CHARLES WOOLEY
STANLEY. ‘Quaint’ is an overused word but unavoidable because Stanley is the most romantic and beautiful of all the historical towns in Australia. That’s a big claim but after decades of professional travel I have seen them all and reckon that only Gulgong in NSW, ‘The Town on the Ten-dollar Note’ comes close. Still, not that close.
I’d put Stanley on the onehundred-dollar note.
Mainland travel writers tend to go for Yungaburra in Queensland, Beechworth or Daylesford in northeast Victoria or Silverton near Broken Hill in South Australia. Their bucket lists usually mention Port Fairy, Goolwa and Broome but rarely Stanley, which is much older than all of them.
Sometimes a nice place just gets lucky enough to be left off the map for a long time. It can be a blessing. Hence, today, Stanley remains intact and unspoilt.
It has double the charm of any of those better-known towns.
In the last decade there has been change under the Nut, but it has been change well managed.
Before interstate travel was interrupted by the plague, Stanley had already been discovered by discerning tourists of the kind Tassie needs. The ones who appreciate authenticity, good food and beautiful scenery and are prepared to pay for it.
It must be ten years since I last saw Stanley. The town has spruced and polished itself without any great alteration or loss of historical character. Care has been taken to avoid the architectural cancers that infest the old city of Hobart.
Tourists have been tastefully and discreetly housed in delightful accommodation repurposed from existing buildings some of them almost 200 years old.
With good planning and restrained development Stanley has done a great job. The title of Tassie’s Top Tourism Town 2021 was well deserved.
Along with the praise of visitors and lovers of preserved history, what other reward have the good and thoughtful burghers of Stanley received?
The improbable answer is a wind farm; 12 gigantic turbines set atop a dozen 150m towers, each of them 20 metres higher than the iconic Stanley Nut. They will be situated on the shore four kilometres west of the town and behind a hill. But the locals say the blades will still be visible from the main street.
Worse, they worry about the ‘noise pollution’ which is a
Cartoonist Jeff Power’s take on the debate. common complaint worldwide from those who live in near proximity to wind turbines. There is presently a major battle before the courts in Victoria concerning the Bald Hills wind farm in Gippsland. Last week a complainant testified, “I often have to get up and drive to a beach a few kilometres away to get some sleep in the car.”
Science is still undecided on the possible injurious effects of audible and sub-audible sound on man and beast.
Over many years of reporting the subject here and abroad, all I can say regarding populations who live near wind turbines is that, technically speaking, they really piss people off.
Stanley identity Robert Smith who farms 187 acres on the hill above the proposed Western Plains wind farm site reckons, “I will get the full force of the noise and it will ruin my view.”
He looks west across Bass Strait towards the Hunter group of islands which include King, Hunter and Three Hummock off the northwestern tip of Tasmania.
“It is a beautiful view. It’s why I bought it and I haven’t taken it for granted in the 25 years I’ve been here.” Robert says he has nothing against wind turbines, “But this one is clearly in the wrong place. Not just because it’s in my backyard but because it’s bad for the whole district.”
The company behind the wind farm is the Australian renewable energy developer Epuron, which is working on about a dozen wind projects nationally.
Some are much larger than Stanley’s 12 turbine Western Plains project. In Queensland’s far north,