Queenstown

The drive from Strahan to Queenstown was only about 50km but again along narrow winding roads up and down hills where we saw many groups of motor bikes who must love these curves and the narrow gorges which must accentuate the roar of their exhausts. What is truely amazing is the cyclists who you have to admire their stamina but the flip side is that they put themselves and other road users at risk as coming around a tight bend to discover a couple of slow moving cyclists can be a bit off putting.
But we just love the scenery here the tall trees the steep drop offs from the side of the road (I’m not that sure Kay is as keen as me as she worries we are going to end up going over the edge).
We arrived at Queenstown which again is a very old mining town on the slopes of Mount Owen and Mount Lyell. We had a couple bouts of light hail which seems very strange.
They started out mining here for gold at Iron Blow but at some stage changed to copper.
We parked the van at the local footie oval called The Gravel as that is what the pitch is made of, they must has special technique for playing as you definitely wouldn’t want to slide on this surface. This is at present a free camp but will soon be charging $5 per night.
We went shopping and sightseeing, we saw the old gold mine at the iron blow look out, we saw the horsetail falls and the Spion hill which overlooks Queenstown and has a great view of the Gravel. Also we visited the miners siding which is a great structure in the middle of the town with lots of statues and carved metal plates which tell the story of Queenstown, we spent sometime in the museum gallery which had various rooms set out to display old photographs and memorabilia of Queenstown and the other west Tasmanian mining towns history. (We actually enjoyed our time here) Kay got to try on some strange hats I had a chat with a young mine worker and a bagpipe player.
The road we travelled up to the horsetail falls was steep with very sharp turns that made it hard enough but all the time I was thinking that I have to do it again the next day with the caravan on the back, should be fun (hopefully).Read more