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Some roads aren’t meant to be travelled alone ~ Australian Proverb
The West Coast of Tasmania has always held a special place in Andrew’s heart, and I too fell immediately in love with it on my very first trip to Tasmania in the mid-90s. I’ve now visited the region quite a few times, and I should be able to say I know it reasonably well; but it has a certain mysterious quality that makes me think it would take a lot more than a few trips to get under the tough skin of the West Coast.
Andrew’s family lived on the West Coast for a few years when he was a little kid, so his understanding and appreciation of it comes from within. When you live somewhere as a child, there’s an honest and candid acceptance of a place for exactly what it is; which sadly can rarely be replicated as an adult, because of the filters and biases we subconsciously bring to every situation.
The West Coast epitomises the word ‘rugged’. The natural landscape is solid and severe. The weather is treacherous and wildly unpredictable (it rains in excess of 300 days of the year). Given these natural conditions, it’s not surprising that the people who choose
to live on the West Coast are often sturdy and pragmatic.
The West Coast has definitely been ‘shaped’ by mining over the centuries. All the towns that dot the region show their old mining history very clearly… it’s seen in the tiny mining cottages, the grand once-prosperous mansions, the abandoned remnants of mining and transport infrastructure, and the museums dedicated to mining and minerology. But it’s also very obviously seen in the scarred and mutilated landscapes that surround the mining towns. Thankfully the natural environment is slowly regenerating, but it’s clearly been a very long process.
Although there are still a handful of mines operating in the area, they are pretty low key (from a visitor’s point of view at least), and I think it would be fair to say the biggest draws to the area are now the tourism and hospitality industries.
Strahan For Christmas last year we decided to do a road trip to the West Coast with Aileen (Andrew’s Mum). We based ourselves in Strahan, staying in a gorgeous old manor that’s been converted into a bed and breakfast. Ormiston House is an old Federation / Victorian style house that sits right
on the shores of beautiful Macquarie Harbour. The original owner was one of the wealthiest men in Tasmania at the time, making his money from a pioneering trading business (that also founded Strahan), as well as having shares in the nearby Mt Lyell mine. The house had many beautiful features like lovely stained-glass doors and gorgeous fireplaces, and was very charmingly furnished with antiques. And even though it seemed a tad sprawling, it had a lovely feel to it. Our two-bedroom suite was very comfortable and we loved our time there.
For me, one of the best things about Ormiston House was the amazing breakfast we were served. They previously offered a buffet style breakfast; but Covid had necessitated an a la carte set up. Not knowing the very generous serving sizes, we said ‘yes’ to everything on our first morning; but we learnt quickly and didn’t repeat that mistake again. Starting with a selection of juices and pots of tea (with our individual milk selections), we had waves of food brought to us: fresh fruit salad, absolutely delicious fruit compote, fresh yoghurt, pastries, toast of our choice, a selection of jams, and a Scandinavian inspired breakfast plate of
ham, cheeses, gherkins, boiled eggs and smoked salmon. We literally waddled out of there! 😄
After a long day of driving on our first day, we arrived in Strahan just in time for our dinner reservation at Risby Cove Waterfront Restaurant. It was on the other side of the harbour to Ormiston House, but only took us a few minutes to get there. The meal at Risby Cove was brilliant; and probably the best meal of the trip. Given our environs Aileen and I ordered fish dishes, but Andrew couldn’t resist the slow cooked Clover Hill lamb shoulder which was seriously delicious. Fresh food, a lovely atmosphere and a great setting literally on the water made it a memorable meal. It also helped that it was a picture-perfect evening with a golden setting sun sending shimmering sparkles off the water. I was disappointed that we didn’t have time to eat another meal there this time, but we’ll definitely be going back when we’re in Strahan again.
Our Tasmanian borders had only just re-opened to interstate arrivals, and tourist numbers hadn’t reached their peak (for summer), but dinner reservations were still very much needed if we wanted to eat
somewhere decent. The following night we arrived at Hamer’s Bar and Bistro (an upmarket pub) to be greeted by a queue going out the door. We hadn’t made a booking and had to go on a waiting list for about an hour (with all other dinner options in the village also booked out, we had little choice). The wait didn’t bother us at all. However, it’s always puzzled me that such a tourist-heavy destination like Strahan seems to struggle with offering sufficient dinner options to its visitors (even pre-Covid).
Hamer’s is on The Esplanade in Strahan Village, which is usually bustling with life – full of tourists eating, drinking and catching the ferries leaving for the iconic Gordon River Cruises. Sadly, this was the quietest I’d ever seen the town. While we felt sorry for the struggling tourist operators, we were rather glad that it enabled us to social distance very effectively.
