Zeehan, Strahan & Gordon River Cruise

On Wednesday the 4^th April we left Waratah and drove to Zeehan to stay at the Zeehan Bush Camp again. I wasn’t looking forward to the steep hills and winding road especially coming into Roseberry. We had travelled this way before when we were going the other way with Kay & Derek. I made sure our water tanks were depleted and it was amazing how easier going up the hills were without 180 litres of water on board. I will do the same on the return trip where the net inclines are much greater on the way to Waratah.

We went to the Zeehan Museum and it is very impressive in terms of how much stuff they have. We spent hours there. Mining takes up the majority of machines, photos, stories and assorted displays as it is mining that was driving most of the pioneering and the mainstay of the settlements in the area. I don’t think there was to much that is photo worthy, ie more interesting than spectacular. But I did get a couple of steam engines.

That night Linda and I went up to the ‘Spray Tunnel’. The Spray was a tin mine and a tunnel was built through a hill to take steam engines for the ore trains and trams. The resultant tunnel makes the best environment for glow worms. I had never seen them before and Linda assured me that they were bigger and brighter than she had previously seen. Photos of the glow worms themselves though are impossible.

The next morning, Thursday the 5^th April  we went on to Strahan. We considered staying at the Golf Club for $10m a night but the tourist park camping rate in town is much better value at $22 per night ($20 with Big 4 membership) and you can hook up to water and camp kitchen available for charging things. But the main reason was that the tourist park gravel and grass was in good shape but the golf club grounds were muddy and sloshy something terrible.

We went to the theatre production at the Information Centre that night which is a play about convicts who built a boat at Sarah Island and stole it and sailed to South America on it. Sarah Island is on the Gordon River in Macquarie Harbour and was a convict Island. The next day we would be going on the Gordon River Cruise and seeing the island.

They do a great job on the play and it was a lot of fun. They are in their 24^th year and sometime in January will be their 25^th Anniversary.

Friday morning we went on board the World Heritage Cruise of Macquarie Harbour and up the Gordon River. We had looked ahead at the weather to try and get a nice day for the cruise. Friday looked the best day of the week, the best of a bad bunch. So we had trekked here via the previous locations to time the cruise for Friday. It turned out to be a reasonable day so we were happy. A bit grey at times but some sunshine as well and no wind which may have been the best thing. It was really nice on the water.

The first port of call was to go to Macquarie Heads into the Southern Ocean. The channel to the southern ocean is only 200 metres wide and 5 metres deep which is on the left of the island that sits in the middle of the water in this shot. On the other side of the island in the middle of the water, there are sand bars and you could walk across to the headland.

This channel was named 'Hell's Gate' by the convicts.

Here are some more shots of the surroundings at Macquarie Heads.

 As we went back into the Harbour and further along we got a close up look at one of the fish farms. The fellow in yellow is spraying food into the fish enclosure. They cover the farm with a net to prevent birds from attacking the fish. The greatest predator are seals and they are becoming feral by attacking the fish farm workers.

Next up was Sarah Island. This island in the Maquarie Harbour came prior to Port Arthur. Convicts who re-offended were sent to Sarah Island and it was a terrible place because of the sadistic, cruel guy in charge. The convicts delighted in watching this guy drown one day when he fell out of his boat. The next guy in charge improved things. But it was not until he got the sack and a Scottish shipbuilder was in charge for a while that things improved. This fellow, Phillip Hoy, achieved by negotiation what any other authoritarian tyrant could not. The convicts stopped trying to escape and punishments were not required. The convicts were happy and ships were getting built. One convict who had served his time asked to stay on so he could finish the boat he was working on. I will show some photos of the ruins but the info plaques are the most interesting. This was the most interesting history that I can recall. If you do want to read some of them you can double click on the photo to enlarge it.

We left Sarah Island and stopped at the mouth of the Gordon River and had a great buffet lunch of salad and cold meats. As we then progressed up river the sun showed itself some more and the green hills as a backdrop to river were beautiful.

Then onto a rainforest walk. There were the best examples of huon pine trees there that I have seen in Tazzie.

More beautiful hills and sky for the trip home. 

If ever you come to Tazzie you should make this cruise high on your list of things to do.

After the cruise there was a working exhibition of a saw at work cutting huon pine. Sorry I did not get a photo. We took a couple of offcuts for a dollar each.

Now that the weather had improved we took a drive out to the ocean. When we were here previously the weather was foul so we did not make the trip. The ocean water is also a brown tannin colour amazingly. The Gordon River and Macquarie Harbour water has that colour big time. Surprised it effected the ocean beach so much, albeit just outside the heads.