Lee’s Paddock - Upper Mersey River - Tasmania
I first visited The Paddocks in 2019 with a group of 5 mates. Everyone kind of knew each other from interactions with me, but that was about it. This trip became the start of something special, it wasn’t long before the group bonded and realised that even though we had very different lives we shared core common interest and senses of humour. Since this trip, the GC’s have shared fires, feasts, walks, talks, beverages, hangovers and the main part…laffs.. we all make each other laugh, a lot.
It isn’t often older blokes with busy lives and families make new friendships and forge close bonds. Im bloody lucky that a group of my closest friends were able to become close friends themselves. We don’t catch up much outside of “Council Meetings” but we keep in regular contact and when a big trip is planned things fire up, we all know the adventures, happy memories and laffs are incoming. With the modern day stresses we all deal with it’s an amazing thing to have a group of mates you can escape life with and spend a few days being yourself, not worrying about what people think, what they might say or feeling free to do your own thing in your own way. We all respect and appreciate each other, we give each other shit and laugh at ourselves because there’s never any malice. We look after each other and have each others backs, all of this started from one trip to the Hut at Lee’s. A magical night around the fire where friendships were forged, nicknames were earned and we were all given something more valuable than money can buy.
Lee’s is a special place, you MUST ask permission before you go there. It is private property, the Lee family have been going there for generations and we are fortunate enough they allow us the privilege to visit. Imagine it was your family’s property and treat it as such, don’t think you can just rock up and stay at your leisure. If you are lucky enough to get permission, make damn sure you leave it as you found it. Be respectful.
Shout out to Notepad, Liva, Truckie, Frarnie & King Plow - Love you lads, thanks for putting up with my shit.
Now, about the area.
Taken from Simon Cubit & Mountain Huts Preservation Society Websites:
The Paddocks is a particularly beautiful area consisting of large open plains, dotted with native trees, including myrtle, sassafras and leatherwood, and watered by the Mersey River, which continues on to Lake Rowallan. The picturesque valley is nestled beneath towering mountains and has been the realm of the Lee family from the late 1880s. George Lee first saw the potential for grazing cattle in the area and, with his four sons, Oliver, Basil, Oxley and Lewis, made regular trips to The Paddocks with cattle for summer grazing.
During the winter months, from the early 1900s through to the 1930s, all four Lee Brothers would also spend time snaring in the nearby forests, making The Paddocks their home away from home. Oxley Lee was still snaring at The Paddocks in the 1960s when he was almost into his seventies, Lewis Lee was still taking cattle into The Paddocks in the 1980s.
A couple of earlier huts pre-dated the present Lees Paddocks Hut, which was built in 1933 as a skin drying shed. However, it proved unsuitable for winter accommodation, having a dirt floor which turned muddy and a fire which smoked heavily, in 1940 Lewis Lee decided to build a hut with improved living conditions.
About 1954, a burning-off fire got out of control, burning the skin shed to the ground and narrowly missing the accommodation hut, but coming close enough to scorch the timber palings on one wall. During 1972/73, a skin shed was once again added to the end of the hut and an extension made. In 1974 roofing iron was replaced and a verandah added, as well as subsequent work to the fireplace.
The Upper Mersey at Lees Paddocks takes it shape from a series of massive glaciers that gouged their way down the valley, bulldozing everything in their path. Around 12,000 years ago the last river of ice slowed, eventually ground to a halt and then began to slowly retreat. As it melted, sediment-rich water gushed from its snout. Between Cathedral Mountain and Mount Pillinger there was little fall and, as the water slowed, sediment dropped in thick deposits. The river that followed in the wake of the glacier responded to the gentle topography of the valley by carving a meandering path through these deep beds of silt. The valley was colonized by low shrubby vegetation for thousands of years. It was not until just a few thousand years ago when the climate warmed that forests began to invade the valley: rainforest trees along the riverbanks, eucalypt forest on the drier banks and grasslands formed in part by cold air drainage off the surrounding peaks.
