Well-maintained cottages with blooming gardens neighbour dilapidated homes. Abandoned houses,some with a neat row of tree ferns brushing up against the peeling paint of their corrugated iron walls,are dotted around. Real estate is rock-bottom so it's virtually impossible to come away from Queenstown not fantasising about buying a fixer-upper with wooden floorboards and pressed tin ceilings.
For former miner,Anthony Coulson,the changes at Mount Lyell were a catalyst – he's since come out to his own town as a greenie. His company,RoamWild,takes visitors up to the shaly saddle of Mount Owen for sunset then down into the forest to observe night-time wildlife among the Huon pines and explore abandoned mine tunnels. Coulson feels as privileged to have been around for the bar fights,lock-ins and lunar landscape as he is to be part of the current revolution.
Coulson,and his partner,Joy Chappell have painstakingly restored Queenstown's former grand talkie theatre,the Paragon. Its program of live music performances and classic films has officially returned non-pub nightlife to Queenie. Lea Walpole now has a studio on Orr Street. Queenstown-born Rick Snell,a Hobart-based retired professor,has opened the town's first bookshop.
Nearby,on Hunter Street,is LARQ,a converted schoolhouse and non-profit studio and gallery belonging to painter Helena Demczuk and her partner Raymond Arnold,a two-time Glover Prize winner. Across the road,Queenstown-born artist,David Fitzpatrick,and partner in design,Julie Roundhill,are reinvigorating what was originally a dancehall.
West Coast timber merchants and millers,the Bradshaws of Tasmanian Special Timbers,hope the artists are here to stay. Ninety-year-old Bern Bradshaw,who attends local exhibitions and festival events,tells me"the world is made up of people with different ideas and just as well it is".
"It's no longer a mining town,it's a town with a mine,"says Mal Gotjes at Q West Art Gallery. Yet Queenstown continues to grapple with its identity – past,present and future. Biennial visual and performing arts festival,The Unconformity,provides a valuable vehicle for that collective journey.
A bird's-eye view of the orange Queen River winding through cool-temperate rainforest has been used to advertise The Unconformity."We put our pollution in our brand,"says festival director Travis Tiddy."We're not proud of it but it's part of our DNA."
West Coast Tasmanians like Tiddy and others who've made Queenie home don't sugar-coat the scarred landscape,tragic history and rougher-edged locals but they are trying to shift outsider perception of the state's most misunderstood town.
"We wanted something that's not shying away from the brutality of what's happened here,"says Walpole,the festival's graphic designer."Its brutal beauty and the conflict between industrial devastation and the World Heritage area,five minutes away,is what draws artists."For 2018's Unconformity,226 people from Australia and overseas applied for an artist-in-residence placement.
The Unconformity always begins with a Welcome to Country performed by Palawa (Aboriginal Tasmanians) from the West Coast. Artists are invited to"mine the bones"of Queenstown's past through site-specific works within the town or out at places like the confluence,the falls,the quarry. There are food trucks and live bands down a mural-adorned alleyway. At night the Paragon holds joyful after parties where Queenstown footballers bump hips with visiting Hobartians.
When completion of the Lyell Highway in 1932 created access to Hobart there was concern in Queenstown this would weaken their unique community spirit. Even now,when change is being embraced,that sentiment remains relevant.
When I meet David Fitzpatrick,he points to an abstract artwork on his shed doors."I call that piece The Edge,"he says."That's where we need to stay."
FIVE THINGS TO DO NEAR QUEENSTOWN
GO WILD
RoamWild Tasmania offers tours of Queenstown's industrial past and the area's magnificent natural environment. Seeroamwild.com.au
WALK
Five kilometres from Queenstown is a 500-metre-long boardwalk to a viewing platform overlooking Horsetail Falls.
LOOK OUT
Straight across the road from the start of the Horsetail Falls walk is a wheelchair accessible lookout over Iron Blow.
ROLL
Queenstown to Dubbil Barril on the West Coast Wilderness Railway offers sensational views into King River Gorge. Phone ahead for details on accessibility. Seewcwr.com.au
PADDLE
During the warmer months King River Rafting operates flatwater and white-water rafting adventures. Seekingriverrafting.com.au
THE DETAILS
Elspeth Callender was a guest of Tourism Tasmania,The Unconformity and Penghana Bed&Breakfast.
STAY
Penghana B&B,originally the mining manager's mansion,caters for a range of budgets from $75 a night. Seepenghana.com.au
FESTIVAL
The Unconformity festival is on October 16 to 18,2020. Seetheunconformity.com.au