The trip from Bathurst Harbour to Macquarrie Harbour and Strahan was fairly uneventful. We had to motor most of the way as the wind died out after the first couple of hours. We came through Hell’s Gates (the entrance to Macquarrie Harbour) at about 10am on a beautiful sunny day. There was virtually no swell around the entrance making it look very tame indeed. However, at the actual point where we passed through the narrowest part, the outgoing current was very strong and our motor certainly worked had to get us through. After 15 hours we were very glad to be finally tied up at the jetty in the centre of town. But we were not there for long. After checking the weather, we decided to head off for the Gordon River the next afternoon. So it was a frantic 24 hours during which we washed (clothes), shopped and caught up on our sleep. The reward was fantastic.
Our first stop up the Gordon was to be at the Boom Camp, which is a place where the piners used to live and collect the logs which were floated down the river. It is now used as a recreational camp by about 150 members. This group got going before the area was declared world heritage and is now the only shack where people can stay in a world heritage listed area, apparently. Phil had met some of the members while filling up with fuel before we left Strahan and we were invited to visit them as they were going up to spend the week end there. We got about 4 miles up the river before we found the Camp and tied up to their small pontoon for the night. What a beautiful location – words can’t describe it. It was a beautiful still evening, so still in fact that not only was the moon reflected in the river but the stars also. The group at the Camp were very friendly and we spent some time chatting to them and hearing their stories about the Camp and their group. We were very lucky to have this experience as it is not really on the tourist trail.
Next day we went further up the river, stopping at Heritage Landing to do the boardwalk through the rainforest there. This is the place where the commercial boat tours take people for their rainforest experience. We were lucky to be there on our own so we did the whole walk without having to share it with anyone else. I am going to run out of superlatives in this blog – but the rainforest here was truly magnificent. We continued on up the river which was becoming prettier the further up we went. The banks are just completely covered in a great variety of trees right down to the waterline. The water provides beautiful reflections of the trees. We spent the night at the Sir John Falls landing which is about as far up the river as most keel boats go. This is the spot where the sea planes take people for another kind of rainforest experience. We had the place to ourselves for the afternoon and night – absolute peace. Not another soul in sight, no telephone, no radio, just us, the river and the forest.
We reluctantly left the next morning and motored a little further up (about 1 nm) before it got too shallow, and then headed back down the river to Macquarrie Harbour. This was also a lovely trip despite some drizzling rain which actually added to the atmosphere along with some classical music. There was a bit of added excitement when a sea plane flew in and landed right beside us on the river.
We then stopped in at Sarah Island, the site of the notoriously harsh penal settlement, and had an interesting few hours there looking at the ruins and learning about some of the history of the island. There was not enough time in the day to get back to Strahan so we spent the night in the Kelly Basin at the end of the harbour. While sitting out on deck having our sundowners, we saw a couple of guys off in the distance in a dinghy pulling up a net in which there was clearly something large. We were wondering what they had caught and we didn’t have to wait too long to find out, as they motored over to us and gave us one relatively large Atlantic salmon. So we have been dining on this tasty fresh fish for the last few nights. Apparently, several hundred tons of these fish recently escaped from one of the local fish farms. We later found out that a lone sailor from Sydney came to grief in that bay last year, when he seemingly had a fatal heart attack on the little beach where some Tassie devils then made a mess of his body. Glad we didn’t know that before we went there. In the morning before heading back to Strahan, we were able to explore the ruins of East Pillinger, a former mining town.
Luckily our spot on the jetty in Strahan was still vacant so we are now tied up there and spending some time exploring this cute little town. There are several nice walks and some interesting shops and galleries selling all kinds of things made out of Tassie timbers. Last night we went to an excellent play about the last escape from Sarah Island during which 10 convicts absconded on the last ship that was built there. Ship building was one of the labouring activities to which the convicts were put. The story goes that they stole the ship and sailed it to Chile where they lived for a couple of years before the long arm of the law caught up with some of them who were tried for piracy in London. They beat the charges on a technicality in that since the ship had never been launched and there were no official papers on it, it was not a ship but a bundle of timber, and they therefore escaped a hanging. The play was very entertaining as the story was presented as a comedy with lots of audience participation.
We are now waiting for the right winds to blow us home as the last leg of our journey will be to return to Melbourne, hopefully in time for Phil to go back to work on 12th April.