We didn’t do any cruises this time, but have done so on other trips and can highly recommend the Gordon River cruise! We have also done a quad bike (ATV) adventure on the nearby Henty Dunes and enjoyed the experience immensely.
Despite being a very
touristy town, I have always loved Strahan. The setting on the harbour is quite stunning, and the air has a unique quality… probably from having both salty sea and green forest scents on the wind. However, I think the welcoming vibe of the place is almost entirely down to the friendly locals and affable hospitality staff – one example of this gracious service was when a cafe allowed us to shelter inside and have a late lunch that was well past their closing time. They cleaned up around us and even gave us extra sausage rolls in exchange for our profuse thanks. It’s no wonder I always leave the town with a genuine desire to return. 😊
Before I move on from Strahan, I should point out that the pronunciation of STRAHAN by tourists is a source of much amusement to Tasmanians. It’s a Scottish/Gaelic name and is pronounced STRAW-N, but most of our visitors have an urge to call it STRA-HAN. We are polite, but we do giggle a bit. It’s exactly the same as when Melbournians listen out for the pronunciation of PRAHRAN to tell the locals from the foreigners! 😄
Zeehan When it
rains on the West Coast, it’s unlike rain anywhere else in Tasmania. There’s a sudden dampness that makes you feel it’s going to stay damp for days – of course it doesn’t; but it’s an intense soggy sort of feeling that’s hard to describe. Tasmania’s weather patterns are generated from clouds off the West Coast… so of course it’s going to feel much more intense at the epicentre of things.
We woke up to very wet weather on the day we were heading towards Zeehan. We drove through a typical West Coast rainy day – with squalls of wind buffeting the car, and sheets of rain that seemed to soak everything to the bone. Andrew did a fabulous job of driving in such dicey conditions. 😊
We first visited the famous Spray Tunnel, which is just outside Zeehan. It’s a 100m railway tunnel that was carved through a hill to remove iron ore from the Spray Silver Mine. It’s been long-abandoned but is now a bit of a curious attraction because of how weird it feels to experience an unused railway tunnel. The last time we visited the area we were allowed to drive through it – the
tunnel is only a couple of metres wide and not much higher, and we had to draw in our side mirrors so our car could fit through! The tunnel also gets quite dark in the middle and the headlights of the car caused the glow worms and minerals in the tunnel walls to glow eerily like some enchanted other-world. It was quite the experience!
The tunnel is now part of the new Spray Tunnel Walking Track, and you can no longer drive through it. Walking through the tunnel with our phone torches lighting the newly boarded walking path didn’t do the ‘glow’ justice. However, we were able to get up close to the wet mossy walls, and also gain a better appreciation of the engineering skills of a bygone era. The tunnel is a nice way to experience the mining history of the area, but the narrow gravel road to and from the tunnel is very special too. It feels like an untouched ancient rainforest, and doesn’t in any way reveal the intensive mining of the area not that long ago.
Zeehan sits about 50km from Strahan, but feels a world away. Driving down the main street, it
felt exceedingly quiet – even for a small town. It soon became apparent that everything, including the petrol station, was closed. We ducked into the only place that seemed open – a second hand shop. The very friendly shop owner Trish greeted us and apologised for the power outage that had closed the whole town down – the ‘ghost town’ feel now made sense. There was also a funeral for a local woman that morning, and given it’s such a small tight knit community, most people probably wouldn’t have opened their shops that day anyway.
Trish epitomised the no-nonsense but very hospitable people we generally meet in small towns in Tasmania. She knew everyone in town and had a story about every occurrence in the town, going back decades! And she also made excellent jams. We bought a bottle of her wild blackberry and rhubarb jam, and it was very tasty. The jam sale came with many stories of her berry foraging adventures, something she’d done since she was a child. 😊
Andrew’s family have multiple ties to Zeehan – Andrew’s paternal grandfather William worked in the mines of the area in the 1930s; and Andrew’s dad Fred
was transferred to the town in the 1970s, which meant their young family moved to Zeehan when Andrew was six. While waiting for the power to be restored, we drove around the town and visited their old homes, the school Aileen taught at, and the supermarket that Fred managed. I loved hearing the stories of Andrew’s adventures in the hills around the town, and seeing where he spent a part of his childhood. It was a lovely family trip down memory lane.
The power wasn’t restored that day and everything remained shut, so we returned on a sunnier day to visit the West Coast Heritage Centre. The museum is in a lovely building on the main street – in the company of other gorgeous buildings from the time when Zeehan was a rich and thriving town known as ‘Silver City’… with 20+ pubs and many services to match its prosperity. I think I read that it even had its own stock exchange at one point! Given how quiet and lonely it feels now, it took a bit of imagination to recreate a busy and energetic Zeehan in my mind’s eye.
