SPRAWLING along the junction of the St Pauls and South Esk rivers, Avoca is to most travellers heading between the Midland Highway and the East Coast, a blink-andyou’ll-miss-it town or a handy petrol, food and toilet stop. Yet there’s a growing desire by locals to see it reinvented and provide solid reasons to stay a while and discover its soul.
The big business of agriculture hums away in the background – with property names like Benham, Hanleth, Bona Vista and Ormley, a huge part of the Midlands food bowl – but at its heart is a stoic and close-knit community that has each other’s backs, all 192 of them. Named after Thomas Moore’s poem, Sweet Vale of Avoca, Avoca is a sleepy little town at risk of becoming comatose, according to some of the stalwarts who attended a Courier Coffee and Conversation morning.
The school closed about five years ago. The surrounding coal and forestry industry is nothing like it used to be. Shops have closed. The police station is long gone. The Catholic and Anglican churches are both private residences. The Rossarden museum burned down. A mainly female group of volunteer ambulance drivers, known as the Avoca Angels, dwindled into non-existence. Avoca Football Club, established in 1924 and renowned for its annual wallaby shoot right through the ’60s and early ’70s, folded in 1989 – not even a premiership win that year could attract the numbers to keep it going.
There are just two busines premises: The Avoca General Store which now houses Australia Post since the old post office was forced out of the former Anglican Parish Hall so it could be sold for redress, and the Avoca Art and Craft shop, which recently took over the space known as the Cow Shed.
For a brief time the Union Hotel looked like it was up and running after a long closure, with Hobart young guns Fiona Kozub and Lance Petri slowly renovating the historic building, welcoming community activities such as a Christmas party, a darts competition and planning food and entertainment sessions that everyone was excited about.
They had hoped to rekindle something like the much-loved Rossarden and Friends Christmas Party that started at the Rossarden mine in the 1930s and ceased 90 years late in 2020. The couple were planning to open for meals and eventually host music festivals on the lawn. Then a wall collapsed. A crucial, structural, exterior wall that means the building can’t be opened to the public until it’s fixed. At a cost of many thousands of dollars and unknown delays the frustration for all involved is palpable.
Before Avoca was proclaimed a township in 1866, it was known as St Paul’s Plains and Camp Hill. European settlement commenced in the late 1820s when the area was established as a farming community and a convict station was built in the 1830s.
In 1886 the rail line from Conara Junction to St Marys was officially opened and for almost 100 years it provided employment, and passenger and freight services to the region. Avoca is strongly connected to the former mining villages of Royal George and Rossarden.
For Northern Midlands mayor Mary Knowles it’s like her backyard. She describes it as an amazing little community which has gone through a lot. Hardest of all, she said, is seeing the slow seep of families moving away to find work.
“I worked at the Rossarden and then Avoca school until March 2018 when I was voted in as mayor,” she said. “Of course the school has since closed.”
A building in the main street that used to be the old State School was on the verge of being condemned when Cr Knowles convinced fellow councillors to look for funding and reinvent the building.
“Between council and the local tourism group we came up with $193,000 from various buckets to restore the building and now it houses a lovely museum and visitor centre, providing a bit of a hub for the town. “The locals also contributed towards the 48 World War I memorial plane trees and brass plaques which commemorate those who fought in Gallipoli and Europe – for a tiny community it was an incredible contribution, and included Victoria Cross recipient Lewis McGee, who was born near Campbell Town and Ross but lived at Snow Hill near Avoca when enlisted.”
In a similar vein other public areas have been improved in recent years, from the addition of exercise and play equipment at Boucher Park to the improvements to the dilapidated cenotaph which resulted in the first Anzac Day Service held there in 2013 after more than 13 years. “Avoca has people who know how to work together and I believe they can achieve anything they want to achieve,” Cr Knowles said.
“The local market has been a great success – and more are planned – what a great way to spend a Saturday morning grabbing some lovely produce, finding a bargain and listening to the local talent. “I’m looking forward to seeing a mural go up on the back of the toilet block at the park and Tas Water has agreed that Avoca’s water tower will be the first on the list to be painted with a mural too.”
Shirley Freeman, who could not possibly be better known in the town as a life-long resident, the Australia Post licensee for 28 years, Avoca Hall Committee chair and president of the Local District Committee, said she and other members of the community were always willing to help anyone willing to have a go.
“It would be lovely to see more community-based events and some more employment for the few young ones who choose to stay here,” she said. “This is a farming community, an ageing community, but there is untapped potential and we just need to get more people to take an interest and come up with some new ideas.”
Shirley’s biggest bugbear is the primary school which closed more than four years ago and is slowly being ruined by vandals.
To be sold by the State Government there has been no community consultation or expressions of interest requested. “It’s a shame as far as I’m concerned, and I think most of the community think that way too,” Shirley said. “It’s a beautiful old school and it could be utilised for a lot of things but now it’s going to take a lot of money to bring it back up to scratch.”