A Sampler Tour of Tasmania. Day 7

It rained on and off most of the night and in the morning there was still showers passing through. As I had coffee and Brekky I watched a young couple pack up their tent in the rain, I felt very sorry for them. I got ready and walked over to Cruise Wharf through a light shower, we boarded the boat which left the wharf at 09:00.

 We had one or two light showers as we cruised out to Macquarie Heads and Hells Gate but by the time we got there the rain had finished for the day. As there was hardly any swell the boat went out across the bar and we had a look at the lighthouse which is out there. The bar is not very wide which is why they can't use it for larger commercial ships. 

Then we turned around, headed back over the bar, past Hells Gates and into the Harbour where we cruised past a lot of large floating fish enclosures holding roughly 20,000 fish in each enclosure (Atlantic Salmon and Ocean Trout). And the vessel they use to service them and deliver fish food is the old Combi Trader from Scarborough. It used to do the run over to Moreton Island a few years ago. 

After the aquaculture, we stopped at Sarah Island and were given a guided tour by the actors from a local play about the convict heritage of this little island. It was supposedly the Hell to which Hells Gates referred to and was pretty brutal in the way they treated the convicts. The actors while a bit corny at times made the whole thing seem pretty real and it was much more interesting than someone reciting a few facts about the island. 

While we cruised up the Gordon River to the landing site we had a nice buffet lunch which of course had some Tasmanian smoked salmon and a couple of Tasmanian cheeses. The rain forest here is quite different to the Qld rain forest I have seen, it much more densely packed and much wetter. 

On the boat back to Strahan, I think I ended up having a little snooze as the ride was pretty calm and the boat was cruising at about 50 km/hr. When we got back to the wharf we had a quick tour of a Huon Pine sawmill. All up it was a great day, well and truly worth the $100 or so dollars. 

I wandered back to camp and found the outside of the tent had dried out nicely and as I was still feeling snoozy had a nice lazy couple of hours reading before dinner and then writing up my blog. Hopefully it won't rain tonight and I'll be able to pack up a nice dry tent in the morning.