Down with the Devils – Tasmania 2024 – Day 42 (am)- Esk Highway

Another wet start to the day – hills behind the highway from St Helens to Falmouth

Also a slow start to the day for the first 26km at 30km/hr under the speed limit – no overtaking lanes and very winding road.

The St Marys Pass road climbs over 320 metres to a plateau. The road was surveyed in 1841 and built by convict labour between 1843 and 1846 by two teams of about 450 convicts.

A Severe Weather Alert for wind gusts up to 100km/hr on high ground was forecast. We changed our route today as the other way we wanted to go has three mountain passes and is notorious for treefall on the road. Even this way, we were in the Severe Weather forecast zone but on a much better road. There were very strong periodic wind gusts.

Old pioneer cottage near Fingal.

The Holder Brothers Store in Fingal was built in 1859. It was originally a one storey stone house. Over the years, a stable was built in 1885 and a top storey was added in 1894.

Looking north from the Esk Highway to Ben Lomond

Water tower in Avoca with a Wedge-tailed eagle on one side….

…and Ben Lomond on the other.

An old stables wall from a coaching service that ran from Avoca to St Marys beginning in 1852 with distinctive alternating rows of sandstones and volcanic rocks.