The Coal River Valley in located in the City of Clarence, Tasmania and is a primarily agrarian area to the west of the city, located between the townships of Cambridge, and Richmond. It is nestled between the Meehan Range, Pitt Water and the Pontos Range.
The Coal River Valley was one of the earliest areas used by the first British settlers outside of Hobart, and the nearby town of Richmond dates from 1823, when a bridge across the Coal River was constructed. The name Coal River comes from the abundant natural source of coal in the area. The first British settlers used the valley as a mixture of grazing, pastureland and crop growing.
Its primary land usage is as vineyards and produces very high quality slow maturing cool weather grapes.
The Coal River Valley is sheltered from the city lights of Hobart by the Meehan Range making it an ideal location for the University of Tasmania's Mount Pleasant radio telescope observatory.
Famous quotes containing the words coal, river and/or valley:
“And in their blazing solitude
The stars sang in their sockets through the night:
“Blow bright, blow bright
The coal of this unquickened world.””
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“but we wish the river had another shore,
some further range of delectable mountains,”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Ah! I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from hummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river valley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as some suppose. There needs no stronger proof of immortality. All things must live in such a light. O Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where was thy victory, then?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)