Strahan as a great place to visit, although we really cut ourselves out of time. Neither of us had been there before so had little idea of all it has to offer. Basically we only took the World Heritage Cruise on Macquarie Harbour and the Gordon River – which was excellent. But we did not have time to see the famous beach as the weather closed in, nor go around to the railway station, or go to the lighthouse or take the train to Queenstown, or just sit and taken in the atmosphere of this place. We left plenty to do next time.

We visited Strahan on 01 & 02 November 2019, and drove from Strahan to Launceston on 03 Nov

Getting There

Queenstown > Strahan ~ total of 40kms.

Strahan > Launceston ~ total of 273kms

Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia

History

A short history of Tasmania, from pre-colonial times, to the arrival and growth of British colonial development, to the decimation of the First Nation Tasmanians, can be read here.

The area around Macquarie Harbour is the traditional land of the Lowreenne and Mimegin bands, which comprised the Toogee tribe. The area was also visited by other bands. This movement extended up and down the west coast, as far as Cape Grim, as First Nations people followed seasonal food sources and traded with one another.

Macquarie Harbour offered First Nations people an abundance of food, including shellfish, seals, muttonbirds and penguins. Fire was also used to clear vegetation and encourage grasslands, where wallabies, wombats and other game could be more easily hunted

By about 1830 there were no Toogee people left in the area although in recent times, the discovery of Kutikina Cave near the Franklin River, has offered an insight into their lifestyle 15,000 years ago.

The first British to explore Macquarie Harbour was James Kelly who, with four companions, entered Hells Gate in December 1815. They spent three days exploring the harbour and their reports of the vast stands of trees led to timber cutters arriving, settling and cutting down the magnificent and ancient huon pines, a superb fine-grained wood which was ideal for shipbuilding.

It was the huon pine which led to the establishment of a penal colony at Sarah Island in 1821. At that time a signal station was established on Cape Sorell to ensure safe traffic through Hells Gates. It subsequently became a lighthouse.

One of Sarah Island’s most infamous inhabitants was Alexander Pearce who escaped in 1822 and, with seven other convicts, attempted to cross the island to Hobart. They lost their way and in the ensuing weeks all of the escapees disappeared except for Pearce. When he was recaptured he was accused of cannibalism but nothing was proven. The following year Pearce escaped with another convict, Thomas Cox. Running short of food Pearce killed and ate Cox. When he was finally recaptured, he admitted to eating Cox and confessed to cannibalism during his first escape. He was subsequently executed in Hobart.

The penal colony on Sarah Island finally closed in 1833 and the convicts were moved to Port Arthur. The convicts had worked on a nearby coal seam and rowed across the harbour each day to cut down the huon pine which edged the waters.

The township of Strahan was created in 1877 as an important port for the tin mines at Mt Heemskirk. Prior to that the small port had been variously known as Long Bay and Regatta Point. It was later named after the Governor of Tasmania.

In 1890 the government constructed a railway from Zeehan to Strahan and the town was officially proclaimed in 1892. The railway line from Queenstown was opened in 1899. Around this time the population of Strahan was over 2,000 people and it was the second busiest port in Tasmania. The port remained important until the 1950s and 1960s. In 1960 the rail link to Zeehan was closed down. Three years later the same fate befell the Queenstown rail link and in 1969 Mount Lyell Co. started transporting its ore by rail to Burnie.

Day 1 – Fri 01 November – To Strahan & World Heritage Cruise

We woke to a cool and cloudy day, but with no indication of the projected rain. We left Queenstown early as we had to be in Strahan for the 9:30 World Heritage Cruise. It was a pleasant drive, through a landscape of mountains and lakes.

The cruise boat is a massive red catamaran. As we are unlikely to do this cruise again we had booked Gold seats and had the front row on the top deck. People could wander throughout the boat to see the views but it was nice to have a home base with perfect views. A great position – well worth the extra $.

