page_title: Mount Wellington (Tasmania)
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Wellington (Tasmania) / European history / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Lyle Closs jumps to Albert's Tomb, Organ Pipes Mt Wellington Tasmania 1974
context_page_description: Mount Wellington, officially kunanyi / Mount Wellington, incorporating its conlang name, is a mountain in the southeast coastal region of Tasmania, Australia. It is the summit of the Wellington Range and is within the Wellington Park reserve. Located at the foothills of the mountain is much of Tasmania's capital city, Hobart.
  The mountain rises to 1,271 metres above sea level and is frequently covered by snow, sometimes even in summer, and the lower slopes are thickly forested, but crisscrossed by many walking tracks and a few fire trails. There is also a sealed narrow road to the summit, about 22 kilometres from Hobart central business district. An enclosed lookout near the summit has views of the city below and to the east, the Derwent estuary, and also glimpses of the World Heritage Area nearly 100 kilometres west. From Hobart, the most distinctive feature of Mount Wellington is the cliff of dolerite columns known as the Organ Pipes.
context_section_description: Throughout the 19th and into the 20th centuries, the mountain was a popular day-resort for residents of Hobart. To that end, many excursion huts were built over the lower slopes of the mountain. However, none of these early huts survive as they were all destroyed during the disastrous bushfires of 1967, though modern huts are open to the public at the Springs, the Pinnacle, the Chalet – a picnic spot about halfway between the Springs and the Pinnacle – and elsewhere. Sadly, many of the more remote huts have suffered from vandalism, and some are virtually derelict.
  The road to the summit was constructed in the early 1930s as a relief scheme for the unemployed, an idea initiated by Albert Ogilvie, the premier of Tasmania of the day. While the road is officially known as the Pinnacle Drive, it was, for some time, also widely known among residents of Hobart as 'Ogilvie's Scar' because at the time it was constructed 'the Mountain' was heavily logged and almost bare, and the road was an all-too-obvious scar across the already denuded mountain. Today the trees have grown again, but the 'scar' most people see today is not actually the road but a line of large rocks with no trees 50–100 m above the road, provided as an easement for power lines. The road itself was opened on 23 January 1937, after two years of work, by Governor Sir Ernest Clark.
  The road carries tourist traffic during the day, and sections may be closed at any time of the year due to snowfalls or icy conditions.  Halfway up this road (at 720 metres) is a picnic area called "The Springs", near the site of a chalet/health spa that was destroyed by bushfire in 1967.
  Mount Wellington was selected by many broadcasters as the site of broadcast radio and television transmitters because it provides line-of-sight transmission to a much larger area of Hobart and surrounding districts than any other point in the region.  The first television stations to transmit from there were TVT-6 (now WIN Television) and ABT-2 (the ABC) in 1960. The mountain has two main transmission towers located at its pinnacle. One is the concrete and steel constructed Broadcast Australia Tower (sometimes referred to as the NTA Tower) and one owned by WIN television which is of steel construction. The NTA tower broadcasts all of Hobart's high-power FM radio stations plus the digital TV services for ABC and SBS. The NTA tower also has a small accommodation area at its base with kitchen and workshop area. The WIN TV tower broadcasts the digital TV services from Southern Cross, Win TV, and Tasmanian Digital Television. The site also contains a small kitchen area and contains some data links from local Hobart businesses. An amateur radio repeater is also installed on the mountain.
caption: Lyle Closs jumps to Albert's Tomb, Organ Pipes on Mount Wellington, 1974
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