The Wild West
Strahan is situated on Macquarie Harbour, a natural harbour that is actually…here’s your first fun fact of the day…a fjord. We didn’t spot any vikings though. It’s also 6 times the size of Sydney Harbour (another fun fact) and is connected to the Gordon River. Being so remote, this area was perfect for a penal colony and one was built on my favourite island - Sarah Island. Reserved for the scum of the British felons it was renowned for its floggings, which sounds like a dubious claim to fame, and put these poor tortured souls to work building ships. At one stage it was one of the biggest ship building operations in the colony.
You can visit Sarah Island and learn all about its rich convict history by taking a guided tour cruising in Macquarie Harbour and down the Gordon River. Our Airbnb host told us: “A visit to Strahan is almost always about the Gordon River and you MUST do a Gordon River Cruise”.
Well, due to particularly inclement weather yesterday, we thought it would be miserable sitting on a boat for hours so we’d held off booking until we’d checked the weather, ie. looked out the window this morning. It was very grey and overcast but miraculously not raining. The weather bureau had missed it by a mile, predicting showers all day. After a quick coffee from the Coffee Shack, the best - make that the only - coffee shop in town, I went online to book our cruise. That was at 9 o’clock. Unfortunately, both Gordon Cruise tour companies - at least there’s no monopoly- are early risers and like to set sail fairly early. One had already left at 8:30am and the other was pulling out of port right now, at 9.
Oh bum.
It was a slight glitch in the plan but we’d just re-shuffle our day and go out on an afternoon cruise instead. I called the office and asked for 6 tickets for the afternoon Gordon River Cruise please. The voice on the phone had a ‘what-on-earth-do-you-mean?’ tone about it and I was told, “Oh no love, we only have one cruise a day. This is not Sydney”.
Oh bum.
The cruise was going to take 4 hours so the optimist in me thought of all that sightseeing time it had freed up. I set about trying to find things for us to do. The West Coast Wilderness Railway, as the name suggests, takes you on a steam train ride through the wilderness. It has a short trip from Strahan to Queenstown, which would have been fun, had the track from Strahan not been under repair and out of action.
Oh bum.
We settled on a quest for the local waterfall - Hogarth Falls - thankfully a natural phenomenon and so not subject to restricted hours or any maintenance issues.
The track and waterfall were actually in fine form and all the rain had ensured a lush green environment leading to a a full cascade at the culmination of the track. Toby was on high alert for leeches and was a little freaked out by the many wriggling caterpillars dangling like Christmas decorations from the branches above our heads.
Once again, Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife had excelled in providing signs and information on all the species, both flora and fauna, contained in the rainforest. I’m full of fun facts today but I thought this one was clever: the settlers used sassafras wood to make their pegs because its lack of tannin meant it wouldn’t stain their clothes. Genius. (You heard it here first.) The signs also included the cutest little descriptions and pictures of the rainforest from local kids. Little Steven Thomson drew a gorgeous tree and is quoted as saying: “Hogarth Falls smells good. The carpet is moss and plants. The river has a tan.”
He was spot-on.
It was a beautiful, slippery stroll down a ferny, leaf-littered path to a very tanned river. Tobes had worn his grip-less shoes and was moonwalking and shimmying his way down the track.
Looking for more inspiration for our afternoon activities, I checked the Airbnb host’s recommendations again.
“A visit to Lette's Bay is worth the extra 5 minute drive around the point. A quaint little hamlet on the edge of civilisation. Soak it in at sunset. Watch the ducks as the weather changes in front of your eyes. Pure bliss.”
We hopped in the car for our 5 minute drive only to realise Lette’s Bay was actually where we’d had dinner last night. If “soaking it in” meant “getting soaked” and having it go from sprinkling to pouring before our eyes was watching the “weather change”, the review was on the money. “Watching the ducks” is surely code for “it’ll probably be raining”. Pure bliss.
After lunch, we made our way down to the vast and pristine Ocean Beach, the white sand scattered sparingly with smooth pebbles and stretching for a staggering 40km into the misty, salty distance. We had come for a walk (too chilly for a swim) and to watch the waves lash the rugged west coast. It was beautiful.
Paying a visit to the busy West Coast Tourist Information office this afternoon, I found out about a play that runs every night in this town. A Strahan institution, “The Ship That Never Was”, billed as a must-see, sounded fun. It took a bit of convincing the rest of the family, who seemed less than excited by the prospect of a pantomime but with a bit of help from my friends (thanks Lyndal and Baiba!) they came around. Telling the true story of some convict escapades, it lived up to all reports was loads of fun and chock-a-block full of audience participation.
Tobes and I cooked up a feast in the kitchen of our cute-as-a-button pink house on Jones Street tonight, rounding out our short but sweet stay in Strahan.
