writer BERT SPINKS photographer PEN TAYLER
When Abel Tasman sailed in southern seas in 1642, the first thing he saw of our island’s terrain was two modest protuberances on the west coast. He named them after his ships, which were the Zeehaen and the Heemskirk, and so two of the more beautiful and exotic place names were fixed to the Tasmanian map. The Zeehaen (the “sea chook”, if I may venture a rough translation), was later adopted as the name of a town, with a slight alteration to the spelling. It endures on the west coast and an interesting community has built itself around it over the years.
Abel Tasman scooted swiftly past Tasmania, not thinking of it with particular fondness. Had he known the mineral wealth to be found in the vicinity of his west coast mountains, he might have thought differently. Tin was found on the west coast in the 1870s and successful surveys were carried out nearby in its wake. Soon afterwards, Mount Heemskirk was scoured for tin – at one point 150 men prospected there – but within years they were gone and attention had shifted to the drainage systems off other hills in the vicinity. In 1882 a group of prospectors, led by Frank Long, found silver-bearing rock in Pea Soup Creek.
A number of mining leases were subsequently staked and Zeehan became the centre of a mining bonanza. It grew almost overnight and attracted a motley populace. As local writer Horrie Hodge put it, “It was a land of hope and glory, a new exciting city, which with its freshly discovered mineral wealth had become an El Dorado of the West. Hundreds of miners mixed freely with bushmen, business men, singers, musicians, gamblers, boxers, stockbrokers, and people of many classifications including some odd characters … ”
There was indeed a preponderance of men, to begin with. In 1891, there were about 300 women out of a total population of 2000. In nearby Dundas – the next big prospecting site – there were 1080 men, with 18 women. Charles Whitham (who wrote one of the early guide books of western Tasmania, in 1924) records brief biographies of a few of these women. According to him, the first woman to arrive in the area was named Jemima; her surname is lost. She arrived in 1880 with her husband and son, and gave birth to another child in camp on Montagu Hill. Those mining camps can’t have been ideal conditions for childbirth.
Perhaps unexpectedly, much of the life and times of these early miners is memorialised in verse. Most of it was published in the Zeehan and Dundas Herald, a local newspaper that became defunct in 1922, at the end of Zeehan’s heyday. The poems were about working conditions, mining accidents and political change, and almost all of them describe the hardships of the miners. One poet, for example, writes a whole sonnet about the mud – even as he claims that “Never yet was a tuneful lyre struck in honor of the mud!”
A recent anthology also shares the curious rapport between a Hobart woman and the bushmen of the west coast. The poems of “Colleen” (the pseudonym is all we know of her) praise these prospectors, “Afar from the pleasures of social life / On the Western Fields ‘out back’.” They drew responses from anonymous versifiers on the minefields, who were clearly chuffed to be the subject of poetry. No doubt discussions about Colleen spurred many a campfire conversation. As ‘One of the Boys’ wrote:
And the health of our ‘Colleen’ is toasted with zest
By the prospector ‘boys’ in the wilds of the West.
Zeehan then was a “vociferous town”, Charles Whitman wrote wistfully from personal experience. “I recollect the arrival at Zeehan,” he reminisced, “but not the departure, for we were led into a bar where roaring shouters seemed to have always three glasses before each of us. It was a time of riotous hopes – no, not hopes, but certainties.” We can well imagine how eager some of those old-timers would have been to get into a bar after some weeks on the wallaby track. The various pubs must have seemed a very warm and welcome retreat.
Zeehan’s population grew quickly – it became the third-largest town in Tasmania near the end of the 1800s, although it was soon eclipsed by Queenstown (which was in turn overtaken by another boom-and-bust town). But Zeehan’s political significance drew a larger-than-life to be its representative. It was a career move that brought King O’Malley to Zeehan.
O’Malley was originally North American and from all accounts he was like no-one else the west coast has ever seen. He may have been an odd fit on the west coast. He was a teetotaller, after all, and railed against the consumption of alcohol – and as the anecdotes above suggest, west coast miners didn’t mind a strong drink. Dressed in a dapper style, O’Malley was highly religious. His sizeable ego powered some bombastic speeches. One historian says he possessed a “monstrously overgrown persona”. Then again, there must have been plenty of tolerance for eccentrics in those days. The western mining fields were working by sorts of weirdos. Whatever the case, O’Malley made his mark on Australian politics – among other matters, he played a large role in setting up the Commonwealth Bank.
Mining in Zeehan peaked about a century ago, although the industry is still a presence in the region. Most of the past activity is slowly being claimed by wet forests – someone kicking up a tuft of moss may unwittingly expose some remnant of historic infrastructure. Some of these towns can still be visited, while others have been swallowed whole by west coast bush. Adventurous bushwalkers and amateur prospectors are discouraged from heading off-track without getting a good amount of local information, because there are still uncapped shafts around the place.
Mines are still open around Zeehan: deposits of nickel, zinc and tin are all worked in the general vicinity. Another small-scale mine in Dundas is a different kettle of fish: their shaft contains crocoite, a stunning saffron-coloured mineral – a small explosion of thin crystal needles, it reminds me of a translucent orange echidna.
