Day 5: Battery Point Sculpture Trail

The Battery Point Sculpture Trail is an easy stroll linking nine large numerical sculptures that provide a fascinating introduction to Hobart’s history. Each sculpture along this international-award winning trail represents a weight, measure, time, quantity, date or distance linked to a story about that place. There is a sculpture afloat in the river, one cut from a hedge and another that glows all night. The trail winds past some of the city’s oldest surviving residences and through locations where many of Tasmania’s first industries were established. Following around Battery Point and along the shore of the river, there are views of both the port and the lower Derwent Estuary.

The trail was developed by Futago with artists Judith Abell and Chris Viney.

The first stop on the trail is 1833, a large caged rock sculpture. It represents the work of chained convicts who chiselled away cliff faces to build Salamanca’s giant sandstone warehouses and the new wharf of 1833.

Stop two, sculpture 12.43, is just a hundred meters and a right turn along Castray Esplanade from 1833. The concrete and blue resin sculpture discusses tides, surveying and the importance of accuracy in measurement in Victorian times. The number derives from a small square socket 12.43 feet above sea level which was the base point for all levels surveyed in Tasmania.

Sculpture 628, featuring detailed geographical images sandwiched between two large panels of glass, sits beside the time keeper’s box which marks the finish line of the 628 nautical mile Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

Continuing along the waterfront walkway stop 4 is folded over a red retaining wall at a local fishing spot. 2000 sculpture is a tribute to the thousands of Salamanca workers whose hard labour once ran the city. Upon close inspection you’ll find etchings of women who once worked in the jam factories.

The 1923 Hedge not only reflects the extravagant hedges of Battery Point’s most affluent homes, but also marks where in 1923 a proposal for natural parkland was knocked down in favour of 26 lots of Hobart’s most expensive real estate. Unfortunately when we visited it no longer exists and only the sign is left.

Sculpture 313 represents where new vessels were launched through the 1800s. We took a stroll along the jetty and looked out to sea. Floating on the river there is a white fibreglass sculpture.

1 250 features a giant corroded steel plate with small rivets making up four digits. The plate, viewable from high above along Napoleon Street, lies in an excavated ditch, once the home of a winch capable of hauling 1 250 tonne vessels from the water.

The penultimate sculpture lies at the bottom of Napoleon Street Park overlooking Battery Point’s ship chandlers and the river Derwent. Although visible by day, 24 is a creature of the night featuring a solar illuminated red number 24 beneath a very thick, dark layer of resin that creates an eerie image similar to a sunken ship. This one was very difficult for us to find, we kept wandering around looking for it.

Errol Flynn Reserve marks the end of the trail with the large white Hollywoodesque 1909 sculpture a tribute to our most famous expat born in the year 1909.

We also discovered many other interesting features of Battery Point, including historic buildings, Arthur’s Circus, and even a house claiming to be the birthplace of the Piranha Bros (familiar to Monty Python fans).