Visiting Gordon and Sarah

Manda writes:

The World Heritage Cruise along the Gordon River is one of Strahan's major attractions. To come here and not take the 5 hour catamaran trip would almost defeat the object of coming here in the first place. So, this morning from the comfort of our seats, we watched an ever-diminishing view of Strahan as the boat pulled away and headed towards the river.

A trip through Hell's Gate (the narrowest entrance to Macquairie Harbour) was first on the itinerary. This is where boat-loads of early convicts were escorted through on the journey to the prison on Sarah Island, hence the entrance name Hell's Gate. Its narrow and turbulent path has caused ship wrecks in the past, even claiming the lives of a lighthouse keeper's family literally on the doorstep of their home. Fortunately, with state-of-the-art navigation facilities onboard our modern vessel, we were able to go through twice without any problems.

Hell's Gate - the entrance to Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania's west coast.

Sarah Island is one of the oldest convict settlements in Australia. We followed an interesting guide on the island for an hour as he made the ruins come to life with stories about how the community used to live. We heard how the inmates turned this site into one of the largest shipping yards in Australia and tales about prisoners who had tried to escape - one of them managed this nigh-on-impossible task twice! Where there's a will, there's always a way!

Remains of the Penitentiary building at Sarah Island.

We entered the tranquil Gordon River at midday. Luscious greenery line both sides of the banks and looked twice as big in its reflection on the calm waters. The pattern from the catamaran's wake looked interesting and made chrome-like images in the water. The reflections on this stretch are so good on account of a brown stain in the water - tannin is washed into the waterways from buck grass higher up and creates the mirror-like qualities.

Chrome-like reflections on the Gordon River.

Cyrstal-clear reflections are thanks to the tannin that stains the water here.

This whole area looks natural and untouched; some of the trees are thousands of years old. We stopped off for a short rainforest walk along a boardwalk on Heritage Landing. All the trees looked heavily covered in a lime green moss. We also spotted what looked like tiny pyramids of grey earth on the ground, where burrowing crayfish (unique to Tasmania) make their homes.

When we got back to dry land, we had a snack before heading back to Queenstown. We had a fun day out and decided to make tracks while there was some daylight left. Any driving today would mean less for tomorrow - a full day of driving awaited us.