I’m usually not a big fan of this
sort of museum, but it was well curated and it gave me a quick education on the history of the area and the legacy of the silver and lead mines. But my favourite part of the museum was the collection of beautiful mineral samples on display – especially the eye-catching local mineral crocoite. Its deep orange-red crystalline structure was just sublime, and I was disappointed that I couldn’t buy some sort of jewellery memento of it from the gift shop. I’ll have to keep an eye out for crocoite on other trips to the West Coast.
The ticket to the museum also gave us access to the beautiful old Gaiety Theatre. Built in 1898, it was apparently once the biggest theatre in Australia, presenting films, plays and concerts. Old buildings always have a presence and atmosphere about them that I unfailingly feel as soon as I walk it, but old theatres have something more than this – maybe it’s the grandeur and staging that make them feel different. We accessed the expansive building through a small side entrance, so it was difficult to get that ‘grand entrance’ feel of the place. However, when we entered the restored main theatre,
I amused myself by imagining hundreds of pioneer era miners whooping and cheering at the Vaudevillian performances more than a 100 years ago! 😄
Much more recently than that, Aileen had been a part of the local amateur theatre society and treaded those boards too. Andrew has a memory of sitting in the audience, but can’t recall the play or much more about the theatre.
Before we left town, we visited William’s grave (Andrew’s grandfather) in the Zeehan General Cemetery. Sadly, William died when Fred was only a little boy, and Andrew didn’t know much about him. However, he has very strong memories of visiting the grave with Fred when he was a child. The general cemetery is old, but for a pioneer town it isn’t surprising that there is an even older cemetery.
The Zeehan Pioneer Cemetery is exactly as you’d picture a centuries-old cemetery to look and feel – old trees, uneven ground, faded headstones at all angles, contorted wrought iron railings and wild flowers a plenty. On our second visit to the town, we grabbed some take away coffees and sandwiches from a food truck and had an impromptu picnic lunch at the cemetery.
It was such a lovely way to end our time exploring Zeehan.
On our drive back to Strahan, we stopped at an old smelter up on a hill by the side of the road. There isn’t much left apart from ruins of the metal infrastructure and some red brick foundations. It’s quite a scenic spot and Andrew has many memories of childhood adventures in these barren hills. I can imagine it must have felt like a wonderland to a child.
The imposing Mt Zeehan sits directly across from the old smelter, seemingly overseeing and moodily judging what humans have done to the landscape around it. 😞
Side note: While we were driving around Zeehan, Aileen was overjoyed to see the red ‘Christmas Bells’ (blandfordias) flowers in bloom in the hills. It brought back very fond memories of the Christmases spent in the area. A few days after the trip Aileen sent us a photo of the Christmas Bells we’d picked at the old smelter, paired with some native irises we’d picked at the pioneer cemetery. They had been so strikingly arranged in an old green glass bottle, that it inspired an artist friend of Aileen’s to paint
it. We now have that beautiful still-life painting on a post card as a souvenir of that trip. 😊
Trial Harbour Undaunted by the rainstorm that had decimated the power supply in Zeehan, we drove onto Trial Harbour. The dirt road has gorgeous views of rain forested hills and button grass plains dotted with rocky outcrops. Around a steep downhill bend in the road, the tiny coastal community came into view, with the misty sea frothing and foaming at its heels. I call Trial Harbour a community because I don’t think it’s large enough to be even called a hamlet – there were a few out-of-place suburban looking houses which indicated that there were some permanent residents, but it mostly felt like a collection of unplanned beach shacks haphazardly arranged along the sand dunes.
We may have lingered longer, but the rain was so heavy and the wind so fierce that we didn’t feel like walking around. Aileen and Andrew sheltered in the car while I got a few quick photos, but I sought the refuge of the car within minutes.
I was so disappointed that such an awe inspiringly beautiful location had been blighted
by poor planning. It might seem harsh, but I think the drive to Trial Harbour won my heart more than the actual place did.
Queenstown The day we drove to Queenstown dawned sunnier, but it was still wild and windy enough to keep us from getting too adventurous. As much as I’d encourage any visitor to Tasmania to experience the unique last-frontier-esque vibe of Queenstown, I have to be honest and confess that I’ve never felt a connection to the town.
Queenstown was once a network of copper mines that brought much prosperity to the area, and the town still has quite a few buildings that reflect this mining boom. Conversely, the mountainsides around Queenstown tell the other side of the mining story.
