Rosebery – Strahan

Well it certainly was much warmer last night and we were all the better for a good nights’ sleep. We were all quite burnt from our hike in the mountains yesterday. While we did put a bit of sunscreen on later in the day, it was a bit late!

Headed of to Zeehan which has a great museum, lots of little jewellery shops selling lovely stones that are unique to the area and are mined in towns either side of Zeehan that are nothing more than one house towns now. The main street was well preserved with a fabulous heritage group taking control of the lovely old buildings and getting grants to renovate them and open them to tourists. They were another great little town trying very hard to make their town work for tourism. For those who take this back road to Strahan, they really enjoy the pleasant surprise.

We decided to push on to Strahan as we’d booked on the ferry trip for the afternoon. Strahan was larger than we last remembered it. For a town of just 1,000 people, they really seems so incredibly well set up for tourism.

We checked out the wood turners shop where they still collected Huon Pine as they are allowed to collect fallen logs that drift down the rivers. There seems to be lots of it in these shops. Although a dining room table top that would seat 8-10 was for sale for $5,500 as a slab; unpolished and treated, though it did look fabulous!

We made it to the boat for a slight 5 minutes of drizzle and had the most fabulous trip. We boarded at 3pm. We had bought premium seats @ $99 and they were really worth it. We drove out into the ocean as it was a perfect calm day. The skipper explained the roaring 40s which is the name that King Island has taken for one of their Blue cheeses. It apparently has to do with the seas being so huge and being at the 40o S line that this area sits at. We are convinced that all these beautiful places are telling us all how horrible the weather normally is, but in fact its always beautiful and they just don’t want all the tourists to move there!

On our return from the ocean, our first stop was Sarah Island. We disembarked and enjoyed a fabulous walk around the island with our tour guide. Sarah Island was the first penal settlement of Tasmania, prior to Port Arthur that we all know so well. I wasn’t aware that Sarah Island was first. The prisoners were terribly treated by the first commandant. The last was the worst used in its time. The buildings that remain on the island are mostly ruins. The most interesting one was the bakehouse. They had a particular type of oven that could cook 450 loaves of bread using just one bucket of wood! Quite a feat for nearly 200 years ago!

The island was a horror for many reasons. Firstly because as soon as they setup camp they decimated the tree cover on the island. They then froze when the icy cold winds came up from Antarctica and also had no protection from the rain that also swept across the ocean directly onto the island. They quickly started to replant trees and also laying hundreds of huon pine trees down to start reclaiming land. This allowed them to become the famous boat builders that they were. They could build boats up to 230 tons on the boat building ramps that are still in situ under the water and now covered in silt. The second reason it was horrible was the punishments used during the 12 years of its existence. The cat-o-nine-tails was the worst used in any British colony of the time. It was also preferred by all the prisons than solitary confinement! Amazing. There was one death that I heard of on the tour that was a result of the lash, but I may not have been paying attention. There is also a small island just off Sarah Island that has 70 men buried there. Quite a sad history. Not that Port Arthur is much better!

We then moved on to the fabulous buffet dinner back on board the boat as we headed up the Gordon River into the World Heritage Area. The food was fabulous and we enjoyed some lovely Tasmania wines and cheeses. We then disembarked for our final outing on a walk through the native forest of this region. They were amazing. We saw a 3,000 year old fallen huon pine. As the timber doesn’t rot, it will stay there forever!

We arrived back at the dock just after 9pm. It was surprisingly warm and we found a lovely place to stop on the river just around from the main street.