Duck Reach Power Station...

The Cataract Gorge Duck Reach Track will treat you to an almost untouched landscape, leading you past the Second Basin and then on to the Duck Reach Power Station and Suspension Bridge. Built in 1895, it was the largest hydro-electric scheme of its day. An 850 metre tunnel channelled water from Deadman's Hollow to Duck Reach at a discharge rate of 5,537 litres per second. It was then fed into a large iron penstock that plunged down the hillside directly into the Power Station to feed eight lines that generated electricity.

The building and suspension bridge were washed away by the Great Flood of 1929 and then restored. The Hydro Electric Commission purchased it in 1944 to become part of the State grid. It was decommissioned in 1955 when the Trevallyn Power Station came on line.

The suspension bridge was again washed away in the 1969 floods and rebuilt in 1995 as part of a combined refurbishment project of the Federal Government through its Regional Tourism Development Program, the Launceston City Council, and the Hydro Electric Commission, to celebrate the centenary of the site. The pathway was originally used by the power station staff to access the tunnel outlet, bywash and penstocks. It has been reopened to provide access to these features.