What No Coal?!!

Hmmm… it turns out that steam trains in Tasmania are powered by oil, not coal! But I’m getting ahead of myself!

It was an early start as I had to drive all the gorgeous hairpin bends and be back to Queenstown by 9am ready to board the steam train, so I left the stunning west coast, and headed inland.

I had booked a half day trip on the West Coast Wilderness Train, and there was certainly lots of wilderness! The railway truly is an engineering feat, carved through the temperate rainforest, linking Queenstown with the coast. It was built for the gold prospectors and later the copper mines. 

Don’t think the carriages looked like this then! For large sections of the route you effectively see ‘nothing’ as the train literally tunnels through the forest, which towers either side of the train.

But at other times, oh wow… the forest opens up and offers incredible views, particularly over the King River gorge. 

One of the significant things about this railway is that it climbs a mountain! Using a special rack and pinion system devised in Switzerland and ordered by the original owner from reading a pamphlet(!), it consists of a third track between the two tracks, which is castellated to fit a cog, which helps to haul the train. The train climbs 200 meters in 2km, which is apparently all very impressive! 

There were a couple of stops en route, including at an old gold field, which in the end wasn’t very profitable; and at the wonderfully phonetically named, Dubbil Barril, where the engine was turned by hand, and we were also invited to do a short bush walk into the wilderness.

By the time we got back to Queenstown, it was really quite wet ~ well it is a rain forest! But also quite chilly, being a temperate rainforest in the late autumn. I collected the car and headed north and then east, going around some mountains, to reach Cradle Mountain.

The journey took about an hour and a half and by all accounts includes absolutely stunning scenery - mountains and lakes… there were a few tantalising glimpses, but sadly with the very wet conditions and basically driving through the clouds, I saw very little!

But the journey was uneventful and I arrived at the hotel in daylight, checked in and then almost straight away went out again, having heard about the 5.30pm Night Tour and Feeding at “Devils@Cradle”, a sanctuary for Tasmanian Devils and two other endangered marsupials, spotted tail quolls and eastern quolls.

It was interesting to learn about these three, to get pretty close to them, and watch them enjoy their dinner. At the same time, it was very wet and cold too, so I was ready to return to the hotel, defrost and have my dinner too ~ not raw wallaby though!

Another full day, and if weather permits, maybe I’ll be able to see Cradle Mountain in the morning!