Tuesday Treasures Once Again

I haven’t played Tuesday Treasures for a while, but when I was getting things ready for our Swap Meet stall I found this wonderful old treasure in a box at the back of a cupboard.  It is now on display in a bookcase, where it should be.

We found this on our honeymoon in Tasmania nearly twenty five years ago.  As usual, there is a bit of a story behind it.

On our first day in Tasmania we were in Launceston and visited the “Penny Royal Mill” which was very well publicised at THE place to visit.  When we got there, it was expensive and more like a theme park.  Mick was NOT impressed and declared on the spot that he wasn’t going to any more touristy things.

While planning our trip I had used a wonderful booklet put out by “Tasbureau”, which listed every town and village and I had marked all the places that I thought would be worth visiting. I had hoped to visit one the next day.  Mick declared that he would wait in the car.  I finally convinced him to  give it a go as I thought it sounded really interesting. 

The place I wanted to visit was an old gold mine. It was in a small town and very simple. The wonderful old buildings were being maintained by the National Trust, with the workings and museum in the front of the building and a big glass wall looking over the back part, which had crumbled, and had been turned into a sunken garden. It cost the princely sum of 50c each entry.

Well, as you might gather, it was one of the highlights of our trip.  The ladies from the National Trust were delightful and informative and the place itself fascinating.  The garden was just lovely.  In the little gift shop (just a couple of shelves) they were selling these original crucibles used to process the ore.  What a great souvenir, not cheap plastic junk.

When we returned to Tasmania in 2006 this was one of the places we were definitely visiting again, which we did.  It was still lovely, but was now a lot more touristy with a great big gift shop. Since our first visit it had gone much more upmarket and the old mine was also working again.

You can imagine our sadness when only a couple of weeks after our second visit we heard of the Beaconsfield Mine Disaster, as this is where we had visited.

I did a quick Google search here and found that the museum has gone on to win major awards in the last couple of years and has had some funding to expand the centre. It would still be nice to visit, but we are so pleased we visited all those years ago while it was not touristy.

Pop over to Melody’s and see what other treasures are on show this week.