Franklin History Walk

A couple of months back, beautiful timber plinths started appearing along the main street of Franklin. Then slowly, plaques outlining the history of each building were attached to them all, as well as to the walls of street-fronting buildings like our own new home, the former Commercial Bank of Australia building.

Today, the Franklin History Walk was officially opened, with a launch at Abbey on Main (former Methodist church, now accommodation) and a display of snippets of Franklin history. The walk is a project of the Franklin Progress Association, funded by a Tasmanian Government community infrastructure grant, and clearly took a lot of work from the Franklin History Group and others in the local community. It's a fantastic addition to the village and hopefully will encourage people to walk the full length of the main street as well as along the river banks, where a series of waterside panels explain more about life on the water.

A lovely booklet outlining the town's history and including a map listing all the points of interest along the walk is available for only $2. In addition to the white settler history, the booklet pays respect to the traditional and original owners of this land, the melukerdee people, as well as today's Tasmanian Aboriginal community who are the custodians of this land. I picked up one copy today, but think I'd better keep a few more handy for visitors. Come on down sometime for a stroll. It takes about 1.5 hours to walk the whole thing, depending on how fast you walk and read I guess!