| Tiny,
windswept WARATAH, set in mountain heathland 8km off the A10,
reached its peak in the early twentieth century after thirty years of
tin-mining at Mount Bischoff, when it was linked to Burnie by the Emu
Bay Railway, built to facilitate access to the silver fields of Zeehan
and Rosebery. Though the mine closed in 1935, Waratah is still a miners’
town, with recent mining developments at the Que River. |
 |
| Little
more than a scattered collection of scruffy weatherboard cottages, it’s
a pretty soulless place, but if you’re desperate you can camp at
the exposed site behind the Municipal Council buildings on Smith Street;
get the key for the hot showers and pay ($8 per site) at the Waratah Road
House (tel 03/6439 1191; daily 6am–8pm), further along Smith Street. You
can have a meal at the big old two-storey pub on the hill, a relic
of former boom times. Beyond Waratah, the last fuel stop on the road is
the former mining town of Savage River, 45km along the B23. |