We headed out across Macquarie Harbour, Australia’s second largest natural harbour, after Port Phillip Bay in Victoria. It is six times the size of Sydney Harbour measuring 35km in length and 9km across. While most parts of Macquarie Harbour are relatively shallow, we were told it is up to 50 metres deep in some places. As we motored out we passed the railway station on the south side of the harbour. There was an excellent commentary from the captain.

While Macquarie Harbour is fed by a number of large wilderness rivers, including the Gordon and King Rivers, it drains into the Southern Ocean through the 120 metre-wide narrows at Macquarie Head—a treacherous stretch of water known as Hell’s Gates. That is where we are heading first.

Through the gates of hell – Hells Gates was named in the early 1800s by convicts who made the perilous journey to this point before being incarcerated in ‘hell’—the notorious penal station at Sarah Island. The narrow and shallow gap has always been a difficult one, especially for ships under sail, and a signal station was installed at nearby Cape Sorell in 1822. This was manned by convicts and is the second highest lighthouse in the Southern Hemisphere.

Improvements to the harbour entrance were made and two six-sided wooden lighthouses were erected – one on each of the headlands: Macquarie Heads and Entrance Island. The Entrance Island lighthouse is the most photographed lighthouse in Tasmania. Breakwaters have also been built including one inside the harbour to minimise sand deposition. This looks good in the video – click here

Once through, the captain told us that is it was not too rough, he was going to head out to sea a short distance so that we were just in the “Roaring 40s”. The Roaring40s are strong westerly winds found in the Southern Hemisphere at latitudes of 40 and 50 degrees south. That was all well and good, and we got a good view to the Cape Sorell lighthouse, but turning the big cat around in the swell was a bit of an adventure.

Then we came back in through Hells Gate.

We then sailed down to the middle of the Harbour to view the fish farms. We were told that this is a massive industry for Strahan. I recalled there had been major fish kills over the last few years. About 16,000 tonnes were in the water by late 2016 when a dead zone spread from a lease into the world heritage area, forced the Environment Protection Authority to order that particular lease to be shut down and to scale back the biomass limit to 14,000 tonnes. It was revised down again four months later, this time to 12,000 tonnes, and there was an expectation that it would soon be revised down again to 10,000 tonnes.

I recall that the harbour’s problems are receiving international attention and a federal government report listed fish farming as one of two current conservation issues that could affect the outstanding universal values of the world heritage area. Low oxygen levels were putting at risk the survival of the threatened Maugean skate, a local species so elusive it was not discovered until 1988.

This is a critical issues as Tasmanian salmon is the Australia’s largest seafood product by volume, and the industry took in $730m in revenue in the 2018 financial year while employing 1,600 people (with claims twice as many jobs again rely on its success).

The infamous Sarah Island was not far further south. This was regarded as the cruellest of all the penal settlements. Located in the middle of nowhere on a wet and windy coastline on an island with no regular water supply, the first settlers arrived in January 1822 and comprised 14 convicts, 16 soldiers and their families.

It is hard to understand why they chose Sarah Island. Water had to be shipped to the island from Phillips Island which was 6 km away; the males and females were separated with the women being placed on Grummet Island; and the work conditions (rain, long journeys by rowboat, cutting down timber) were horrendous.

By 1826 the governor in Hobart realised that the situation was unsatisfactory and so Sarah Island only lasted for a decade. By 1833 it had been abandoned and the convicts moved to the new settlement at Port Arthur. But despite all these issues, the Island became the most productive shipbuilding yard in Australia.

Upon arrival the convicts were tasked with clearing the Island of vegetation so their movements could be easy monitored. Working in chain games, they then became Tasmania’s first “piners”. Huon Pine and other valuable timber was cut from nearby forest. Initially the timber was stored and then taken to Hobart. But the difficulty of access, and the poor weather conditions requires a change of plan.

