Strahan 2016

What's covered?

The second stop on our tour of Tasmania.

12 October

We stopped for coffee at Hamilton Inn, Hamilton and for soup at Derwent Bridge after driving through snow.

After checking in to Franklin Manor, we went into the small town (800 people) and booked for the Gordon River Cruise tomorrow. Then we went to see "The Ship That Never Was". It is a comedy version of the story of a group of prisoners who stole a ship and succeeded in getting to Chile. After a while some were caught and returned to Tasmania for trial. However, their defence was the ship had never been registered and therefore it could not be stolen, it had technically never existed. The play has been running for 23 years and the outdoor amphitheatre is operated by the Richard Davey Players. Richard Davey died a couple of years ago and it is now performed mostly by his daughter Kiah Davey. Ten prisoners escaped but each performance is two actors only. The audience participates for the others and it was great fun.

We froze and were glad to get into Hamers for dinner.

13 October

We boarded the "Harbour Master" just after 8.30 and were shown to our allocated seats. We had not been able to book window seats but that proved not to be an issue. The staircase came to the front of the upper galley but the opening for it started just in front of our seats so we had a pretty much unrestricted view forward.

The boat was built in Hobart and was only launched in March 2016 at a cost of $7.2M.

We learned that Macquarie Harbour is twice the size of Sydney harbour.

We passed through Hells Gate into the Roaring Forties, so called by convicts as it was the way to Sarah Island that for them was hell.

The boat pulled alongside a Petuna Fish Farm net and we saw the fish being fed with food in a water cannon. Petuna is one of three large companies and it was recommended that we look at their website for more information.

On Sarah Island we were given an hour long guided tour by Ingrid who, in her words, had a large voice. It was a large group but no one had any difficulty in hearing her.

The last stop was the Heritage Forest Walk.

During the return journey there was a very interesting story about the logging of the Huon Pine trees until the area became a World Heritage Site.

We dined again at Hamers.