This cache has been placed in memory of Werner (pronounced Verner) who came out to Tassie from Germany in the early 1950’s to work on the hydro schemes around this area. He spent a significant amount of time here at Bronte Park living in the tiny little huts that are now displayed in the centre of the town.
HISTORY
After the Second World War, the Hydro recruited large numbers of international migrants to construct dams and power stations. Their common Hydro bond brought English, Polish, German, Italian, Scandinavian, Eastern European and other migrants together with Tasmanians, and created lively and diverse Hydro communities. Many Hydro workers from overseas settled permanently, stayed with the organisation for decades, even creating multi-generational Hydro families.
The camps were rustic and isolated, often bitterly cold. Despite the deprivations, many Hydro men (and later, women) came to remember the time they spent in these ‘United Nations’ communities with fondness for the friendships they made and the social activities they enjoyed.
By the 1950s it was a bustling village of over 700 workers, with a store, police station, post office, school, cinema, hospital, dairy and a church, but now many of the original houses and buildings have been removed, with only a few remaining now as part of the Bronte Lagoon Chalet. Bronte Park Post Office opened on 1 July 1948 and closed in 1979. By 1991 the Hydro Electric Commission sold the chalets into private ownership.
It is now primarily a tourist village catering to trout fishermen, kayakers and walkers.
Werner was my father.