Two Nights in the Same B&B!!

After a lovely breakfast, I headed out to make sure I was in good time to board the “Harbour Master II”, a beautiful new catamaran owned by a family who’ve been in Strahan for 5+ generations and involved in pining the famous ancient Huon Pine trees and transporting them by boat, to now were they run cruises for tourists.

I spent the next 6 hours on.a great trip all around Macquarie Harbour and the Gordon River. The Harbour is something like 5x the size of Sydney Harbour but its only access is through a very narrow passage, “Hell’s Gates”, which was our first location.

The trip included great commentary and information as well as landing in specific places for excursions, oh, and lunch!

First stop was at a tiny island, Sarah Island, which was a penal colony for secondary offenders, i.e. those who committed an offence while already in prison. We had a great guide taking us round this tiny island, telling us the story of the site, of the horrendous conditions, and then how things changed over time and it became a very productive convict-built shipyard. Fascinating!

We left the harbour and cruised about 10km up the Gordon River, which was tranquil and stunning, and also quite foreboding ~ the boat cruised the meanders of the river through thousands of miles of forest and bush: The Tasmanian World Heritage Wilderness… in fact 1.6 million hectares! It is temperate rainforest, hence it rains lots. We stopped up stream for a guided board walk through the forest with information about native flora, particularly the Huon Pines. These trees are phenomenal and can live for 3000 years! Found only in Tasmania and it has interesting properties I won’t bore you with here! 

Suffice to say it is now illegal to chop them down, but there are still places they are milled and used when they die and fall naturally. Our final stop on the trip was one such saw mill in Strahan. So, quite a cruise!

I took a few minutes ~ it didn’t take long! ~ to wander around Strahan, which is attractive and small. I then drove out to a beautiful lookout over Ocean Beach. At 40km it’s Tasmania’s longest beach and is backed by the Henry Dunes, fine sand rising to 30m in places.

Alas, I didn’t have much time, but wow… stunning! So exhilarating and invigorating to breathe the fresh, fresh air and watch the bands of rain across the horizon. 

I actually popped into a quaint little Anglican Church I’d passed, and interestingly felt more connection to God at the beach… 

But I had to get back to Strahan in time for the evening’s performance of, “The Ship That Never Was”. This is Australia’s longest running play, a mere 29 years. It is a 75 minute, one act piece with a cast of 2, plus lots of audience ‘help’, and tells the story of the last 10 convicts on Sarah Island and how they escaped…

It’s performed at an outdoor amphitheatre and despite seat cushions and blankets, was rather chilly… so it was good to defrost over dinner at a local restaurant, and then by the log burner back at the B&B, glass of local red wine in hand, chatting to a couple of other guests. 

Watch this space for more Tasmanian Wilderness adventures tomorrow…