Hydro electric dev. Tas.

My book 'Echoes on the Mountain' was launched in 2006 and has just had a second print. There are ten gripping tales of the migrant workers who brought the Tasmanian highlands to life in all its post-war uniqueness. They came from the ashes of Europe, some had fought side by side with the Australians at Tobruk, some had endured forced labour camps under the Germans and then the Soviets, all had suffered the horrors of war.
With hope in their hearts they set out for far away Tasmania to work on the hydro electric schemes. The Hydro needed workers, particuarly pick and shovel men, to transform the inhospitable landscape and build the dams and pipelines that would industrialise the island state. So they came, often with nothing but an old uniform and a blanket, and they settled into tiny huts for two-year contracts in the villages of the Central Highlands of Tasmania.
'It was a min-United Nations where the villages and workplaces reverberated to the tunes of many languages. We wanted to prove that we could be good citizens and good Australians."



This map shows the Central Highlands of Tasmania where the men worked in the villages of Bronte Park, Tarraleah, Butlers Gorge, Wayatinah and Waddamana.
This Hydro, Tasmania map also shows the power stations under construction in the 1980s and some of the towns and cities mentioned in the book.
Hobart is the state capital in the south on the River Derwent and Launceston is the second biggest city in the north on the River Tamar.
The nationalities of the people in the stories are: Italian, Czech, English girl twins, Lithuanian, Berlin, Polish. They all contributed to this state, helping to finally industrialise a small island with the hydro electric schemes that were built.
This island began as one of the early convict settlements with prisoners at Port Arthur (south) and Sarah Island (west)Convict labour built roads and buildings that can still be seen today.



Premier Eric Reece beame known as 'Electric Eric' because under his the development of the power stations and dams took place. A west coast notice reads: REECE DAM
Pieman River Power Development - Hydro Tasmania (west coast).
Reece dam is a concrete faced rockfill dam containing some 2.6 million cubic m of material 120 m high with an overall length of 353 m. The dam is 105 m above sea level enclosing a storage surface area of 22 square km. With a storage volume of 640 million cubic m the spillway has a capacity of 4700 cubic m per second.


This is a 1938 photograph of the gateway with a gatekeeper to the settlement of Tarraleah, later to become one of the main villages for settlement when power stations and dams were under construction.