The actual pioneer was Lieutenant Laycock who, in 1807, occupied nine days in getting through from Launceston to Hobart. A car today could do the distance in one third as many hours. Then, nine years later, Postman Robert Taylor began his 120-mile "round", starting on alternate Sunday mornings from either end. One wishes that he had kept a "log" of this dangerous and strenuous "inland voyage". It would have told of hide and seek with predatory bands of blacks and bushrangers, of summer scorchings and winter soakings, news by gossip as well as by mail for the isolated settlers at whose homes he lodged. The Derwent was crossed at Roseneath Ferry, where a bridge was contemplated; but the Bridgewater Causeway began to crawl across in 1830 and the two inns, at and opposite Roseneath, went out of business. In I824 wagoner McMahon lumbered through with a load of goods, and coachman Cox initiated his tandem service in 1832, superseded two years later by a four-horse coach. Travellers who are today too timid to use the air services may be reassured by the information that coaching a hundred years ago was infinitely more dangerous, for John Cox's widow was so unnerved by the multiplicity of accidents that she sold out for three thousand pounds; and the purchaser, Sam Page, soon afterwards entered upon his famous coach duel with Mr. Lord, under which the fares of 2 pounds each way were dropped to 5 shillings. The last coach ran in 1872, when the now struggling railways captured the business. The old inns then fell on evil days, and the next upward move of the barometer for them was when the safety bicycle came on the scene, followed by the motor car, which brought back something of the prosperity of the days of Cox and Page. But now both railways and motor cars have a new competitor, for by 'plane the two cities are less than an hour apart.
At the seventh milestone I climbed the railway fences to have a look at all that is left of the once famous Green Man Inn. Only the stables now remain, with the trough where the coach-horses quenched their thirsts whilst the passengers did likewise at the bar. Tasmania could not afford, like England, to drown its spare notable in butts of Malmsey, so at the Green Man mere water was used to make away with an officer who, so the tale goes, was deputed to spy upon the proprietor, suspected of selling illicit liquor. He was betrayed by his lady-love, the barmaid, and his skeleton was discovered years afterwards at the bottom of the fifty-foot well on the premises.
My next trespass was on the right-hand side of the road about a mile further on. A few yards inside an orchard is an old, tumble-down wooden building, and over the mantel one can still read "Year of construction c1808". This was the cottage of James P. Fawkner, who afterwards shared with Batman in the founding of Melbourne. Inside, on one of the sheet-iron walls, is a large painting of a woman's face. I don't know the artist, but it was probably done by some later tenant. In the Lands Chart, under date 20th September 1813, J. Fawkner Jr is shown as owning fifty and ninety acres. What could that be worth now, I wonder? Fawkner chose a perfect spot, with a slope down to the river and half a dozen mountains in view. The decrepit building, which it has lately been decided to preserve, sheltered a man with a romantic history. Fawkner arrived with the founder of Hobart, David Collins, whom he criticized for not having persevered in establishing a settlement at Port Phillip. His career was a chequered one and he tried his hand at all sorts of vocations. He was blacksmith, landholder, publican, amateur lawyer, newspaper proprietor, and joint-founder of a colony, with many other occupations in between. In c 1826, when landlord of the Cornwall Hotel at Launceston, he joined Mr. William Monds in a project for establishing a second newspaper in the North which necessitated journeying to Hobart to obtain a printing press from Andrew Bent, the father of the Tasmanian press. This, be it remembered, was in pre-coach days and only an odd wagon had made its precarious way through after McMahon first made the journey in c1824. Perhaps today’s speedsters will cease their grumbling when they learn that poor Fawkner's dray-motive power two bullocks-toppled over in a rut at New Town, spilling press, type and all the accompaniments amongst the grass. Further disasters-far worse than punctures-occurred before the dray reached Launceston, and Fawkner's news paper was undoubtedly born with much travail. Nine years later he fitted out an expedition to found a settlement on the place of his first landing in Australia, Port Phillip, which involved him in his historic feud with Batman who had crossed from Tasmania a month or so before (Now Melbourne, see yarrariver.com). Fawkner died at Melbourne on 4 September 1869.

Chapter 1 - part 3