Strahan

Strahan (“Strawn”) is a small village, population 634, and we’re staying here two nights. Why? There are four things to do in Strahan, one of which is closed at the moment. We’re doing two of the other three. Here they are:

1.       Gordon River cruise. We’re not doing this.

2.       Hogarth Falls. Currently closed.

3.       Western Wilderness Railway. We did this in the morning.

4.       The Ship That Never Was – Australia’s longest-running play. We did this in the evening.

The Western Wilderness Railway is a railway that was built to transport copper ore from where it was found, on Mount Lyell, down to the coast at Strahan, there to be taken to wherever they did things with copper ore. We boarded the train at 10:00am at Regatta Point, and were welcomed by our coach host, Isobel, who promptly provided us with a glass of Tasmanian sparkling wine and a plate of canapes. As we set off, we were treated to a running commentary on the history of the railway. Back in the 1890s, gold was discovered in the mountains behind Strahan, and some people came to mine it. They didn’t find much, but enough to keep on reinvesting their profits in the hope of striking it big. They never did. However, an enterprising chap called Bowes Kelly sent some of the samples for analysis, and found that, whilst there wasn’t much gold in them, there was plenty of copper. He kept quiet about this and made a low-ball offer to the gold miners for their claim. This was accepted, and his company, Broken Hill Proprietary, started to mine the copper.

One thing he needed was a reliable way to get the copper from the mountains down to the coast, and this is how the railway was built – hewn through the forest and rock, excavated by hand with picks and shovels by a team of some 500 men, paid 6 shillings a day. 18 months later there was a railway from Queenstown to Strahan, and production could begin in earnest. The company, now known as BHP Group, formerly BHP Billiton, is the largest mining company in the world. As Paul Kelly once sang in an entirely different context, “from little things, big things grow”.

As we ascended the train line, following the King river, we were treated to more history, and also a pumpkin scone. It took about an hour to reach our destination, the station at Lower Landing. There we had a honey tasting, which had been explained on the train – leatherwood honey is the local specialty - then we had a guided walk through the forest, with our guide telling us about the pollution of the river due to the tailings from the mine, which were full of heavy metals, totally killing anything in and around the river banks; and the gradual recovery since the mine closed in 1994, with emphasis on the plant life surrounding the river, which is slowly regenerating.

We reboarded for the journey back to Regatta Point, this time at the back of the train (we’d been right at the front, behind the engine, on the way up). This afforded us unobstructed views out of the back of the train as we retraced our way back to Strahan. 

It was quicker getting back, because downhill. We finished up with a sweet treat of leatherwood honey nougat and a chocolate made with local gin and pepperberry. We finished up back at the station, at lunchtime. We didn’t actually want any lunch, so we headed back to the hotel to change into more summery attire, as it was warming up quite nicely by this stage. We then headed out to check that the track to Hogarth Falls really was closed, as Uncle Google alleged (it was), then went to explore the CBD of Strahan, and have a beverage and a slice.

In the evening we headed down to the Richard Davey amphitheatre to see Australia’s longest-running play, The Ship That Never Was. Based on a true story, this is the dramatization of the last ship built at the convict settlement on Sarah Island, and how !!Spoiler alert!! It was taken over by the convicts, who sailed away to Chile. After the escape some of the convicts were recaptured and sent back to Van Diemen’s Land, to be tried for piracy. The Ship That Never Was is the story of their defence. There are only three actors, so they co-opt members of the audience into the production; I was cast as Captain Taw, the drunken Captain who was bludgeoned during the take-over. It’s all played for laughs, panto style, but the underlying story is serious.

As the play ended we could hear rain starting to rattle on the canvas cover over the seating, so we hot-footed it up to Risby Cove for dinner, arriving somewhat damp. There we had oysters (again) and scallops, gnocchi and steak. I’d asked what the market fish was, expecting some Tasmanian delicacy. “Salmon” came the answer. I mean, salmon schmalmon. For all I know they haven’t served salmon all year, and thought it would make a nice change. Anyway, I had what turned out to be a rather indifferent sirloin. Ah well.

We move on tomorrow to another historic location.