The Visited Landscape
THE HOLIDAY ISLAND’S ORIGINAL TOURIST DESTINATION PRECINCT
“It is as much for the fun of the thing, or for the sake of having to say that they have climbed a very high mountain, that the majority of people do so.”
Ascending the mountain and wandering the rim of the Range to take in the view, to see where people are living is an ancient practice. After settlement, the mountain became one of Australia’s earliest tourist destinations.
Who were the first ‘tourists’ to climb the mountain? de Quincey reported that a party from the steamer Seahorse en route to Sydney stopped in Hobart for an engine overhaul. Making up a party, ‘they became some of the first recorded tourists to actually climb to the pinnacle…’ The year? 1841. That is fifty years before the Tasmanian Tourist Association formed in 1893.
Mount Wellington, de Quincey goes on to write, ‘was always featured in every handbook, tourist or accomodation guide, but when few tracks existed, tourists were often enticed by the idea that it could be a difficult and rather frightening adventure.; (p 89.)
Visitors came to obtain a view that very few could otherwise experience. A view like out of an aeroplane at a time when there were no aeroplanes. A view like from a place higher than any point in the British Isles.
Once at the mountain, tourists also explored its fern gullies , its tall trees, and walked its enchanting Pipeline Track to picnic at the Bower.
Along the way, due to the popularity of this high altitude attraction (though we have few records of the mile high club), facilities to cater for the visitors were created: tracks, lookouts, signposts, guidebooks, shelters, seats, picnic areas, carriageways, hostels, hotels. Later, additional attractions like native gardens, tea-houses, and roads, ski-fields, huts.
HISTORY
The mountain has been a landmark for millennia. The muwinina went up the mountain to enjoy the view. Following in their footsteps came tourists.
The mountain’s lookouts and shelters form Tasmania’s earliest tourism precinct and have been Hobart’s major tourist attraction for centuries.
The mountain’s view been the subject of rave reviews by visitors from around the world thought the ages—according to the pages of the local press. The mountain is therein described over and again as the most beautiful, spectacular place on Earth, extolled in the earliest (1850s) visitor guides and later tourist brochures.
“We had seen in Australasia a succession of finest harbours in the world. It would be difficult to pick between them, but as far as the aspect of a city as seen from the sea is concerned, I think that Hobart must take the palm; truly, Mount Wellington forms as noble a background to a city as can be found in the world.”
The View of the mountain’s landscape has not displeased the only humans who can be mentioned in connection with nobility and majesty: royalty. During the visit to Tasmania in 1900 by the then Duke and Duchess of York—later England’s King and Queen—a writer for London’s Morning Post wrote that from the deck of the royal ship chartered for the cruise:
Whilst visiting Cape Town, South Africa in the early 1960s and taking in the view from Table Mountain, the Queen reportedly told palace staff it was not as beautiful as Mount Wellington and the view over Hobart. The Advocate newspaper 29 May 1989
“I have climbed mountains in four States, and in my memory have something of a collection of inspiring views, but nowhere do I know of a panorama so fairy-like and enchanting as the wide vista which with lightning change and almost bewilderingly varied beauty evolves itself to the right seeker who ventures to the rock-strewn cap of this silent sentinel of Southern Tasmania.”
“Seek the Pinnacle with a map and compass in hand and you shall see most of Tasmania.”
Personal guides were on hand to guide the intrepid in the 1830s. Since at least the 1840s, a beacon was erected at The Pinnacle to dramatise the summit and enhance the view, as well as serving as a survey point. Horse-driven coaches carried tourists to The Springs by the 1850s, where they could hostel overnight in the Woods hostel before walking on to the Pinnacle. At the turn of the 20th century, a 12-room hotel was built at the Springs.
Many companies—Webster, Rometch and Duncan, John Austin’s Brakes, Brougham’s Coaches, Garnet Self, and others—then started charabanc transport to bring tourists and walkers to the Springs. Photographers such as the Russian political refugee P. M. Koonin made a living snapping the parties as they descended.
The tourism industry has always been very active in promoting the mountain and preserving it against depredations of all sorts. de Quincey writes that the Association saw the passage of the Mountain Park Act ‘as an almost personal achievement’ and rightly sits at the table of the mountain’s governing Management Trust.
MOVEABLE HERITAGE
From the beginning of the era of postcards, the mountain has proved to be the most popular of all Tasmanian photographic subjects. The Grist collection alone holds around 800 different kunanyi/Mount Wellington cards, a sample of which are shown. Every photographer of note attempted the mountain. The cards were sent to both mainland and overseas addresses and helped to create an enthusiastic tourist market to the Mountain in the early 20th century.
HERITAGE VALUES
As a tourist destination, the mountain proffers Historical, Aesthetic, Archaeological and Social heritage values.
HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE
It is one of the earliest tourism destinations in Tasmania, and thus in Australia.
HERITAGE ASSESSMENT
A keystone in Australia’s tourism history, prominently figuring in Julia Horne’s history of Australian tourism In Pursuit of Wonder, at least three academic dissertations focus on tourism in Tasmania.
The Wellington Park Management Plan recognises the heritage significance of tourism infrastructure and associated beauty spots. The complex of tourism places includes The Springs precinct with its Springs Hotel and earlier hostel and lookout, the Exhibition Gardens, the surrounding tracks; and elsewhere on the Mountain—the fern glades and the Pinnacle Area Precinct with its Beacon and lookouts.
The view itself, both looking up to and down from, the Mountain was cited by de Grace as of likely national heritage significance.
SOURCES
The Pursuit of Wonder by Julia Horne