Home About me Resume The Sound and the Fury Tasmanian Saga Photos Email me! Sign Guestbook View Guestbook Email me!
TASMANIA SAGA
< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >LAKES, STEAM TRAINS AND RIVER CRUISES
It was pouring cats and dogs when Lake Sinclair came into view. It had been a long slow drive through winding road all the way there. The weather and the less than outstanding view of the lake had us turn back as soon after a brief wet walk. We spent the night in Queenstown. Queenstown was a mining town, for most of it�s existence it had been completely landlocked except for a railroad that connected it to the Port town of Strahn.
There was something very eerie about Queenstown. The surrounding hills had been completely and mercilessly strip-mined years before. The tree stumps left behind had burned in the summers and the remaining topsoil had been washed away revealing a colorful scarred landscape. For years there hadn�t been any vegetation growing on the hills. Now, small spots of green dotted the hills. The rivers were barren due to mines. A guide. The river from Queenstown joined with another further on everything in that river was dead as well. The streets of Queenstown were dotted with historic buildings going back to when the town was booming. Jutta and and I agreed that there was just a bad feeling when walking the streets. We spent the night there in one of the old hotels to get ready for the next day.
We were splitting up for a time. Tom and Jutta took the car early in the morning to catch a cruise on the Gordon river through the World Heritage Area. I was going to ride a steam train to Strahn and meet up with them a few hours later. This was the train that had kept Queenstown connected to the rest of the world before roads were built, the ABT railway, the railway that navigated some of the roughest terrain in Tasmania. A special system was developed so that the train could still make it up the grades with a full load of copper from the mines in Queenstown. There was a third rail for this sections it was one of the very few of it�s kind at the time.
This was the first steam train that I had ever ridden that wasn�t shorter than I was. I was quite excited about it. It�s hard to describe the trip we took. There was a tour guide on board and he gave us a few stories about the area as we went through the temperate rainforest. The view was great and just the history was worth the trip. I was very stoked at the end of the trip when I met up with Jutta and Tom. We exchanged stories and went on our way to Mt. Field National park. It was raining again. We spent the night in a hostel, saw some waterfalls in the park the next day and headed back in the direction of Hobart. The trip was over
< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >