It was our day to spend on-board this luxurious boat touring Macquarie Harbour (six times bigger than Sydney Harbour) and going through Hell's Gates which is the tiny 20m opening to the harbour. We also motored past giant salmon breeding fish farms which is where most of our "atlantic" salmon is produced. We reduced speed through the Franklin/Gordon River World Heritage area and this area is not to be missed. It is absolutely gorgeous! Tannin is leached out of the soil into the river and the water is almost black in colour, When taking photos of the rainforest and the river together, a mirror image effect is formed. It is a magical place and all three of us were in awe of the beauty of the area.
On the way back to Strahan we stopped off at Sarah Island which is an old penal settlement. Our narrator
Richard was a local actor from Strahan and was extremely entertaining telling us about the harsh life on Sarah Island. We were very intrigued about Sarah Island and purchased a couple of books to give us further information. The cruise was just wonderful, they provided us with a delicious buffet lunch and there were only 40 passengers n the boat which normally carries 220. When we arrived back in Strahan at 2pm we then headed off back to Hobart which was 4 hours drive away. We really loved Strahan and we will definitely return to do the ABT Railway trip by steam train from Strahan to Queenstown. It is a really windy trip back to Hobart with just a couple ot stops to admire the scenery and to look at the snow. It was the first snow that we had seen in Tasmania so we were quite excited, Luckily, a snow plough had been through and ploughed the road so that it was safe to drive.
It took us exactly four hours to drive the distance from Strahan to Hobart. We were met warmly by the staff at the Mercure hotel in Hobart and had dinner in the hotel restaurant instead of 'going out" for dinner.
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