Tag Archives: Mt Direction

Either side of Bowen bridge – posting 1 of 9

Stage 8 of my walk from the mouth the source of the Derwent River took me under the Bowen Bridge on the eastern shore, and during Stage 10 I walked past the Bridge at Dowsing Point on the western shore after deciding to walk to the mouth on both sides of the river. However, when on the western shore I could not easily see a way to stick by the river edge at Dowsing Point, and since that day promised to be a long one I took the easy option and followed the streets which cut across the Point. I always felt that I hadn’t been quite honest in taking this approach and that I needed to return and be serious about walking the Derwent edge to the extent it was possible.

So return I did, and this series of postings records that visit.

As usual within the Greater Hobart Area, I took a Metro bus which dropped me off one morning within the Technopark precinct at Dowsing Point on the Hobart side of the Bowen Bridge. Technopark is a state government initiative started over 15 years ago with the aim of providing support and encouragement for small businesses and creative individuals with technological related ideas that could be developed into significant money earners for Tasmania’s productive growth. It’s brief has expanded since its inception.

By leaving the bus at the turning circle within Technopark I hoped there might be ways to walk to the river edge and then continue around Dowsing Point. Until I looked around that day, I had not realised this precinct is seriously fenced, including the installation of electric fencing, and there is no exit except through the main fortified entrance gates. In the photo below you can see three layers of fencing, with barbed wire strung up at the top of the closer two fence lines- and the Bowen Bridge across the Derwent River in the distance.

I walked to corners and along the fence lines without finding a gap, a gate or any chance of passing through. I could see the Derwent River and the Bowen Bridge with Mt Direction overlooking both – but I could not reach them from the Technopark site.

So I had no choice except to leave the Technopark and try other options to reach the River. The day displayed a stunning blue sky overhead and a moderate breeze which rattled the long grasses. Mount Wellington was ever present as I walked away from the river.

Before long I passed through the gates and headed away from Technopark with the aim to walk to the Bowen Bridge.

Goodwood. Not sure about the ‘good’.

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After walking across Goodwood Road (on Stage 10 of my walk along the Derwent River) which extends from the Bowen Bridge at one end to Glenorchy suburbs at the other, I was puzzled by a sign on one corner indicating behind it was a Model Park. There were no trees. What sort of park was this? It seems this is a place for big boys to play with their model cars etc. Special tracks were clustered in different parts of the ‘park’.

Not much further along the road to the left (Innovation Drive –someone gave this name a lot of thought and presumably smirked in satisfaction) was signed as the entry to Tasmania’s hopes for technological innovation, Tasmanian Technopark.

The Technopark was the brainchild of a government minister and his public service department around 2000. A small amount of information can be read at http://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/home/about_us/tasmanian_technopark. A federal government website has a whisper of additional information at http://www.australiangovernmentgrants.org/TASMANIAN-TECHNOPARK.php. I am surprised that there is no easily googled publicity about the achievements of this program. Can Tasmania ever equal the cut and thrust of innovation coming out of other small or remote places like Singapore, Finland, Iceland, etc? What are we doing right and what could be done better to achieve successes? Who knows? I couldn’t find any such information on the internet.

In the absence of any clear way to walk around the Derwent River edge of Dowsing Point, on which the Technopark is located, I thought it best to leave that exploration for another day and to continue along Howard Road.

Goodwood, in my experience, turned out to be the dog poo suburb of the Greater Hobart Area. Excrement was everywhere in perfect form or squashed on the pavements, or the various colours dotted grassy verges. I didn’t waste time on photography for which I am sure you are thankful – the choices were too great!

Firstly I turned left into Negara Crescent which was a street combining mean, low level, paint-flaking, unmown lawns, weed infested residential properties (okay – well not all were, but many were) with light industry such as Linen Services Tasmania, boat works, Anchor Wet Suits, Towbar and Crash bar repairs, fishing supplies, and a large unnamed workshop building emitting unpleasant chemical smells. Those houses which had Derwent River frontage sometimes had escaped overgrown blackberry infestations blocking river access in their back yards. There wasn’t a sense of wanting to live caringly or beautifully here. Accessing the River is impossible without entering private land around this locality. The built-in nature of some parts can be seen on the sign for a block of land that has been sold.

By 9.45am I was joining back onto Howard Road. I walked on past bus stop 34, and the nearby Take Away Food shop and reached the Giblin Reserve around 9.50am. Photos of the surrounds are as follows:

I sat for a while in the Reserve, watching a man in his car eating his take away meal, and taking in the surroundings. This was a part of Prince of Wales Bay.

In the distance I watched the steam/smoke pouring from the zinc works of Nystar, a large industry owning considerable property along the Derwent River a little south from where I sat for a while and soaked in the atmosphere.

Once I continued walking southwards around the Bay, I passed a kid’s playground, BBQ area, public toilets and ducks quacking. When stymied by lack of water access around 10.05am, I walked up onto Gepp Parade and walked past a tree laden with not yet ripe nectarines, and later a row of junky looking boathouses. I wondered who wouldn’t be interested in removing their half sunk boat.

Eventually, through the bitumen path, weeds began to multiply then suddenly this ‘formal’ path stopped and an occasionally trodden pathway through the weeds was all I had to continue on.

I couldn’t help thinking that wherever a local government area is almost at the end of one and near the start of another area, there is more rubbish not collected and the general appearance of places is rather shabby. This has been the case on earlier stages of my walk, and now as I was at the extremity of the City of Glenorchy and coming closer to the City of Hobart boundary, the amount of visible rubbish and untidiness was escalating.

However, looking out over the water of the Bay (and if I tried not to study the weedy edges with their coloured flotsam and jetsam) to Mt Direction on the other side of the Derwent River, presented me with an attractive view.

When I could get back down onto a weedy area, I followed man-made tracks and continued almost to the Sewage Treatment Farm (which I could see had wired fencing into the water that barred my continuous shore access) then headed up through the trees and onto a disused railway line. I crossed this, climbed a weedy rise spattered with rubbish, clambered over a metal guard rail and stood on Derwent Park Road which is the main road to Nystar and other industry located by the River. It was 10.25am when I reached this point. I had been plodding along for almost three hours.