Aboriginal Tasmanians have occupied the island for a time still not precisely measured but confirmed as tens of thousands of years. The
traditional owners of the land through which the railway runs were the Lyluequonny people. This clan of the South East nation occupied an area centred on what is now called
Recherche Bay. In 1793 French scientists on the d’Entrecasteaux expedition encountered the Lyluequonny. For a period in January 1793, with apparent goodwill and mutual respect, the two groups interacted and bemused each other. Because of the French journals kept at the time more is known about the Lyluequonny clan than any other in pre-European Tasmania. Following on from the arrival of the British in Tasmania in 1803, whalers, sealers and convicts were the first non-aboriginal inhabitants of the Far South. By 1822 the first land grant was made at
Hythe. The area south of
Dover was reserved for timber. Convict probation stations were established at Dover and Hythe in the 1840s. By the early 1850s timber leases were made available and mill towns emerged, including at
Lune River,
Ramsgate,
Hastings and Leprena. This was the start of tramways in the area initially with timber rails and horse power. ==Ida Bay Railway==