Strahan Cruise
Today we went cruising! World Heritage Cruising (the Red Boat) is a locally owned and operated family business. We boarded at 8.30 and sailed at 9. Is it still called “sailed” if there were no sails, just engines? Mia seemed to be the only person under 20 on board! Mostly our travelling companions were older people on bus tours.
We headed straight out to Hells Gates which is the tiny entrance to the enormous Macquarie Harbour (5 times bigger than Sydney Harbour). The entrance is only 90m across and about 5m deep. And very susceptible to tides, winds etc. Our boat went out through the gap but didn’t venture out past the breakwater as the captain said it was pretty rough out there today. We were up on the bridge as he navigated through, turned us around and came back through. We were encouraged to come and chat to him, try on the captain’s cap and stripes. He was very relaxed, drinking his coffee with his feet up on the control bench. The captain was a funny man and we enjoyed learning about boat life.
Our first stop was Sarah Island for a guided tour. This place had a name for being the most brutal of all convict settlements. Despite being naturally difficult to escape from, as many as 1 in 4 convicts tried to run away. If caught it meant 100 lashes. Even the lashes were more brutal than those inflicted elsewhere, with lead embedded in the cat of nine tails. Some interesting stories of life there. They ended up setting up an industrial shipbuilding factory (113 ships in 12 years) on the island, using convict labour to make ships from locally sourced Huon Pine.
Lunch was served on board – bento style boxes, delicious chicken salad, smoked salmon, local cheeses and crackers, dried fruit and chocolate brownie.
Next the boat took us up the Gordon River to Heritage Landing where we could wander the boardwalk and see the amazing trees that Tasmania is famous for. The Huon Pine, Sasafrass, Blackwood, Whiteywood, Myrtle, Leatherwood etc. Again, the magical forest!
The boat also runs informative videos, if we could tear our eyes away from the beautiful scenery for long enough!
That night we managed to squeeze into the theatre to see “The Ship that never was”. It is a hilarious drama telling the story of the last boat ever made on Sarah Island. There are only two cast members, so the audience is called to participate. Sam became the ship designer – David Hoy, and Sutts was Billy, a convict escapee. A lot of fun and very clever set design to recreate the story.
