Tag Archives: Rokeby

Howrah

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My walk today  (my fourth walk) along the Derwent River must pass through Howrah, an eastern shore suburb adjacent to Tranmere in the City of Clarence (part of the Greater Hobart Area).

The Clarence City Council records that Howrah was named after Howrah House (or Howrah Farm, an alternative source suggests), a property established in the 1830s on Clarence Plains by a retired Indian Army officer Captain James Fielder. According to the Asiatic Journal of the times, when Fielder was a branch pilot in Calcutta (which in our recent times has been renamed Kolkata), his wife had a son in Kolkata on 3 March 1830 so travel to Tasmania occurred sometime after that. On 25 March 1835, ‘the lady of Captain James Fielder’ gave birth to a daughter at Clarence Plains. Fielder arrived in Hobart at least a year earlier if the information in http://vdlworldimmigrants.wordpress.com/stories-of-immigrants-pre-1900 is correct.  “A newspaper notice by James Fielder of Howrah Farm, Clarence Plains, dated 17 November 1834 reads: Run Away On Friday the 14th instant, my apprentice boy, named Charles Connor, a native of India, between 16 and 17 years of age. I therefore warn all persons against harbouring him. He has on a narrow blue striped shirt, under a blue baize shirt, duck trowsers, lace shoes, and a tarpaulin hat. A reward of ten shillings will be given by the Undersigned to any constable who may take him up.”

Captain James Fielder took the name Howrah from a place of the same name near Kolkata. Clarence Plains is now known as Rokeby, a suburb I passed through on route to my first two walking stages on the South Arm peninsula. Rokeby is located over the hill from Howrah.

I found another historical connection when I recalled that Lieutenant John Hayes, who named our Derwent River, sailed from Kolkata in 1793.

With a little online research, I found that Howrah is the twin city to Kolkata in the state of Bengal in India, separated only by the Hoogly River. Back when Hayes was in the India, Kolkata was the capital of India during the British Raj so I imagine a bustling, active and expanding city.

On 11 October 1760, the Indian Howrah district came under control of the East India Company (EIC) – a massive trading company with ships travelling the world.  In 1823, when Bishop Reginald Heber described Howrah as the place “chiefly inhabited by shipbuilders”, it confirmed that location as a significant base for the 27 year old Hayes before he took leave of the EIC, acquired a couple of merchant sponsors who built him two ships, and sailed to Tasmania.  In addition to the shipbuilding industry, I have been pleased to learn that the British created a balance in the landscape by establishing the Indian Botanical Gardens in 1786. Perhaps Hayes experienced this maturing garden before he left in 1793. When he sailed into the Derwent River the Rokeby Hills would have been heavily forested (not cleared or edged with suburbs as they are today) and might have seemed similar to a botanical garden – a place with unusual vegetation.

Is there any chance Lieutenant John Hayes looked at our trees and remembered the Indian Botanical Garden?

Stage 2 on 4/9/2014 Travelling towards the South Arm peninsula Email 2 of 14

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For people with lives normally immersed in the big cities of the world, travelling this route to Opossum Bay will be full of surprises.

Hobart is a capital city yet, after not many minutes of travelling, the bus passes through bush land from time to time, before coming out into clusters of developing real estate. Springing up around many corners, the landscape is meshed with strips of dark bitumen. These cul de sacs and neighbourhood streets are usually featured with white concrete lengths of soon-to-be driveways into soon-to-be built houses on blocks cleared of all vegetation. These new suburbs represent the interest in having and the will to live in your own home – even if it means a 20 minute or so travel time to the city. We know that by the standards of other capital cities around Australia and the world that such travel times are but a blink of time.  The easy accessibility to the centre of the city is a great reason to live in suburban Hobart.

As usual the bus travelled through the suburb of Rokeby. I was eager for another view of Ralph’s Bay remembering its sparkling crisp deep blue expanse when I travelled this way for Stage 1 of the walk. This time the colours were different however, despite the sun shining. Perhaps it was the high level wispy cirrus clouds that filtered the light and affected the colour of Ralph’s Bay on this journey. This time, when travelling the streets at the top of Rokeby, the spread of water was coloured a warmer tone of greys and pale greens. The Bay looked benign and neutral, and was all together welcoming. Further on in the journey, I passed the mud flats at the Lauderdale site of the Bay. The tide was in further than previously and covered most of the mud. I couldn’t help but think how time makes small differences in our world – it is only two weeks since I was travelling here on route for the first walk and, at that time, acres of mud flats were on show.

What else did I see during this bus trip?  Glossy dew on lawns. White blossom on fruit trees. Pink blossom. A well-painted graffiti wall, following a colourful display of clever mosaics in the suburb Clarendon Vale.  Road signs with the symbol of a horse with rider warning of the additional ‘traffic’ which the road might share. Paddocks with grazing horses. Horseboxes. White fences. As the bus started on the road across the isthmus to the South Arm peninsula one sign with a stylised image of a Pied Oyster Catcher bird indicated travellers should be aware that these birds may want to walk across the road from time to time.  Later, on the return to Hobart journey, I noted perhaps 50 Black Oyster Catcher birds resting as a large family, on the sandy edge of Ralph’s Bay near the sign.  They were not in the least put out by the rattling of the passing bus. 

