Strahan - a nice day for a cruise

We took the short drive from Tullah to Strahan, stopping off at Zeehan on the way. Not much at Zeehan, an old silver mining town. The main attraction was the Spray Tunnel, a rail tunnel used to transport the silver ore from the nearby mine. Now it is just a home for glow worms (but only at night). Spray refers to the name of the locomotive, not to an area where it was sprayed with water.

Strahan is an attractive town. We drove out to the harbour entrance near Hells Gate and the lighthouse on Bonnet Island, while we waited for our accommodation to be ready. It was really windy.

Last time we were in Strahan (2009), it was raining, and we did the Wilderness Train ride to Queenstown and back. This time, we had booked the Gordon River cruise, and we were fortunate to have a lovely day (Australia Day). The cruise took us from Strahan to Hells Gate (narrow entrance to Macquarie Harbour), then down the Gordon River to Heritage Landing. The river reflections we got were magnificent - we were lucky because weather conditions are seldom this good. After a buffet lunch on board, we visited Sarah Island, a penal colony with a very harsh reputation. The guide on the island was quite entertaining. There are 2 companies that offer this tour - the red boat and the grey boat. We were on the grey boat (mainly because we got a 15% discount with NRMA), but they are virtually the same.

Later that afternoon, we attended the play "The Ship That Never Was". This has been running daily (except Christmas, Good Friday etc) for 30 years. Very entertaining with a lot of audience participation.

We leave the West Coast now and head towards Hobart and the East Coast of Tasmania.Read more