Strahan and World Heritage cruise

Strahan is a small town on the far west coast of Tasmania, settled in the 1800s. There are some charming old buildings ( see extra). Tourism is a major income stream as are salmon farms in Macquarie Harbour. It was a logging and timber exporter for the Huon Pine logs found in the region before they stopped logging in the 70s.

Tourists mainly come to see the the World Heritage wilderness areas and our cruise today was a great 6 hour journey - mostly in pouring rain. The main shot including one for silly Saturday shows some of the scenery and tourists in assorted rain gear. I didn’t take my camera out of the boat and lucky the phone was able to capture my blips. Note the tiny island called Small Island. The women Convicts were housed there in a cave, goodness me what they had to endure... the men were incarcerated on Sarah Island and we took a tour around with a fantastic guide for an hour. It was a most beautiful island despite the horror of the past, I just loved my time out there. We also went up the Gordon River and went for a walk through the ancient forest. I was thrilled to see a mature Huon Pine. They grow about 1mm a year. They don’t mature until they are 500 years old old and many are 2000 - 3000 years, that is back to days BC. They don’t cut any living trees now and only use dead timber or that harvested from the areas now flooded for hydro electricity generation. Strahan is a very wet and windy area.