Strahan is on the Mid West Coast of Tasmania. There really isn't much there but it is pretty.
^^ Hogarth Falls are a 20 min stroll on a flat path right in town.
The harbour was 10 metres away. It was very quiet and picturesque. A very small town.
Sadly most of our Trip in Tasmania the skies were grey.
On the positive it didn't rain much.
Just grey skies ruining my photos ;)
We were able to do the Gordon River Cruise thanks to my wonderful Brother in Law.
The grey skies made for an eerie misty day.
Perfect with Convict Ruins and basically untouched rainforest at the bottom of the earth :)
^^ Gordon River and the lower west of Tasmania achieves one of the highest ratings when being listed as a world heritage spot. It ticks 8 out of 10 or something like that. Most places only tick 4. The rainforest here is that which reclaimed the land after the last Great Ice Age. Pretty rare apparently.
We were super excited when a staff member said the captain wanted us to join him.
Would you believe he let the kids all drive the boat?
And that you drive the boat with a tiny little joy stick with one finger?!
{I'm sure there is much more involved than that!}
Each kid got to don the captains hat and have a go.
It was a very special experience thats for sure.
^^ Just before we stepped onto Sarah Island a pod of dolphins swam past. It was amazing.
Sarah Island has Australia's oldest convict ruins.
^^ Light house love. There are two on the way to Hells Gate.
The cruise was very informative and I learnt alot. I was wondering why on earth would anyone come here, let alone find this place at the bottom of the earth? Why did they bother to send convicts here hundreds of years ago? It's pretty secluded. It was amazing to think convicts escaped and turned up weeks later in Hobart, or even the mainland and even Chile! Yes one boat load escaped to South America. But as everything its all about the mighty dollar and these places were turning a pretty profit with magical wood. Turns out England was out of Oak back in the day but had an empire to run with ships and all. Turns out Tasmania has lots of wood! Win for everyone. Except the convicts who had to do all the manual labour. However the some of the worlds worst slums were London and Birmingham at the time so maybe they got the better deal to be shipped to the end of the earth.
After spending most of the day on the river we hired some toboggans and headed for Henty Sand Dunes. They are about a 10-15 minute drive out of Strahan. It was tough work walking up those dunes, basically vertical but once up it was a pretty cool view. I was smart enough to stay at the top. But not adventurous enough to go up and down several times. Sore legs the next day.
^^ I was excited to see real Holly in Tasmania. Had never seen it before.
On our Way out we stopped at Zeehan a tiny town 30 mins away. It was once a booming silver mine town. Now it's sadly forgotten and tiny. However the museum there is meant to be really good {was closed when we went by} but we did check out the Spray Tunnel left over from mining days.
The tunnel was dark and cool. I had found no souvenirs in Tasmania which made me sad when I found an awesome heart rock here. I went to Zeehan and all I got was this heart rock :)
Next Up: Stahan to Launceston.
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