On Tuesday, we sauntered down the west coast of Tasmania through the mining towns of Roseberry, Rennison Bell and Zeehan to Strahan. There was much excitement in Zeehan as the Premier was in town to lay the foundation stone for a new nickel mine. Almost everyone in the district seemed to be at the old Gaiety Theatre for lunch and the formal presentations.
We arrived in Strrahan by early afternoon and found some accommodation at the old Village (which we promptly discovered was run by the Federal Hotel Group. They seem to own most of the old buildings on the esplanade and while they lease ground floor shop fronts to various businesses, all the rooms above them are luxury hotel rooms.
We took a drive out to the Heads at Hell’s Gates and along the Ocean Beach – the site of some recent whale strandings.
On Wednesday (November 6) we took one of the cruise boats for a trip down the harbour and up the Gordon River. This was the same as the trip that we did once before, but it was still very interesting and scenic. After the cruse, we went for a walk from People’s Park to Hogarth Falls along a very scenic rainforest track (20 minutes each way.
We left Strahan this morning (November 7) after breakfast for Hobart and driving through Queenstown and Derwent Bridge. The hills around Queenstown seem to be rehabilitating gradually over time and are less barren than I could remember from our first rip to Tassie in 1972.
At Derwent Bridge there is a brand new National Parks Facility at Lake St Clair. It even included a nice restaurant. It was cold and windy there and a good day not to be out on the walking tracks.
We reached Hobart by 4.00 pm and settled into our hotel room opposite Constitution Dock and just across the road from Muire’s, our favourite seafood restaurant – the building with the red roof.
