The Phoenix Tour

I went on the World Heritage cruise today to explore Macquarie Harbour and Gordon River. I learned more about Strahan which helped me to appreciate it for what it is. Learning is good. OK?

Strahan was originally a mining port but didn’t last as a primary mining port because of limited access for larger vessels due to a shallow, 200m entrance to the harbour.

This entrance was named Hell’s Gates by the convicts coming to spend time in Sarah Island’s Convict settlement. They believed they were headed for Hell. And rightly so.

Strahan also housed the ‘piners’ or River Boys who harvested the great Huon pine along the Gordon River. There were 5 sawmills in Strahan in it’s hey day, supplying timber for housing and mining operations. The cruise ended at the last operating sawmill, Morrison’s Huon mills which holds one of the last licences to salvage fallen Huon pine. Standing Huon pine is now heavily protected and cannot be harvested.

These days, Strahan relies on mostly tourism and fishing, including crays and Tasmanian King crabs. And a large fish farming enterprise.

Macquarie harbour is impressive. 5 times larger than Sydney harbour with moody, dark water due to the tannins from all of the surrounding forest.

Our first stop was Sarah Island. Tasmania’s oldest convict settlement and rumoured to be the most severe.
You wouldn’t know, walking onto the island on its lovely walkways and carefully constructed paths.
Its history tells of a place of harsh cruelty and hard labour.
Very little remains of what was a large settlement with many buildings as most were built from wood, except for the chimneys which are scattered around the site like tossed toys.

We saw the remains of the solitary confinement gaol which contained 6 ‘cells’ each measuring 6×3 feet (as our guide explained, about as big as a grave) this was one of only a couple of buildings constructed completely of brick. Double brick in fact, around half a metre thick in order to completely deprive convicts of any light or sound.

1829 saw a change in the way the settlement was run after a convict gave a speech when he was recaptured after a failed escape attempt.
He implored the convicts, as he was led to his execution to “never give up, continue the resistance!”
This led to convict uprisings resulting in better conditions- a school to educate, more comfortable quarters. This, in turn led to a 90% drop in corporal punishment, the creation of a viable ship building industry, less escape attempts and convicts from other settlements vying to be sent to Sarah Island.

Governor Arthur closed Sarah Island a few years later to build Port Arthur- Even with evidence to prove that harsher conditions worked against the prison system, he reinstated all of the punishments and conditions at Port Arthur that Sarah Island had finally abolished.

And so a new era of cruelty began…

Most of Sarah Island has now been slowly taken back by nature. 180 odd years of growth make it hard to envisage such a violent, dark place bustling with houses, shipwright buildings, kitchens, a bakery, tannery and blacksmith’s forges.

It is now a hauntingly beautiful, lush island hiding a grim past.

Gordon River was spectacular.

Towering, rugged forest clinging to the banks of this magnificent vast river. As you look at the forest, you can pick out individual monster Huon pines and majestic eucalypts all
jostling for space on the steep slopes which plunged sharply to the water’s edge.

And, when the loud, chatty folks next to me stopped being loud and chatty, you could hear the sounds of birds calling. And nothing else….

We stopped at Heritage landing.
Stood in the oldest cool temperate rainforest on the planet.
Horizontal limbs and root systems make the forest floor impenetrable. No wonder so few convicts were successful after escaping and finding themselves faced with this natural barricade to freedom.

This place is both overwhelmingly beautiful and terrifying in its vast dense darkness.

This trip really made me appreciate why people fought so hard and desperately to stop the area being dammed in the 80s. It would be
the greatest tragedy to destroy this part of the world.

UNESCO granted it World Heritage wilderness listing. One of only 2 sites in the world to gain a wilderness listing. Not hard to see why.

We can only hope that this will keep it safe from human destruction forever.

Finished the day with a quick 5 minute ride to Hogarth Falls. A pretty 20 minute walk.
I have vowed to try and look at every waterfall I come by on this trip. 1 from 1 so far….