After spending some time booking a campervan for pick up in Darwin and buying a replacement phone for Andy – his current one is no longer charging – we take a look round Strahan. It’s a small township on the north-west shores of the beautiful and unspoilt inlet that is Macquarie Harbour. Neat, Federation-style buildings built from local Huon pine line the harbour front, most, if not all, of which are either cafes or hotels, and several tour operators offering cruises, seaplane and helicopter excursions and the scenic rail journey to Queenstown. We shun these latter in favour of a walk through the Peoples Park and a drive out to Macquarie Heads. The track in the Peoples Park runs alongside Botanical Creek as far as the small but rather beautiful Hogarth Falls. The park is 70 acres of native rain forest which was donated to the township in the 19th century. It is a lovely area to stroll through, particularly today with the dappled sunlight penetrating through the tree canopy. There are Black Gum, Blackwood, Dogwood and Sassafras trees as well as enormous tree ferns, all towering above us. We picnic above the falls from where we can watch the water cascading into a dark pool beneath.
A short drive out of Strahan is an unsealed road leading to Ocean Beach, a 30km, wild and windswept stretch of sand which, judging from the swirls of tyre marks, is a favourite spot for 4wd-ing. Gusts of sand are being blown into the air as we make our way onto the beach to watch the pounding surf of the Southern Ocean. A further 11 kms brings us to Macquarie Heads. Known as Hell’s Gates this is where the calm harbour waters clash with the ocean beyond. We walk along beach to the point at which the it turns up the coast .battling against the winds that blow the sand in rivulets along the beach. Wild, windy and isolated.
The drive to Queenstown takes about 45 minutes along windy roads. The approach into the town is quite striking; the surrounding mountains long-since laid bare by a combination of logging, bushfires and erosion and stained purple, grey and pink by the sulphur fumes from mining processes. Strangely beautiful and yet at the same time starkly ugly, it is a landscape that engenders mixed reactions. Queenstown itself is small and very quite, in fact is appears almost deserted – where is everybody? We’ve booked a room in the Empire Hotel, a rather grand Victorian building opposite the ABT railway station. The interior has seen better days and would benefit from a facelift, but it does boast a magnificent National Trust staircase which was made in England using native Australian wood.
Andy goes in search of the football (tonight there is an England match at 2am) drinks until the early hours in the hotel across the rroad, in the vain hope that they remain open until 4am. Always unlikely. He is turfed out, worse for wear and doesn’t return to our room until 5.30am! Apparently he had spend the intervening hours collapsed in another room in the hotel.
There is an England match on the television at 2am, so while I snuggle up in bed, Andy goes the bar across the road in the vain hope that they will remain open to show the match. Always unlikely, he is turfed out in the early hours rather worse for wear and having seen none of the match. He returns to our room a 5.30 having apparently spent the intervening hours collapsed in another room in the hotel. Or so he says…