Dundas was once a thriving town, with about 500 dwellings and six pubs. It has dwindled to almost nothingness. In such a place, however, there are still tales of sudden riches from recent lucky strikes. In gem shops around Tasmania you’ll find specimens of the exotic rocks sourced around here – another one to look out for is stichtite, a boldly-coloured carbonate mineral, which was named in Zeehan.
For the most part, though, Zeehan is a quiet little town. In some ways it’s hard to believe the yarns of yesteryear. The presence of the Federation-style Gaiety Theatre is the greatest sign that this was once a bustling place – a truly grandiose piece of architecture, the Gaiety was finished in 1898 and could seat 1,000 people. The venue hosted pretty much every imaginable entertainment of the epoch; a touring wrestling show even graced the Gaiety’s stage.
In some ways, the Gaiety Theatre accentuates just how distant are the memories of Zeehan’s heyday. Nowadays, the building hosts the West Coast Heritage Centre, where visitors may get a closer look at what’s happened here. But its mere presence on the main drag can be a stark contrast to the quiet’s solemnity and the drabness of much of its architecture. Although some of the older digs are being replaced, there are plenty of more recent buildings that have not weathered the west coast conditions so well.
“Human beings are naturally gregarians and nothing is more frustrating and dejecting than loneliness and the emptyness of isolation,” writes Horrie Hodge in his book, When Zeehan Comes Back Again, which was compiled for the town’s centenary in 1982. Hodge was raised in a Zeehan hotel and his little tome is packed with colourful tales from such establishments. But perhaps these days Zeehan is not so much a place for “gregarians”. While I’m sure there are still boisterous nights in the two hotels still open in the town, I’ve often found that the west coast more often affords the chance for quiet and solitude.
On my most recent trip to Zeehan, I drove through snow to get there. A grey gloom hung over the town; I’d planned to camp but given the weather, and the fact that it was my birthday, I decided to book a room in the Hotel Cecil. For company I had the receptionist and barman, a young bloke who candidly answered my questions about growing up on the west coast. Meanwhile, the television blared, and I ordered a meal of Thai noodles and a stubby. Later I’d hear the dining room fill up, and in the morning I was woken by workers stomping and scuffing up the hall. But when I rolled out of bed, at 5.30am, the hotel was entirely empty yet again.
As Horrie Hodge wrote in 1982, “Regarding Zeehan’s future, time alone will provide the answer, but, if the charm and glory of the past is to return, it will appear in no other form than in dreams.”
As if to prove that verse is the west coaster’s natural art form, Hodge concluded his commemoration with a long, astonishing bush poem – much of it is comprised of a kind of historical hallucination. “I saw, in fancy, at the bar the past was back again,” Hodge writes and, at a cracking pace, the poet begins reciting an enormous list of prominent names from the west coast’s prime. It builds to a thunderous crescendo. There is even mention of a “Cecil Cabaret”, something which – like the wrestling bouts at the Gaiety – I’d give an arm and a leg to have seen.
But although I marvel at these idle dreams of the populous past, I’m sure there is much in the social life of an old mining town to which I’d have had an aversion. These days I find myself drawn to Zeehan for the isolation. The silhouettes of rosellas in the morning fog, or a view of snow-capped Mount Read, or a lonely horse in a paddock marked with daffodils – such images are fixed in memory from my road trips to Zeehan over recent years.
Just west of the town, a gravel road winds down to the ocean. A small shack town named Trial Harbour hugs the coast; fittingly it’s named after a ship called the Trial, which wrecked on the rocks hereabouts. If westerlies aren’t blowing into the bay, it’s the perfect spot to watch a sunset. There’s something awe-inspiring about sunsets on the west coast, because you’re know the next leg of that solar journey is entirely across ocean. South America’s out there somewhere. The sense of distance and solitude can be immense, and for those of us who are so inclined, that feeling is as inspiring as finding yourself in the thick of a crowd.
Not far away, you can walk to Montezuma Falls. It’s a simple hike with ample reward for effort. The falls are said to be the highest in Tasmania and the rainforest in which the cascades are embedded is truly beautiful. Native laurel, sassafras and myrtle intermingle in a lovely collage of various greens.
Naturally, too, mountain bike trails have been built at the back of town, in the Oonah Hills – there are few Tassie towns that haven’t caught onto the popularity of mountain biking! Beginning in buttongrass plains, the trails roll down through forest near the edge of town. As one rider mused in an online review, it has “great flow with the potential bonus of falling down a mine shaft if you come off the trail”.
Bert Spinks grew up in Beaconsfield and is now, mostly, a resident of Launceston. He is a writer, storyteller and bushwalking guide, each of which feed and reflect his interest in the way human communities interact with place and landscape. He focuses especially on journeys and movement, language and literature. Although based in Launceston, Bert spends much of his time without a home because he is in one of the world's wild or interesting places pursing local lore.
Pen Tayler is a Tasmanian writer and photographer. She photographed 12 towns for Towns of Tasmania, written by Bert Spinks, and has written and provided images for Hop Kilns of Tasmania (both Forty South Publishing). She has also written a book about Prospect House and Belmont House in the Coal River Valley.