Down to the Sea

Tasmania might be small, but what it lacks in distance, it makes up in height. Apart from skirting the coast, it’s mountains and valleys wherever you want to go. Hairpins and switchbacks enough to keep the gears in a constant shuffle. The three big industries in Tassie are mining, forestry and dams (although the last two have been reigned in somewhat from the raping and pillaging of last century). Of the three, mining rules on the west coast and evidenced by mines, mining museums and of course, mining trucks, that made the aforementioned hairpin bends REALLY interesting.

So we left Lake Macintosh under cloudy skies with no illusions about our run to the west coast. We have worked out our mutually agreeable driving arrangements. I hare off, chancing fate with every turn and Ken is happy having old ladies in little white cars honking impatiently behind him.

The higher we climbed the lower the cloud. Wisps of white would blow across the road and mists swirled around the peaks. And of course, it was wet. Perfect conditions to test out our young Kenny, and he handled it well. I found a BP down a side street at a little mining town called Rosebery (well, I say side street, but it went straight to the mine entrance). Watching you fuel gauge go into some kind of free fall is a tad disconcerting, and in this neck of the woods, servos are a little thin on the ground.

Our first real stop was Zeehan, another mining town and about half-way to our destination, Macquarie Harbour. The great thing about Tassie is, that the word ‘re-development’ is virtually unknown. So, if your a student of history, this is where you come. Almost unbelievably, given the geography, railway lines crisscrossed this mountainous region (more about THAT next time). Hardly surprising then when we come across both a mining museum and historic locomotives in the one town. Zeehan is also one of many jumping off points for wilderness cycling.

Once we left Zeehan, the conditions improved. After what seemed like a constant incline for the last two hours, we had steeled ourselves for a hair raising descent to Strahan only to find ourselves on a wide ’boulevard’ of a road that led us gently down the mountain side and on to the flat lands of the coast. The campground on Macquarie Harbour was about 20 minutes out of Strahan and, by the time we had finished setting up beachside, the sun had broken through for the first time in a couple of days. The sand was like concrete, so we took the Jeep for a run, both in celebration and I suspect, relief, that we had arrived in one piece. On return, I collected driftwood for some future ‘kumbiyah’ and Ken went off to do some therapy with a fishing pole and came back in triumph.

Macquarie Harbour is three times as large as Sydney Harbour and only Port Phillip Bay in Victoria is larger. With views across a vast expanse of water to mountain ranges in the distance, every photographer dreams of that perfect sunrise. The ‘magic’ happens in the hour before sunrise and it’s a very hit and miss opportunity. Disappointment far outweighs exhilaration-except for this particular morning. Even as I stumbled onto the beach with nothing but a promise to see by, it was a portent to a spectacle of colour and movement.

I was not alone however. A woman in her jim-jams was clicking furiously on her mobile phone. A mutual smile and nod, an unspoken congratulations on a hunch and leaving a warm comfortable bed at such an ungodly hour.

But, as you can see, SO worth it. Unfortunately, that was not the end of, but just the start of, another day of exploring. More about that next time.