Day 5 Sarah Island and the Gordon River

Back down Macquarie Harbour we went towards our next stop, Sarah Island and a visit into the past. Sarah Island was meant to be the harshest penal colony in Tasmania prior to the setting up of Port Arthur prison. It was also the starting point for the story of the “ship that never was”, the last escape from this inescapable prison. Here we once again met the cast from the Round Earth Company who once more entertained us with stories and conundrums from this fascinating past. On a tight schedule we moved from artifact to ruins as they explained the history of the settlement and posed their questions. At the end it seemed Sarah Island may have not have ended up as harsh a settlement as was planned thanks to a little murder, blackmail and creative greed. With the sound of the ship’s siren we all trooped back on-board. Hope we got everyone back, but I don’t remember seeing those Round Earth blokes again?
From Sarah Island we headed further down the harbour and into the start of the Gordon River, grazing on our smorgasbord lunch as we went. A slow cruise up the Gordon took us to the wilderness landing were we had a 40 minute board walk taste of the wilderness rain forest and the mighty Huon Pine – or at least a smallish version of one.
After that it was back on board and homeward bound as we all tried to stay awake. This was helped by an interesting video on the old timber getters, but not by a nice glass of dry white.
Back in town Cath and I felt the need to stretch our legs so we dragged the girls along for a shortish walk up a local creek to a very pleasant waterfall on the vague suggestion we might see a platypus – we didn’t – before consolation ice-creams and back to our cabin for the end of the Grand Final some dinner and an early night. Nice of the Saints and Collingwood to have a draw so we could see the game in Melbourne.