Strahan

Shit LAKE ST CLAIR is a cold hole.  Snowing and 2 degrees when we arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and still snowing and 2 degrees when we left on Friday morning.  Luckily we were snug and dry in our accommodation.  We hung around hoping the weather would improve so we could enjoy the sights, but it was not to be.  Needless to say poor old Cameron got to do plenty of school work.

Friday morning we decided we couldn’t hang around any longer and headed off towards QUEENSTOWN and STRAHAN out on the West Coast. We hoped to spend one or two nights at STRAHAN and if possible catch one of their harbour cruises.  We were a bit late getting away from ST CLAIR because just as we started to pack the car it started snowing again, so we had to wait it out.

The road from ST CLAIR to QUEENSTOWN took us through some of the best wilderness areas Tasmania has to offer.  Other travellers had told us to make sure we stopped off at a couple of lookouts, and also not to miss a waterfall known as NELSON FALLS.  Unfortunately, due to the shitty weather, visiting lookouts was out of the question, but by the time we got to NELSON FALLS it had cleared up enough for us to take the walk in to view them.

It was well worth it.  For once the wet weather had worked on our favour and the falls were absolutely roaring.  An awesome sight, but the wet draught caused by the falls meant it was freezing cold standing at the viewing platform, so we didn’t stay long.  It was a beautiful drive through the wilderness parks, though very slow and windy. (That’s windy, not windy as in wind, forget it).  I meant a road with lots of bends, not a road with lots of wind.

We eventually came out on a hill overlooking QUEENSTOWN, an old mining town.  The hills for miles around have been stripped in the search for copper, tin and gold.  It looked like a moon landscape.  There is only one mine still operating, and the town was looking very rundown and derelict.  After a quick lunch including the best sausage rolls in Tasmania, we drove on to STRAHAN.

STRAHAN is a small seaside town near the mouth of the huge MACQUARIE HARBOUR, which clearly shows up on most maps of Tasmania about half way up the west coast. In Australia it is second only in size to PORT PHILLIP BAY which is the harbour MELBOURNE is located on. 

We arrived in STRAHAN at about 2.00 and immediately had trouble finding accommodation.  We eventually ended up with a cabin at the Youth Hostel.  STRAHAN is an extremely popular tourist destination due to its reputation for its Harbour Cruises.  After setting up our stuff in our cabin, (still too cold for the tent), we headed into town to book a harbour cruise for Saturday.  We were lucky.  No seats left in cattle class, so we had to bite the bullet and pay extra for upper class seats, and there were only about a dozen of them left.

Saturday morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day without a breath of wind, and when we got to harbour it was as flat as glass.  Everyone was commenting on the beautiful day.  We found out later it was the first fine day in a fortnight, and the boat crew couldn’t believe how lucky we were to strike such a brilliant day.  The captain made Cameron’s day by inviting him to sit in the co-pilots seat, and wear the Captain’s Hat.  His first words were, “Jack and Alex are going to be so jealous of me”.

The cruise was absolutely brilliant.  First we went out to the harbour mouth, and through the very narrow entrance, called Hell's Gate for obvious reasons.  It is only about 75m wide, and bearing in mind the size of the harbour, this is a very narrow gap for the tide to rip through.  You can imagine the fun the old sailing ships would have had trying to get through it.  This was the first time in over a month that the Cruise Operators had actually been able to take the cruise boat through the gap.  Making the most of the ideal conditions, they took us out to the eastern tip of the harbour, to the light house at CAPE SORELL.  Not normally part of the cruise.

Then it was back up the harbour with a stopover at SARAH ISLAND, which back in the 1800’s was another penal colony.  After a tour of the island, we continued on up the harbour to its upper most point where the GORDON RIVER enters.

On the way we called in to see some Salmon farms, where hundreds of thousands of Sea Salmon are farmed in huge floating net enclosures along the sheltered side of the harbour.  The salmon are first introduced to the farm, basically as soon as they are hatched, and then as they grow are moved from net to net until they reach the age of about 18 months.  At this stage they are about 40cm long, and are harvested for the consumer market. They are sold locally and internationally, and we had the pleasure of sampling some with our on-board lunch.

On reaching the head of the harbour we entered the GORDON RIVER and travelled up it for about 2km.  The GORDON RIVER drains a large part of the wilderness area we had driven through the previous day.  Beautiful native bush coming right down to the water’s edge.  This area was heavily milled for its Huon Pine back in the 1800s, and STRAHAN township actually developed as a port for the export of the timber, all of which had to be shipped out through that nasty little gap at the harbours entrance.  Luckily milling was halted some time ago and the area has regenerated well. After a walk through the bush we returned back to STRAHAN, the entire cruise taking about 5 ½ hours. 

On our return to STRAHAN we were dropped off at the only sawmill still operating in the area.   An unusual feature of the mill was its main breakdown saw, which was a vertically mounted blade, instead of a circular saw which is the common one used in N.Z.  Oddly enough the only timber milled these days is windfall and other dead trees washed down the river, or found as a result of slips or other natural phenomena. 

Some of the stuff they are milling has been lying around in the bush, or in the river, for well over a hundred years, and it is as good as the day it fell.  This explains the extraordinary prices they are presently getting for the Huon Pine timber, which is prized by boat builders, cabinet makers and the furniture trade in general.  They had scrap bins of what we would call pieces of firewood, selling for $10 apiece.

After a cuppa, we headed north along the coast to HENTY Sand Dunes, which is self explanatory.  Huge sand dunes gradually encroaching on the land.  We spent a couple of hours climbing, jumping and exploring the dunes.  Sand dunes can bring out the child in you!!!  Then it was back to our cabin after one of the best days yet of our Tassie Tour.