Strahan and Queenstown

Fishing boats in Strahan harbour.

Strahan town.

This is the beach outside of Strahan's harbour, expansive and very wild.

Queenstown

The road climbing out of Queenstown over the mountain with a 100 km speed limit!

One variety of gum tree.

Monday, March 28^th.

I left early and drove to Strahan on the west coast. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the drive was scenic along very winding roads. The town of Strahan is very picturesque and a very touristy little town. There is an old steam railroad here that operates through the forests to Queenstown and a cruise along the River George, but I decided to take neither as I couldn't see what either would offer that I had not already seen from the road. This area was another British penal colony and the entrance to the bay is called Hell's Gate because of the desolation and misery suffered here by the convicts. I walked around town exploring and then headed out of town towards Queenstown and found a sign indicating the ocean beach. I went and checked it out and found a huge, deserted beach with wild surf.

Then I continued to drive towards Queenstown. Again the road was winding and scenic as I drove through the forests and up and over small mountains. When I got to Queenstown I noticed the devastation of the vegation in the area. This is a mining town where they mined copper and other minerals and smelted them here. But this was before we knew about the results of that. The whole area is dead from acid rain. I walked around the town which has many original wooden buildings and still looks like an old mining town. The mines are mostly shut down now. I checked out the railroad station which had the steam train in it that had just arrived from Strahan. I had a curried chicken pie and then drove out. The road out of town is very steep, winds around the mountains and is very narrow, but at the beginning they posted a speed limit of 100! Impossible! Most of the way I was lucky to hit 30. It wasn't for about 10 kms before the road crested the hills and became less treacherous.

From there it was a long drive through a huge naturally wild area of over a 100 kms. I decided to drive right to Hobart in order to better position myself for the last few days.

When I got to Hobart, I experienced my aversion to cities after being in the countryside for a few days, and decided to drive out of the city towards Port Arthur where I wanted to go the next day. I set the GPS to Sorrell on the outskirts of Hobart past the airport and set out. But I had no luck finding accommodation so I continued south east. Now it was getting dark and there were no people around. I drove on worrying a bit about animals on the road (there is lots of road kill here). I finally found a large beautiful old Hotel/Restaurant/Bar, but they didn't rent rooms! The lady phoned ahead to a hotel she knew but no answer. She told me that a lot of places were shutting down for the season, so I decided to head back. I retraced my steps for about 50 kms to the Hobart Airport where I knew there would be a hotel. Sure enough I found the Travel Lodge and booked in. Then I went to the gas station and Subway restuarant next door. I gassed up and ordered a small sub. There I met Michael (from Keith's b and b the other night)! He had just dropped off Natalia at the airport for her flight to Sydney. I sat and had dinner with him until he decided to drive home and I went to bed very tired.

I drove a total of 570 kms today.