MEMOIRES

The Road from Circular Head

Circular Head, in the far North West of Tasmania, was a pretty isolated place when I was growing up, there was the road and the railway but the coastal trader still docked regularly at the Smithton wharf, a reminder of the little boats that used to ply a dangerous trade in Bass Straight.

It was a long way out of the district with the gravel road winding through the hills on the way to Wynyard and Burnie. You can probably still find parts of the old road like the terrible bend called the “Devil’s Elbow” if you poke about a bit off the new road.

That was the road from the farm near Irishtown that led to the Grammar School in Launceston, then to the University of Tasmania in Hobart, then to Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney.

Actually the farm was a mile off the Lower Scotchtown Road, running out of Smithton towards Edith Creek. Irishtown was the nearest place with a shop, a post office and a football team.  I grew up expecting to be a farmer and there was talk of agricultural college, then I went to boarding school (Launceston Grammar)  and the science master probably had a word to Dad and the talk shifted to Ag Science at the university.

Publication pending as an Amazon e book, details to be provided.