The Tasman Bridge

The Tasman Bridge crosses the Derwent near Hobart’s CBD (Central Business District) and is the main link between the river’s east and west shores. It has five lanes, the centre one of which alternates directions (the way Jarvis Street does in Toronto)—into downtown in the morning, out to the eastern shore in the evening. It's a lovely bridge and catches the morning light when seen from Poets Road.

The Tasman Bridge from Poets Road

When I head downtown or to the Express Shop or the Hill Street Grocery—three cardinal points of my life here—if I bother to lift my head from the descent and look I see it. 

Tasman Bridge from the Queen's Domain

The bridge is also a lovely sight from many other points in the city. The Domain where I photographed the Eastern Rosellas, for instance.

And at night, with its reflections. 

Tasman Bridge at night

Before the Tasman Bridge there was the Hobart Bridge, a lift bridge that became too great a disruption to traffic as the city and its eastern suburbs developed through the 1950s. Work on a new bridge began in 1960 and was completed in 1964, with its official opening (by Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester) in March 1965.

On January 5, 1975, the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra was heading upriver to the zinc plant when it went off-course and collided with two of the bridge’s piers, bringing a substantial length of the bridge down onto its own deck, and into the river. The Derwent is a deep-water river and within minutes the ship had sunk, drowning seven crewmen. Four cars drove off the bridge’s broken edges, drowning another five people. Two cars stopped, front wheels over the gap, and their passengers managed to get out. The remains of the ship are still 35 metres deep on the river’s bottom.

The new memorial to the Tasman Bridge Disaster

Several people from the eastern shore were the first to respond to the emergency, taking their own boats out and rescuing crew from the ship.

The eastern suburbs, now administratively gathered as the City of Clarence, were largely residential. People drove across the river into the city to work, to go to school, for medical appointments, for shopping, for cultural events. With the bridge gone the disruption to daily life was great. A temporary Bailey Bridge of two lanes was put in place roughly a year after the disaster, but it took nearly three years for the bridge to reopen completely. Among the results of the disaster were changes to movements of ships in the river and the development of services and community activities in the suburbs. 

In October 2013 a memorial for the victims of the disaster was unveiled at Montagu Bay Park on the eastern shore. Designed by Kelly Eijdenberg and Travis Tiddy of Poco People and made from concerete and steel, it’s placed to draw the viewer’s eye to the span of the bridge that collapsed.

Memorial to the Disaster

The sculpture’s three rings represent disaster, resilience, and recovery. We look first through the broken ring of disaster and end with the whole one of recovery. The memorial witnesses beautifully, not only to the disaster, but to the community’s growth, renewal, and recovery.

Memorial to the Tasman Bridge Disaster