The second stage of the walking tour

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Tomorrow, Thursday 4 September, I plan to walk a second stage of my foot journey along the eastern shore of the Derwent river.  As with the first leg, I need to take Bus 640 that departs from the Hobart city bus mall at 8am and heads towards Opossum Bay.  I will jump on the bus once it reaches the eastern shore and, as before, I know I must be patient because it will weave through the suburbs of Rokeby and Clarendon Vale before passing Lauderdale, Sandford and South Arm (details of these great locations are in the earlier postings related to the first stage of the walk). My bus destination is the Opossum Bay Shop. From there I will walk north to Gellibrand Point via beaches, roads and open landscape.  I hope to be able to enjoy my pre-packed lunch sitting looking towards Mount Wellington before returning to the Driftwood Drive bus stop for my journey back towards Hobart. The morning low temperature is expected to be around 9 degrees when I arrive and rise to about 14 degrees around 1pm. The return bus leaves Opossum Bay at 2.02 so I hope it doesn’t rain before then.  Keeping my fingers crossed!

22 Aug 2014 Continuing to South Arm – Posting 2 of 8

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After leaving Rokeby, we weren’t back on the main road long before the bus deviated again; this time through the suburb of Clarendon Vale. There is a significant building here. As some sort of counterpoint to the modern Catholic Church next to the John Paul II Catholic School, down the road before reaching the main road you can see a heritage quality, beautiful old sandstone church.  This is St Matthews Anglican Church which comes with a reasonable size cemetery full of ancient headstones.  Would be worth a stop-over on a future excursion.

Here’s some additional information to whet your appetite.

From http://members.optusnet.com.au/~tacplaci/rokeby.html#r13, “The first service in the area was conducted by the Chaplain of Van Diemen’s Land, the Reverend Robert Knopwood in 1821, and he agitated for a Church for many years. Whilst the first burial, that of Catherine Chipman, took place in 1827, the foundation stone for the church was laid in 1840 after Knopwood’s death (1838). Knopwood is buried here, in a plain coffin with no name plate. The Church and its fittings and furnishings, the churchyard and burial ground are on the Register of the National Estate.”

From http://www.ohta.org.au/organs/organs/Rokeby.html you can gather further information including photos by John Maidment of the simple but striking building (see below) – all the more so because there are no other grandiose buildings nearby. 

 

 

Once the bus was back on the main road, we passed the suburb of Oakdowns on the left and the Tasmanian Police Academy on the right (the latter overlooking a glorious panorama of Ralph’s Bay) before taking a bend in the road and coasting down into the main drag of Lauderdale, a seaside suburb.  The tide across Ralph’s Bay was out leaving the rippled mudflats visible.

With suburban build-up left behind after Lauderdale, the scenery became entirely rural, except for the short line of houses in the shopless village of Sandford.

22 Aug 2014 Setting out to travel to South Arm – Posting 1 of 8

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The first stage of my walk along the Derwent River took me away from home for 7.5 hours. This included walking to the tip of the eastern side of the mouth of the Derwent River in the South Arm area, then gradually plodding northward on the eastern side of the river.  I am exhausted but exhilarated. When I stand on my feet or move around, my body screams ‘sit down, stay still, and never move again!’

My walk started at Bellerive when I jumped on the Metro bus No 640 that departed from Hobart at 8am. The sky was blue and cloudless but I was rugged up and beanied to avoid the early morning chill. I was nervous, and queasily excited. This felt so much like travelling into the unknown when overseas; an unknown destination (years ago Ru took me to a weekend market at South Arm, and prior to that I had driven down and back to Opossum Bay – but I have never spent time in or explored the area), unknown bus stops and reliability of timetables, new maps, unknown people and circumstances, and no idea how long it would take me to cover the stage I had planned.  The return bus was leaving Opossum Bay at 2.02pm and the next one wasn’t leaving until 5.55pm. I wanted to time my walk to catch the earlier rather than the later bus because I knew my feet wouldn’t last long. I calmed myself with the realisation, that unlike the situation with most of my travels, I had a mobile phone and sufficient funds for a taxi if need be.

Nothing I imagined turned out to be.

I had thought there would be no one on the bus because everyone would be heading towards Hobart.  Of course, this was a dopey idea. But I was the only passenger from Lauderdale onwards as the bus sped along the uneven bitumen rattling strongly (these buses are not designed for nonurban areas).

What did I see during the bus trip? Peak hour traffic streaming towards the city. The Bridgewater Jerry steaming down the Derwent to the sea. The early morning sun in the driver’s eyes. Hard winter sun on the new growth on gum trees.  Yellow floral masses on wattle trees.  Dew still sparkling on wet grass. Rare smoke trails from occasional chimneys.  Sheep, horses, llamas, billy goats, olive trees and small house orchards. It was a simply gorgeous day to behold.

The bus route deviated through the back streets of Rokeby, a tiny suburb still 30 kilometres from Opossum Bay. From the upper streets the blue flat glittering expanse of Ralph’s Bay (which is fed by the Derwent River) was stunning.