STRAHAN is just STREWN with HUON

 (Record of activities on 11^th September, 2010 but posted on above date)

Yesterday we arrived in Tasmania's Western-most township, STRAHAN, world capital of the remarkable Huon Pine industry. As a result of our visit, our outlook on life has taken a major turn. We now have a whole new respect for the resilience of human kind.

This came about as a result of taking the World Heritage Cruise and encountering two memorable Strahan identities … Andrew Marshall and Richard Davey.

The "Eagle's" steering wheel

Andrew is a ship’s captain entrusted with the job of piloting the “Eagle”, a 5.5 million dollar purpose-built luxury catamaran on its daily tourist journeys from Strahan jetty out to the entrance of Macquarie Harbour (known as “Hell’s Gates”) and then up the lower reaches of the Gordon River.

This magical 6-hour adventure also takes in a close-up look at several fish farms (an absolute boom industry in this State) and a tour of the infamous penal colony, Sarah Island. It also includes a walk through world heritage listed rainforest, the home of the mesmerizing Huon Pine trees. For at least three of the six hours we were afloat, Andrew reeled off a most fascinating and informative dialog that held our attention for every moment. Now, describing Andrew Marshal was quite easy for me. However ...

finding words to best describe the ebullient character that is Richard Davey, and what HE does, is quite a different matter!
Actually the name “Richard” provided a cue … a theatrical cue.   Soon after watching Richard Davey in action, the name “Richard Burton” leapt to the forefront of my brain.

You see, Davey is the quintessential thespian ... an actor par excellence … and his performance as tour guide on the convict hell-hole, Sarah Island, was simply awesome and in itself worth every cent we had outlaid for the day.

I confess to having never heard of Richard Innes Davey before today and in researching background for this blog I was not at all surprised by what is written about him on Wikipedia. A click on the preceding hyperlink will reveal much more than I was able to learn in my conversation with him after the Sarah Island tour.

Well done Richard Davey and Andrew Marshall ... you have both made a real difference to our lives. Through your colourful and very professional presentations we have come to appreciate and respect the extraordinary hardships that were suffered, first of all by the convicts who laid the foundations for Tasmania's Huon Pine industry, and then by the free settling "piners" who followed them.

A visit to Tasmania MUST include a World Heritage Cruise from Strahan.  But a word of advice ... there are two cruise operators offering this trip up the Gordon River from Strahan.  Make sure you choose the one with the RED boat.  Why? Well just ask any long-time resident of Strahan ... they will tell you!