CONSTRUCTION of a new cantilevered lookout for the Cataract Gorge is well on its way to meeting its February 28 opening date.
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Builders have been on-site off the Duck Reach walking track this week, testing rock on a cliff face to ensure a firm footing for the structure.
The steel-fabricated structure itself has been worked on in Hobart for the past four weeks, after which time it will be coated in a highly-durable paint with a 20-year life span.
Tangent Structures co-director Heather Rose said that in two weeks' time the structure would be trucked in three parts to the Denison Street car park, winched by helicopter to its proper location and received by harnessed workers, who will fix it in its correct place.
Site manager Scott Cordwell predicted it would take 12 days from test drilling to assembly to complete the project.
He said the project was a good example of low-impact development in environmentally sensitive areas.
The nine-metre long and 2.7-metre wide lookout is valued at $230,000 and will be funded by the state government.
It will be situated about 20 minutes' walk from the First Basin in one direction and the Duck Reach power station in the other.
Ms Rose said this would be the first lookout of its kind to be built in Tasmania.
``We have had a lot of interest for similar structures to be built on the mainland and more interest from the state government in building a network of structures in other areas of Tasmania,'' she said.