Monday 19 February

Very chilly when the alarm goes off at 7. Another double duvet night. Pademelon very close to the van. We leave at about 8 and there are views of Cradle Mountain partially obscured by a few clouds. Otherwise it's gin clear but cold. The Murchason highway takes us through vast eucalyptus wilderness.  We stop for coffee at Roseberrry, a pioneering frontier type of town, based around mineral extraction. We've heard  about Tasmanian curried scallop pie and there's a sign saying that they are are available at the unprepossessine cafe we stop at. So we order one to share with our suspicionsly large mugs of milky coffee. Our frank assessment is that curried scallop pies are absolutely disgusting! Roseberrry gets an average of 3 metres of rain a year. Today must be a rare sunny one.

Then onwards to Strahan. Right on the West Coast. We have tickets for the 3:30 cruise around the Macquarie Harbour. Strahan is reminiscent of West Coast Canada, a small fishing harbour on the edge of nowhere. The next landfall, 8000 miles away is Argentina. We cruise up to the Gordon River and see Huon pines , some of which are 3,400 years old. They were used in the boat building industry and hewn by convicts. There are also Leatherwoods with their white flowers that bees feed on to produce the characteristic honey from the west coast. Then on to Hells's Gate,  the mouth of this natural harbour.. Waves out at sea here routinely top 5 metres. The brown waters of the Gordon River force their way out through this narrow channel. 

Back at Strahan after 7 and we go to a harbour restaurant for grilled Calimari and catch of the day , Pink Ling ( which is actually white). Great stars and a thin crescent moon on our walk back to our campsite, Ellie and I see a possum close up whilst looking for the elusive platypus that allegedly frequents the nearby stream.