Aboriginals entered this environment at least 10,000 years ago at a time when the climate was much colder and low alpine vegetation clothed the hillsides and plains. They came up the valley from Howells Plains (now Lake Rowallan) during the summer hunting wallaby and camped in rock overhangs. Bands of Aboriginals continued to visit the valley almost every year. Their visits increased in frequency from about 3000 years ago when the climate became warmer and vegetation, as we know it today, began to clothe the valley. Aborigines used fire to shape this emerging landscape to keep transport routes open and to extend and maintain the grasslands to attract wallabies.
The identity of the first European to see The Paddocks is unknown but it may well have been Henry Stanley (1820-1898), a convict stockman, who was left to manage Humphrey Howells’ sheep run at Howells Plains around 1845. If he did wander upstream for a look he would have encountered little grassy plains enclosed within each bend of the river. These grassy plains looked a little like paddocks and became the name for which the area was then known. The Fields, that buccaneering grazing family that seized control of Howells Plains in the late 1850s, might also have been interested in what lay up stream. But given that they inherited Stanley from Howells, they may well have been content to take his word. In any event, and despite others that might have visited it (Stanley led packhorses there in 1888), The Paddocks was seen as unsuitable for grazing and ignored.
If that was Field policy, it was discarded in the 1880s when a change in the guard among the Fields saw ambitious young Richard Field (1866-1961) outmaneuver his older brothers and take control of Howells. Field knew it was only a matter of time before farmers from Mole Creek came up into the Upper Mersey to select land for summer grazing runs. Indeed, some already had. He also knew that Howells Plains provided the only access up to The Paddocks and while there some reserved roads, he didn’t want to have to fence those roads to prevent his and someone else’s cattle from mixing. The inconvenience of that event and even theft was the risk, he realized, if someone disreputable selected land there. The solution, he recognized, was to get someone he trusted to take up land at The Paddocks. The person he thought of was young George Lee (1862-1932) of Mole Creek. Lee was only a relatively young man but had demonstrated significant business ability and moral standing. Field approached Lee about The Paddocks emphasing its potential as a cattle run. He even provided a sweetener designed to ensure co-operation. He proposed that Lee stockman travelling to and from The Paddocks could enjoy his facilities at Howells Plains if his stockmen could be afforded a similar courtesy at Mole Creek.
George Lee (1862-1932)
Lee was intrigued at the offer and in 1888 travelled up to The Paddocks. Stories suggest he couldn’t get his horse the whole way and had to tie it up and go ahead on foot. Nonetheless, Lee had a good look at The Paddocks that day and part of the next. A man of some vision, he could clearly see the potential of The Paddocks and when he came home applied to purchase a block of land there. The next year, in 1889, he applied for a second block. Lee put cattle on The Paddocks but, with little experience of the mountain seasons, left them there too late. When he went to muster them he could only find a few, presuming the others had drowned. Embittered by the loss, Lee decided to abandon his holding.
As it happened, Lee and partner Billy Marchant (1858-1943) won a contract in 1890 to supply food and materials to a survey gang marking out a proposed railway line from Mole Creek to Zeehan. From 1890 to 1891 the chief surveyor, Allan Stewart, took the line up the Mersey Valley, around Mount Pillinger and across Pelion Plains to Mount Pelion West. As the survey progressed he and his men used a series of camps in the Mersey Valley, firstly at Liena, then Arm River, Howells Plains, and then The Paddocks. As they moved their equipment from camp to camp they also significantly improved the track between these points. So it was that when Lee came back to The Paddocks with a string of packhorses in 1891, he found not only a clearly defined track he could follow, but that the survey crew had built a good hut there. Crucially, the crew reported the existence of ‘wild cattle’ at The Paddocks, the cattle Lee had presumed lost. Given the new and improved infrastructure and the obvious capacity of The Paddocks to support cattle, Lee reapplied for his abandoned blocks. He had them surveyed in 1892. One enclosed the very top little plain, a location strategically chosen to deter those who might select below him. The other was nearly five kilometres north claiming the open plain south of the Wurragarra near the survey hut.
Visitors to Lee’s Hut – and the Reg Wadley Memorial Hut situated at the far end of the Paddocks – are reminded that these huts and the land is privately owned. It is a privilege to be able to visit these areas. Please seek permission from the owners before visiting and pay due respect to the facilities.
