TazMania Part IV - Launceston

Launcseton is Australia's third oldest settlement, home to the famous Boag's brewery and possibly one of the most neatly-packed touristic towns you would ever see. With its vibrant migrants and students' community, you could have a french cafe and croissant for breakfast, Turkish Doner Kebab for lunch and Chili con Carne for dinner, all within the same city block, and this is in a 90,000 residents town! It also has some nice nearby natural attractions, a beautiful waterfront, some really impressive historic buildings, a university and design centre and probably some of Australia's nicest people. It even has its own footy team and - what else - a Chabad centre.

The following pictures were taken in and around the Queen Victoria Museum in the Inveresk precinct. This area used to be the old rail yards of the city, with lots of warehouses, plants and industrial activity. But as these have phased out, the city cleared this area and converted it to a Museum, Academic and cafes' district, with some of the original buildings remaining in thier place. The tools shots are from the Blacksmith shop, a really cool industrial era display.










































































A restoration of an old tram coach. Launceston had an extensive, 20 km tram lines system running around its impossible topography (it sits amid a valley, yet maintains the classic new world streets' grid), but by 1968 they were all disassembled because they were "interfering" with other means of traffic, namely cars. Progress is indeed a wonderful thing...