Australia: Gordon River Cruise

Travel Date: 25 April 2013

ANZAC Park along the waterfront in Strahan

I woke up early in the morning at the YHA in Strahan, packed up my things, and loaded my bags into my rental car, and drove down to the Esplanade in the town centre for my first (and only) ANZAC Day Dawn Service. The Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was the first organised armed services of both countries and were first deployed in World War I at the Battle of Gallipoli which was an effort by the Allies to capture Constantinople and thus monitor/block all sea trade to Russia (thanks, Wikipedia). What I did not have to look up, though, was that the battle was not successful for the Allied Forces and many Australians and New Zealanders lost their lives. ANZAC Day memorialises this Battle as well as all other military excursions that the two countries have been involved in since. It's essentially the Australian and New Zealand version of Memorial Day. Traditional services are held at dawn throughout Australia, and Strahan was no exception. I stopped in at the coffee shop among the 60 or so townspeople who were up early for the service. Soon, the townspeople formed a procession 3-across and walked over to an obelisk in ANZAC Park across the street (while I, and any other tourists, just wandered en masse). There was a nice little service with some prayers being read, a poem by a local high schooler, and some words from the town's mayor - all of which was constantly interrupted by a hoarde of geese, ducks, and seagulls in the park behind us, so it was kind of hard to hear. Then the mayor tried playing a recording of tradtional ANZAC music on a portable CD player, but couldn't get it to play. After about five minutes, the young high schooler who read the poem stepped up to help the elderly mayor. Thinking a young person would have the CD player going in no time, it surprised me when after another five minutes passed and the music hadn't started. It was then I realised how unique my age is: the mayor was maybe too old to be familiar with CD players and the high schooler was so used to iPods and mp3 players that she also didn't know how to work it! They eventually realised that if they put the CD player on solid ground, it would play just fine. The service soon ended and most everyone headed into the local hotel (pub) for breky and a coffee and rum mixture. I settled for coffee (plain) and a sandwich from the cafe next door.

It was a very bleak, grey, and drizzly morning, but I'd booked a ticket on the Gordon River Cruise (highly recommended by tour guides). Strahan is nestled in a little cove off of Macquarie Harbour, Australia's second largest harbour next to Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay, and fed by the Gordon River, which extends up into the vast wilderness of southwest Tasmania. I booked the trip for three reasons. Firstly, not having much time to hike into many of the wilderness areas of Tasmania, I thought this would be a fantastic way to "get into" the wild (yes, even if it is aboard a luxury catamaran). Secondly, it also stopped at the famous Sarah Island - one of Tasmania's most feared convict colonies out on a tiny island in the middle of the harbour - and I wasn't sure if I'd get to learn anything about Tasmania's harsh convict history during the rest of my trip. Thirdly, it included lunch!

The cruise left the docks in Strahan and immediately headed out toward the entrance to the harbour where we passed a few different lighthouses while passing through Hell's Gate. The convicts called the entrance to Macquarie Harbour Hell's Gate because of its isolation and hardships they knew they'd endure on Sarah Island as well as the fact that even though the surrounding area is beautiful, attempted escape almost certainly would lead to death either by British soldiers or the treacherous nature of the environment. Hell's Gate is only  a few tens of metres wide and is very shallow, so not too many large vessels can enter the harbour. Also because of the shallow and narrow entrance, it takes ebb tides more time to push their way into the harbour. In fact, the upper few metres of the harbour's water is freshwater supplied from the surrounding rivers and stained brown with tannin because the narrow entrance to the harbour makes it more difficult for the tides to flush out the harbour!

Lighthouse at Hell's Gate, the entrance to Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania

This has an added benefit to the local fishermen. Salmon and trout were introduced to Australia from Great Britain and because they require a certain balance of fresh and salt water, Macquarie Harbour is the perfect place for fish farms, of which there are many.

The boat turned around outside Hell's Gates, not wanting to get battered by the huge ocean waves, wind, and rain and went back into the harbour toward the opposite end where the Gordon River flows into it. As soon as we neared the entrance to the river, the water became much calmer and though it was still rainy and gray the trip became a bit more relaxed. We traveled up the river a few kilometres and learned about the native Huon Pines which grow in the area. Convicts at Sarah Island predominantly built ships out of the Huon Pine because the pine's pitch contained an oil which prevented worms from boring into the wood. Logging of the Huon Pines was so intense that all operations have since been halted and the species protected. Now, only National Park officials can remove Huon pine wood from the forests, and even then, it can only be wood from fallen trees. No Huon pines can be cut down.

Mouth of the Gordon River, flowing into Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania

We got off the boat and had a little walk on a boardwalk through the rainforest, which was very very rainy and allowed us to get up close with the Huon pines and a number of little mud chimneys built by crabs excavating down into it. Back on the boat, though, a buffet lunch was served with some of the freshest salmon you could hope for and local Tassie apples. Delicious!

The rain had stopped momentarily as we approached Sarah Island, home to one of the worst convict settlements in Tasmania, reserved only for those who repeated offense after arriving to Australia. The island is fraught with stories of cruelty, backstabbing, coercion, treachery, and violence I cannot even begin to recount the tales we heard. But the end of Sarah Island came with the installation of a commandant who had previously been a ship builder with no experience of managing convicts. But as soon as he started his post at the island, the violence decreased, the escape attempts stopped, and productivity increased immensely. It turns out that when you give convicts special things they want like alcohol and dignified sleeping quarters, you could get in return a very productive work force. But after news of fair treatment toward the convicts at Sarah Island reached the higher-ups in the British military, the settlement was shut down.

Convict settlement ruins on Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania

Having spent enough time outside on the boat, I stayed inside the rest of the way back to the wharf. Arriving shortly after 2pm in Strahan, I rushed to get to my car because I knew I had very limited hours of daylight remaining and a very long way to go to get back to Hobart for the night! But as luck would have it, the rain started back up as soon as I got back in my car. Not just a drizzle, but one of the most blinding, white-out deluges I've ever driven through. I put my trust in the little car and its tires and just started heading down the road trying not to slow down through the very rough driving conditions where rain was flowing down the road and around corners. My wipers, though on at the highest setting, couldn't keep up with the rain. I bought petrol in Queenstown and then started my ascent into the mountains.

The change from the day before in the mining area, where all the hills had been stripped of vegetation and soil was unbelievable. Every single crevasse or nook between hills was GUSHING with unbelievably voluminous waterfalls! With nowhere for the rain to seep into, it just collected and rushed downhill!! The rain continued as I got up into the mountains, and though I was making good time, I was surely driving a little too dangerously for the conditions. But finally, a few hours later, as I came closer to Lake St. Clair, the rain let up as the weather was held back on the western side of Tasmania by the highly elevated mountains. While still wet, the rest of the drive was fairly smooth and pleasant and I made it back to the Hobart airport to drop of my rental car only about an hour after the sun went down.