopping centre, because someone said it tells you a lot about the town. We'd just about given up on finding it when we got to this street.

West Tamar - Beaconsfield

Gold was discovered at Brandy Creek in the 1870s, and it wasn't long before a substantial town, renamed to Beaconsfield, grew up. It was said to one of the biggest in the state at one stage. According to Town With a History, by Coultman Smith, in 1899, the population was "2,699, with 7 hotels, eight boarding houses, five bakers, four blacksmiths, two doctors, two watchmakers, a solicitor, a tailor, 15 general stores, six greengrocers, five drapers, a state school, and four private schools."



The mine closed in 1914 and the town soon faded away. I pulled out my books to get the dates the mine was operational and ended up with enough notes to make another post so I'll do that another day.


These days, the mine again supports the town (the new mine can be seen behind the right hand brick building), with a bit of tourism and some service provision for the local area, because up here it's far to run into Launceston all the time to go tot he shops.




An odd little junk shop, with most of the goods on the floor


and the adjoining fruit stall


Opposite the mine site, there is a relocated school house and miner's cottage set up so visitors can look through the windows. I'll put up some photos of them in a later post too.

West Tamer - Exeter

Exeter is about halfway along the West Tamar Highway, in away from the river. It provides services for the surrounding area and smaller towns.

A few quick photos, including the obligatory dog on the back of a ute outside the shops.