Strahan

We made it to Strahan, after driving through the scariest roadworks I've ever encountered - I was driving, towing our van, it was raining, the road was uphill/downhill/twisty-turny and the roadworks were about 4 inches deep in slippery mud. But apparently the previous stretch of repairs had been worse, with trucks jack-knifing in much-deeper mud. By the time we got through it, there was even mud on the top of the Avan - a fine white clay sort of mud that doesn't seem to wash off in all the rain.

Anyway, as you've probably guessed, it was raining a lot of the time we were in Strahan. It seems to rain a lot in Tassie. I don't think I'll ever complain about Canberra's weather again.  But we did some great things.

We went for a trip on the Heritage railway, which was built in very difficult terrain and weather conditions, and has some spectacular scenery. 

Our trip was supposed to go to two stations and turn on a turn-table, but not long before the second station we pulled up - there was a tree on the line.  The tree was more substantial than the driver's chainsaw could handle (tree 1.5m diameter, chainsaw, not even half that), so we had to reverse back to the first station.  Apart from a screaming toddler in our carriage, we had a great day, despite not making it to our destination.

The next day we took a fabulous cruise on Macquarie Harbour (5 times Sydney Harbour) out to Hell's Gates, back to Sarah Island for an excellent tour of the convict ruins, and on to a cruise up the Gordon River to Heritage Landing for a walk in the rain forest.  This was such a great day, and the tour guide has set the standard against which all future tour guides will be measured. 

Back in Strahan, we attended Australia's longest running play "The Ship that Never Was", about the last escape from Sarah Island. And there was our tour guide again, playing half the cast. Perhaps being a professional actor should be a mandatory job criteria for tour guides? The play is hilarious, but so is the underlying history. In brief, when Sarah Island (where the convicts built excellent ships) was closing and the convicts were going to be moved to Port Arthur, they built one last ship, for which the orders to NOT build apparently got lost. Then they stole the ship (politely leaving half their supplies for the officials they left behind) and lived in Chile for a year, before some of them were caught and sent back for trial and were supposed to be hung. But they got off! How? Well, there were no papers for the ship, so it didn't officially exist, so they only stole a 'bundle of materials'.

We took a drive out to Zeehan, and drove down to the west coast settlement of Trial Harbour, which didn't appear to even have mains power. Very remote and rugged.

We also drove to Ocean Beach, close to Strahan, which is actually at the other end of the same beach - I think it is Australia's longest beach, at about 90km, but don't quote me,  I might be wrong about that!

Everywhere we drive so far in Tasmania, there have been masses of little pink flowers by the roadside. They look kind of scrappy, but I finally got a chance to get a close up of these pretty little Ericas.