Another beautiful day so just the right conditions for our Gordon River Cruise on board the Spirit of the Wild. Like our Toyota hire car, this vessel is a hybrid. It runs on diesel engines when out in the open water and silently cruises on electric motors in the Gordon River itself.
We boarded at 8:30m and headed off into Macquarie Harbour. Apparently this is the second largest harbour in Australia (after Port Phillip Bay - sorry Sydney yours is a tiddler in comparison).
First highlight was exiting the harbour at the Hells Gates entrance at Macquarie Heads. This is a very narrow gap and not to be taken lightly. Just a narrow 120 m wide shallow channel. We had very calm conditions but it would be very challenging in a storm.
We then headed off for the Gordon River mouth past many fish farms set-up in the middle of the harbour. The conditions are right for this activity with fresh Gordon River water on top of sea water. They breed Salmon and Ocean Trout. The Ocean Trout is what we call Kahawai. Its odd that they farm these as most fishermen we know turn their nose up at Kahawai even though we quite like it (usually we smoke it).
It took nearly an hour to get to the Gordon River where we went into stealth-mode and cruised up the river at a sedate pace to avoid any wake damage to the shore. The scenery was amazing with thick bush on all sides and clear smooth water ahead and behind.
Eventually we stopped at a small jetty and had a 30 minute walk through the bush on a boardwalk. The guides told us a lot about the native tress especially the Huon Pine. This is an amazing tree which lives for 2-3000 years and was prized for shipbuilding as it never rots. Like the Kauri back home, the early settlers harvested as much as they could get. These days it is protected and the only wood available is dead trees picked up from around the area. Very like the Swamp Kauri in Northland.
The rings on the above Huon Pine cross section are incredibly close together - the growth rate is about 1mm per year.
Back on the boat we headed down river and had a wonderful buffet meal of ham, salmon, chicken drumettes and a mix of salads.
By the time we had finished lunch, it was brief stop at Sarah Island which is a lovely small island (about 500 m by 200 m) which was used as a worst-case penal colony back in the day. Apparently the first job for the convicts was to cut down all vegetation on the island! Then they had to make a whole series of walls to protect themselves from the prevailing winds. Near the end of its use, the convicts had a very successful boat building business using the Huon Pine and other local tree species.
The above photo shows the remains of one of the walls they built. The last boat they built was stolen by a group of convicts who eventually landed in Chile!
To see a YouTube video of parts of the cruise, click
here.
