Tasmania Trip Day Five

Another beautiful day dawned, very early. The sun goes down about 9:35pm and comes up about 5am. And thats with daylight saving. Seems they get more than us regardless! The lawn in front of our room gets these visitors at dawn and dusk. There are usually three or four of them. This is for Miss R. I did some washing, then we were picked up at 10am for our West Coast Wilderness Railway trip. We were going through the mountains to Queenstown on a steam trail with mountain climbing abilities. A Swiss gentleman (surprise, surprise!) named Abt invented a cog rail system. I had been on one before in Switzerland, but there are only two in Australia. The other one is in a steep paddock somewhere. Australia is pretty short on mountains.
We chose the first class option, so we got a carriage at the back, with a balcony. And champagne and nibblies.

The carriages are all restored beautifully and quite comfy.This one has windows in the roof too. It was a hottish day so we could have done without them, but the rest of the year they would be quite handy.

We were not allowed to lean out of the windows or the side of the carriage, lest we lose a limb, as the cuttings were quite narrow in parts. So we got lots of pics of the track behind us!

We stopped briefly at the first of two stations to rewater the engine. This little Huon Pine in a pot is 80 years old. Told you they grow slowly. A plant for the patient.

This rail line was built by hand through some really wild country. This is the remains of some old bridge washed away in a flood.

We followed the King River up into the hills. Due to pollution from the mining at Queenstown, this is a dead river. Nothing will live in it, not even bacteria. This picture is of a junction with a smaller stream, which is a healthy river, it has the tannin coloured water. You can see where they meet.

We stopped at the next station to swap engines and have lunch. Apart from the champagne and nibblies they plied us with on the way up here, the lunch consited of a pastie, a salad roll, biccies and cheese, fruit and some chocolates. We watched the train from Queenstown come in. This engine was having some issues, so we had to wait while another engine chugged up here.

The two engines, hooked up to our carriages, ready to take us up the mountains to Queenstown.It was interesting watching them turn the engines around. By hand.
Like in Thomas the Tank Engine.

Still following the King River we headed up.

And up.

And up.

As we neared the town of Queenstown, site of ecological disasters as mentioned a couple of days ago, we encountered the Queen River. This is what it looks like after NOT being polluted for the last 50 years. It will take hundreds of years for this river to heal.

Once we arrived in Queenstown, we were bussed back to Strahan. We headed back to the hotel for a bit, then into Strahan for dinner before heading out to Ocean Beach to catch a sunset. My first ever sunset over the sea.

It didn't dissapoint.

And you know how much I love sunsets.

We could have stayed on to watch the mutton birds flying into the sanddunes to their chicks. But it was nearly 10pm and we were tired. So we headed back to Strahan. Once back at the hotel, KISA played with the night setting on the camera to get this shot of Strahan at night.