The Queen River is a river that flows through Queenstown Tasmania, to the west of the West Coast Range in particular Mount Lyell and Mount Owen.
For over 80 years the main carrier of Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company mining residue, and the local sewage. It is estimated that 100 million tonnes of tailings were disposed of into the Queen River. This in turn flowed into the lower part of the King River, and then into a delta at the mouth of the river where it met Macquarie Harbour.
Following the Mount Lyell Remediation and Research and Demonstration Program construction of tailings dams, and general reduction of waste into this river, it is now rusty in colour rather than silvery grey as it was previously.
It passes under and adjacent to the revitalised railway now known as the West Coast Wilderness Railway
South of Queenstown on the edge of the river is the early settlement of Lynchford where a gold mine and other mining activity supported a small community in the early days of the railway.
Famous quotes containing the words queen and/or river:
““Speak when you’re spoken to!” the Queen sharply interrupted her.
“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, “and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that—””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“The river’s tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)