Within a decade authorities had transformed the Island into an industrial village. Under the guidance of master shipwrights, over 100 vessels of varying sizes were built. It was hard, cold and wet labour, but the convicts that survived left the Island as skilled tradesmen. It is an amazing story. The boat docked up against the small jetty and we did a tour of the Island, which was brilliant.

The guide was hilarious and brought the place back to life. Over time the forests are growing back and the buildings and fences have collapsed. Today only scant ruins remain. But there are good information panels on each building or structure – like the one explaining the fences provided as example. They found that the winds were so strong, they had to build a “fence” – a hugely high fence to protect the island from the windward side.

Amongst others, we viewed the remains of the blacksmiths workshop, the military barracks, servants quarters, solitary confinement gaol, bake house and the old penitentiary.

From there we sailed down to the mighty Gordon River – one of the main reasons for this cruise for us. In the 1970s and 1980s the Gordon River was the scene of some of the most divisive protests in Tasmanian history, indeed Australian history. At the time the state’s Liberal government believed that hydro-electricity would be the economic saviour of the state. It announced that it was going to dam the Franklin River with a huge 105m dam on the Gordon River 40km upriver from Macquarie Harbour.

The battle to save the river, spearheaded by Dr Bob Brown who would go on to lead the Greens in Federal Parliament, took place at Warners Landing, 6 km from the junction of the Franklin and Gordon Rivers. There have seldom been protests like these early acts of “green” resistance. In the summer of 1982-83, 1,272 people were arrested.

The river was saved by the action of the Hawke Federal Labor government and a decision from the High Court in Canberra in 1983. The publicity about the river lead to a dramatic increase in tourism and by the early 1990s over 90,000 tourists a year were visiting Strahan and travelling across Macquarie Harbour and up the Gordon River.

The whole area, including the Aboriginal art in Fraser Cave and the white waters of the Franklin River, was be preserved under a World Heritage order, and is now known as the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. And now we were sailing up the river – a long held dream.

We had a really enjoyable and generous lunch as we went a fair way up the river – you can see that on the boats sat-nav which is almost at Heritage Landing.

At Heritage Landing we got off the boat and did a walk around the rainforest. At the entrance there were some good information panels on the flora and fauna of the forest. An example is the one for blackwood, and for huon pine.

At about half way around the walkway there was a larger platform and the skipper of the boat gave us a really good talk on the flora and fauna, particularly how this temperate rainforest is different to the tropical rainforest. Excellent.

Back on board the boat we watched a number of kayakers get going – the cruise boat has carried a number of kayaks on its stern. These people are having a few days on the river and will get picked up at Sarah Island in a few days time Glad it’s them and not me – the weather forecast is pretty bad.

We headed back down the River and the cruise boat dropped us off at the Morrison Huon Pine Sawmill. There we watched a 50mm plank being sawn off a long huon pine tree. Then we looked at the amazing range of pine products they had on offer. At very good prices too. Pity our bags are so full.

That evening we drove into town for dinner – there was not much other than the pub open. But this was very busy and vibrant. Not sure what this lovely old building is.

Day 2 – Sat 02 November – To Launceston

It was a cloudy and damp morning as we drove into Strahan township and spied a lovely looking B&B.

We walked along the waterfront – some of the building are interesting, but not sure if they are old or not.

The Post Office was under wraps for renovation.

We left Strahan behind realising we had not done this town justice – there was heaps more to do there that we had not realised. It was a nice drive north bound at the Henry River bridge the water was so still – perfect for reflections.

Then we got to Zeehan, an amazing place that was first established as a mining field, then as a town after the Zeehan-Dundas silver-lead deposits were found in 1882. The Post Office was opened in 1888. The peak period for mining was up to the First World War, though lead mining continued on up to 1963.

The population of Zeehan-Dundas peaked at 10,000 in about 1910, over ten times the current population. With a main street over two miles long (3.2 km); it also claimed over 20 hotels. At the 2011 census, Zeehan had a population of only 728. But there are some amazing buildings in the little town and 3 old locomotives take pride of place.