Morning came the 7th Day...

 And we were at the bus stop at 7am, to catch the school run to Queensland. "You can pay by card, just phone the office, or I'll call at the IGA and you can get cash". No trouble! Luke popped into IGA.



Again a great, talkative bus driver, Pat. On Friday he will drive us to Derwent Bridge. Today he called the driver of the bus who will take us onto Hobart- just to make sure  Targa wasn't disrupting All good.



Kids here went back to school today. Couldn't help overhearing conversations, "What did you do in the holidays". Needs here are simple. "We went to Devonport. And we had fast food". 20 mins of discussion. In this area there are no fast food chains.

The sun came out. We took advantage and decided to walk. Quite a steep one up a significant hill called Spion Kop. Great all round vision of Queenstown. We were here in 1995; a very different landscape. The desolate hills scarred by sulphur, mining and rain have been revegetated and look very healthy 


So much history. Town buildings reflect this..not all iconic. Effort has been made to  preserve the more ordinary buildings with street art- in fact art and tourism are the main focus

This is a funny local story


Population is only 1700 now, so its a small town. The rain continued,as they say, if you can't see the top of the mountain,it's raining. If you can, it's about to rain. Well it teemed all afternoon! We took refuge in the Galley Museum. In an refurbished old hotel building there were 17 rooms of stuff! But done very well. After 4 hours we felt we knew where we were. 


The Gaiety Theatre..no-one seems to know its history

An old hotel under restoration...they try hard. Seems they have started a big mtn bike project, working on several big trails on Mt Owen. The have completed the site in the middle of town which will be "Bike Central".


Mt Owen as the backdrop.
And so ends the 7th day....we didn't rest!

Comments

  1. Peter GravesApril 22, 2021 at 6:21 PM

    Hi Luke - great photos and entertaining commentary.

    One query, with that very large sign "The Germans are Coming" just above the other sign "The Battle of Spion Kop" - were the two supposed to have been connected ? As I'm sure, that Battle was between British and two Boer Republics - and the Boers were not connected with Germany.

    The Battle of Spion Kop (Dutch: Slag bij Spionkop; Afrikaans: Slag van Spioenkop) was a military engagement between British forces and two Boer Republics—the South African Republic and the Orange Free State—during the campaign by the British to relieve the besieged city Ladysmith during the initial months of the Second Boer War. The battle was fought 23–24 January 1900 on the hilltop of Spion Kop(1), about 38 km (24 mi) west-southwest of Ladysmith.

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