Day 24 - Macquarie Harbour and Gordon River Cruise

8.30am saw us heading off to Strahan Harbour for our day’s cruise upon the “Eagle”, a 50 metre aluminium catamaran, one of two which ply the tourist trade on Macquarie Harbour.

Fortunately the rain had diminished and we were only mildly annoyed by fleeting showers during the day.

We first ventured out to Hell’s Gate, the heads to Macquarie Harbour.  We were able to see first hand why ships foundered at what is a pretty narrow entrance.  We were taken through the Heads out into the Southern Ocean. That was quite an experience as we were beating into a strong westerly wind. The waves were meeting us head on until the ship had to turn to re enter the harbour. Enough said.

200315 Looking out to the Southern Ocean from Macquarie Harbour
through Hell's Gates

200315 Looking back into Macquarie Harbour through Hell's Gates

200315 The Southern Ocean.  The camera does not do it justice

200315 Coming back through Hell's Gates

Once back in calm water we headed east up the harbour.  The harbour is home to several fish farming companies including Petuna and Tassal and we did go quite close to the one of Petuna’s farms, which comprised about 20 pens.  The pens/nets drop about 25 metres into the harbour. Each pen holds about 23,000 fish, in this case sea trout.  They were being fed food pellets as we stood by.

200315 Petuna's fish farm in Macquarie Harbour

200315 Feeding the trout in the fish pens

Our next stop was Sara Island, an extremely small island, which was the site of a penal colony in the early 1800’s.  It predated Port Arthur.  In fact, when it was closed due its high running costs, its prisoners were sent to the newly built Port Arthur.  It was a horrible place for the inmates, but in its latter years it became the site of a flourishing ship building industry, making in all, about 100 ships, some up to 50m long, from the by now famous, Huon Pine.  We walked around the island and could hardly believe that so small an island could have supported a prison with inmates, staff, army guards etc.  In reality, it was too small, so they built an extension with Huon Pine logs and covered them with earth. Today the reclaimed area still exists as do the Huon Pine logs underneath. It looks just like part of the island.

200315 Leaving the "Eagle" for the visit to Sara Island

200315 The "Eagle", our cruise ship for the day 

200315 A drawing of Sara Island 

200315 Remains of a home fireplace on Sara Island

200315 The prisoners' dormitory 

The Gordon beckoned and as we entered the river the ship slowed so as not to damage the banks.  The Gordon is serene and belies its turbulent political history, the Gordon below Franklin fracas, about which we were duly informed as we tootled upstream.  Dense rain forest lines the banks and continues up the steep sided hills/mountains along the way.  We were only able to navigate 14km up the Gordon, at which point we were deposited on shore at the “Heritage Landing”.  Here there is a board-walk which took us right into the rainforest on an interpretive walk.  We saw Huon Pines for the first time and other rain forest trees like Sassafras, Leatherwood and Myrtle.  The Huon Pines were most unpretentious given they were only about 600 years old. They are slow growing, about 1mm/year increase in their diameter.  The oldest tree identified is over 3000 years old.

200315 The entrance to the Gordon River

200315 Moving slowly up the Gordon

200315 Some of the furry stuff in the rain forest at Heritage landing

200315 More hangers on in the rainforest, trying to keep their feet dry?

200315 These are Huon Pine, about 600 years old 

200315 Growth rings in a slab of Huon Pine at Heritage Landing

The cruise took us back to the Strahan wharf where we disembarked at an operating sawmill, cutting recovered Huon Pine timber. Huon Pines are protected now and only recovered timber eg natural falls, drift wood carried down by the river etc, can be processed.

200315 Milling a Huon Pine log at the sawmill at Strahan

Today’s Trivia.  The Huon Pine timber is famous for its application in boat building.  It resists rotting due to the presence of oil in the timber.  The oil is heavier than water but in spite of this, Huon Pines float with two thirds of their mass above water.  Logs were transported down the rivers in log rafts.  They waste none of this timber today even selling the sawdust as an insect repellent, but that may be just for the benefit of the gullible tourist.