MOT Tour Day 46 - Zeehan & Strahan

 A Sunday drive today.

View back towards Queenstown
from the Strahan Road

After some ordinary roads in the last week - more twisted than an Angus Taylor excuse - it was nice to drive on wider roads, with well defined edges and even if the corners were hairpin, they were sign-posted.

We drove from Queenstown to Zeehan, which is largely the main road out of Queenstown these days. Most who require medical attention or the more important purchases in life, travel north the nearly two hours and 152 kilometres, to Burnie. Earlier in the trip we saw the northern section of this same road. Despite some sections of the by now infamous west coast bends, there were lots of sections where the Forester could stretch its legs.

The area where Zeehan is situated was once the home of two great indigenous groups who lived in small groups and being coastal dwellers, ate mutton birds and seals and the eggs of many of the ocean going birds. They had lived here for 10,000 years before British invasion, building bark huts and for protection from the elements.

Zeehan white history is, unsurprisingly, dominated by mining. After the discovery in 1871 of the huge tin deposits at Mount Bischoff, to the north, by James "Philosopher" Smith - described on Day 12 - Zeehan's first mining lease was in 1882 when silver and lead were discovered. Six years later it had a post office and Zeehan just continued to grow. It's boom came in the fifteen years before WWI, when it had seven pubs, two theatres, more than 150 companies mining profitable ore and a main street more than 3 kilometres long. Mines earned a minimum $200,000 a year for the next twenty years between the world wars. A slow decline until the 1960's saw the final mines close. There seemed to be no normally constructed houses. Most of them are corrugated iron, some are weatherboard cladding. We didn't see any brick homes yet, the public infrastructure is or was quite grand.

Minerals collection at WCHC

We went to the very well credentialed and commented on West Coast Heritage Centre, in the main street - Main Street. It was very good, although the main building, which spans two floors, is largely about rocks, how to get them and what sometimes happens to those who go underground. There was a dated video display which was never the less very effective, about the great mining disaster at Queenstown's Mount Lyell mine. In 1912, a fire broke out deep underground, trapping 92 men. Over five days and by a convoluted and difficult pathway, 50 were rescued. Rescue teams came by ship and rail to affect the rescue, breaking all sorts of travel records. When it was clear there would be no more survivors, the mine was flooded to extinguish the fire. It would take six months to retrieve the bodies of the dead and hold their funerals.

The centre is joined to four other adjacent buildings by boardwalks, all who have played roles in Zeehan's past. Of these, I found the Gaiety Theatre fascinating, with its wooden floors and one level seating and its dress circle above. The high stage - as was the practice - once saw Dame Nellie Melba perform. Original posters are in the foyer.  The other to intrigue me was the Freemason's Lodge, where a commentary described the layout of the furniture and practices of the Freemasons. It was a pretty blatant defence of their secrecy and denied any political or religious biases, which I found a little ludicrous but interesting.

We left before we could see everything, which included a blacksmith's workshop and an extensive array of machinery. Well and truly worth a visit.

Silver Spray Mine tunnel

A break for sandwiches and a cuppa in the car and then we drove out to the abandoned Silver Spray mine. Located maybe 5 kilometers to the south west under the twin peaks of a ridge which is 360 metres high, you climb past the Zeehan Golf Club from perhaps half that height. No go for vans I'm afraid as the road is rough, pot-holed, very narrow and today very wet. Its the narrowness which is the really testing bit because for most of it, if an oncoming vehicle meets you, one of you has to back their vehicle to one of the small laybys which have been provided about every 100 metres. You drive for 3 kilometres under that thread before the road empties onto a big carpark with flash looking information boards which make a mockery of the way you got there.

The remains of the mine infrastructure are still there but the big attraction is a 100 metre tunnel which has been put through the ridge to allow a small gauge railway to remove mined and processed ore to be taken on its way to market. The tunnel is renowned for glow worms. Our first pass through, my phone light was focussed on the board walk and surrounds, looking for things I didn't want to meet in the dark. Coming back a second time I looked but didn't see any. My imagination is not as good as Sue's. I saw silica reflected in the light, especially where water seeped through the ceiling. By the time we exited, the rain was back so we forewent the building remains and made our way back down the narrow road.

As much I admire the bravery and ingenuity of the miners - and the tunnel heightened that admiration - there was a terrible cost. Smelters operated in the same area, sometime the same place as the mines. Their toxic fumes sent so much concentrated poison into the air, it changed atmospheric condition, creating their own clouds and then falling as acid rain. A study in 2021, found the lakes around Zeehan, to be the most toxic in the world and yet, there has been no smelters operating in the area since the late 1950's. Ouch.

With the best of Zeehan in our pocket, we set off on the third leg of the western triangle, for Strahan. Much the better of all through roads in the area and 100km/hr most of the way.

At Strahan, we killed some time with a coffee and an incidental catchup with an older couple we had met twice before since coming to the west. Barry and Elsie were have a holiday back in Strahan where Barry grew up. We caught up on their week and they on ours. They are the most frail of all of the folks we have met during this tour.

Greg & Janelle Swab

At 3:00pm, we went to Morrison's Huon Pine Mill and watched the current descendent of the Morrison clan use a vertical saw to cut a Huon Pine log. The saw is powered by an electric engine these days but previously it was steam. The big cross cut saw moves up and down and an automated ratcheting crank pulls the cradle through on which the log is pinned. Although it seems slow, it cuts at 3cm a minute. Morrisons have permission to retrieve fallen logs from the wilderness areas or logs and branches found floating. No live trees are to be felled.

Whilst watching, Sue spied Janelle Swab and her husband Greg across the crowd! They had driven to Strahan yesterday and had just completed a cruise. Sue and Janelle taught together in Tamworth. Chin wag ensued.

We decanted for bendy drive to Queenstown, now for the third time.

Click here to see today's photos

Back east tomorrow and the longish drive to Mount Field National Park, where will be close to the edge of this wonderful wilderness which has been our host for a bit more than a week.