Hobart to Strahan, Waterfalls, Mining Towns and Rainforest

Boxing Day was our goodbye to Hobart. The Grand Chancellor was about to be swamped with spectators for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, which starts around midday in Sydney Harbour and finishes right outside the hotel at Constitution Dock. We slipped out before the nautical invasion began and headed west to Strahan.

It’s only about 300 kilometres but Tasmania doesn’t believe in straight lines, so the road winds through some of the most glorious forest you’ll ever see. First stop was Mount Field National Park and Russell Falls. This is my happy place. Temperate rainforest does things to my soul. The hush, the moss, the towering trees, the little pademelons hopping about and the gentle sound of water trickling everywhere. Heaven.

After morning tea we detoured to Tarraleah, a town built for a hydro-electric power station. It’s perched high in the mountains and sounds like a character-building nightmare in winter with deep cold, then swings to summer with huge fat flies that apparently don’t believe in personal space. These days it’s a tourist stop with lovely gardens and a much gentler vibe.

Lunch was at Derwent Bridge, memorable only for its heroic commitment to beetroot in white-bread sandwiches. They were served with a watery soup that kept a few of us guessing. Pumpkin? Sweet potato? It was described as ‘vegetable’. We weren’t convinced. The toilets were clean, though, so let’s focus on the positives. Being a public holiday meant we couldn’t visit the Wall in the Wilderness, which was a real shame. Pete and I saw some of the panels back in the 1990s when they were still in the pub, and the craftsmanship is breathtaking. Do take a look at the website.

Next stop was Nelson Falls after another rainforest wander. Last time we were here the rain had been so relentless you couldn’t even get close. Today was kinder, soft light, manageable paths, and that delicious damp forest smell that makes you want to move in permanently.

The drive continued through rolling farmland, forestry country, and old mining towns. Julieanne pointed out that it was the women who held these places together, coping with isolation, shortages, endless rain and the small challenge of trying to dry clothes in a climate that laughs at washing lines.

Simon told us about a special blue gum cultivar they grow for power poles. But Australian power poles primarily use naturally durable hardwood Eucalypts like Ironbark, Spotted Gum, Blackbutt, and Tallowwood.

We swung past Queenstown on the way south. It’s a town with a hard past written all over its hills. Once one of Tasmania’s richest mining centres, it boomed on copper, then paid the price when smelter fumes killed the surrounding forests, leaving those famous bare slopes that look more Mars than mountain. Life here was never easy. Rain fell most days, mud was a permanent accessory, and yet a tough community took root, complete with grand old hotels, theatres, and football teams that refused to quit. These days Queenstown leans into its story, part frontier town, part living museum, and it wears its scars with stubborn pride. Nature is a resilient force. Grass and shrubs are starting to make a comeback but it’ll be some time before these are verdant hills again.

Copper Blow Lookout at Queenstown feels like stepping onto another planet. The hills are bare and rippled in rust and ochre tones, stripped of forest by decades of copper mining and smelting fumes. It’s stark, almost brutal, but impossible to ignore, a reminder of the price paid for Tasmania’s mining wealth. Standing there, looking over the moonscape toward the mountains, you can’t help but feel small and a little humbled by how completely people once reshaped this place.

By late afternoon we rolled into Strahan and checked into our hotel high on the hill overlooking Macquarie Harbour.

After a short time to unpack, most of our group went along to watch a play. “The Ship That Never Was” is Australia’s longest-running play, performed nightly at the Richard Davey Amphitheatre on the Strahan wharf. It brings to life the wild true story from January 1834 when ten convicts at the brutal Sarah Island penal settlement stole the almost-finished schooner Frederick and sailed her halfway around the world to Chile in a daring bid for freedom. With just a couple of actors on stage, audience members jump in as part of the cast, cheering on the escape, helping build the mock ship, and joining in the fun as this mix of history, humour, adventure, and local legend unfolds right by Macquarie Harbour.

It turned out that the actors are all tour guides for Sarah Island so they know their stuff. We’d be going there tomorrow.

The hotel has a balcony bar, which is exactly what you want after a long day on the road. We stood there with a glass of wine, watching the light fade over the water, and decided this was a very fine way to end the day.

If you’d like to follow the whole trip, go here.