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:
“In those days, the blag slag, the waste of the coal pits, had only begun to cover the side of our hill. Not enough to mar the countryside nor blacken the beauty of our village. For the colliery had only begun to poke its skinny black fingers between the green.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)
“There is a river in Macedon, and there is moreover a river in Monmouth. It is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but ‘tis all one, ‘tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Down in the valley,
Valley so low,
Hang your head over,
Hear the train blow.”
—Unknown. Down in the Valley (l. 1–4)