Most of the West Coast is a lush green forested land, but as you approach Queenstown on the winding mountain road, the hills start morphing into a dusty reddish moonscape. The once densely forested mountains were logged for timber to fuel the smelters, and then the sulphur fumes from the smelters (the mineral ores have a high sulphur content) poisoned the soil and absolutely decimated any remining flora.
Like the hills
around Zeehan, the soil on Queenstown’s surrounding hills has been slowly recovering as each year passes. It says a lot about the resilience of the land, but it probably says more about the brutal aspect of human nature when it comes to making money at any cost. 😞
Over the years Queenstown has gone through various periods of ups and downs. Despite the obvious efforts being made to revitalise the town, it sadly wasn’t as lively as I’d seen it on past trips. Buildings like the Empire Hotel and the railway station looked great, but the streets were quiet. This may have been due to the closed State borders and a lack of tourist numbers, or it may be a reflection of bigger issues like migration from many rural and regional towns due to a lack of adequate services and employment.
We didn’t spend a lot of time in Queenstown on this particular adventure; but we’ve stayed longer on previous trips and we can very much recommend the Penghana Bed and Breakfast. It’s a timeworn mansion on a hill just outside the town centre that really captures the grand life in Queenstown of old. And if you wish
to experience the other end of the mining spectrum, there are refurbished miner’s cottages available in the surrounding area too.
We had coffee and cake at the Tracks Cafe in the historic Queenstown railway station. The setting was lovely, but the food was average and the service was even worse. I probably shouldn’t generalise, but we have experienced bad service of some kind on every trip to Queenstown… they would do well to take a leaf out of the books of hospitality staff in Strahan.
On the way out of town, we stopped at the Iron Blow Lookout on Gormanston Hill (on the Lyell Highway). It has a jaw droppingly spectacular panoramic outlook which takes in the surrounding hills and the old open cut Iron Blow Mine. The gaping wound in the earth is now filled with a bright turquoise blue water. There’s also a rather interesting ‘springboard’ canter-livered walkway that projects out over the mine, giving a rare bird’s eye view of the mine pit far below.
Linda Just outside of Queenstown and over the Gormanston Hill lies the ghost town of Linda. I’m not even sure I can call it a town,
as all that remains of Linda is the blackened ruins of what was once the Royal Hotel. The rest of the town has seemingly been reclaimed by the surrounding hills.
Linda, and specifically the ruins of the Royal Hotel, has been in the media recently. I was intrigued to read that an enterprising group of people had decided to restore the hotel and give it a new lease of life. What makes someone see a burnt-out shell of a very old building in a ghost town and decide to undertake the mammoth task of resurrecting it?
Alongside the restoration process, the new owners have opened a cafe in a temporary building next to the large ruins. Unfortunately the cafe was closed when we visited, but we were still able to roam the grounds of the hotel. I may have misread the media reports, but I was under the impression that the hotel was well on its way to being restored… but the reality is that it’s still very much just a shell of a building, with what looks like structural engineering work being done to secure the outer walls. I figure it’s going to be a very long
process, but I look forward to watching it come back to life in the future.
The setting of the hotel – in a valley surrounded by hulking mountains – is quite remarkable, so if done well, I can definitely see the Royal Hotel in Linda being a destination eatery that people will make the effort to get to.
Well, that was our brief road trip to the West Coast. It was a fabulous adventure that was made even more special by Aileen and Andrew being able to revisit their old homes together.
The only thing I would have changed about the trip was the weather… as much as grey clouds, mist and rain are a big part of the West Coast, I was surprised at how much rain there was in what should have been peak summer season. I would have loved to photograph the desolate starkness of the landscape with a brilliant blue-sky background (as we’ve experienced on past trips), and to take photos without rain drops splattering my camera lens… but that’s such a small inconvenience in the scheme of things, and I’d be entering into the realm of fantasy by wishing less
rain in a region where rainfall is measured in metres rather than centimetres! 😊
On reflection, our road trip to the wild west had everything quintessential one should experience on such a journey… the notorious squally rainstorms, bouts of pure sunshine, majestic craggy mountains, wildflower laden plains, misty temperate rainforests, tannin-stained rivers, mossy-banked creeks, calm harbours, roaring seascapes, lovely local hospitality, and small towns with rich histories and beautiful heritage streetscapes. It was such a great trip!
See you on our next Tassie adventure!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Mysterious, sturdy, pragmatic
I love the rugged feel of this area and will include it in our travels if we return. Once again you've been enjoying some good food. Sorry the weather wasn't what you hoped for but that wicked weather often enhances the trip.... although not the photos. I always love the hospitality in towns like these. Safe and continued travels.