​West Wilderness Railway - 9 March

We went to and beyond Hells Gates and lived to tell the tale! Seriously, we walked along Kelly's passage to the mouth of Macquarie harbour, Strahan. Looks innocent enough, but this treacherous entrance from the Southern ocean has claimed a few boats. Indeed this is a wild place but Macquarie harbour is a quiet and safe haven for $millions of sea going mega yachts - mind boggling.

The waterways and ocean of Strahan and the Macquarie harbour are mighty but we were here for something different - a trip into the wild hills sheltering the harbour on an ancient iron horse.

This old lady was made in Glasgow

Strahan to Queenstown and back - 10 hours up and over the mountains. It was a boy's own adventure day! An 80 year old stream engine pulled over 100 ton of wood and iron and people 40k and back. The smells and sounds were incredibly nostalgic - like many others on the trip, we got lots of videos to capture the sound of whistle and puffing of steam through the forest. It was wonderful. We passed ruins of some of the rail building camps and were told stories about the families of the rail builders who toughed it out in sometime appalling conditions. The kids were taken to school on the train; 2-3 hours there and back. Illness or injury well there wasn't a quick response from a trusty medical team!

Most of the line was hand cut through dense forest and rock. With a matter of inches at most in some spots between train and rock wall - wow! How they managed that in a relatively fragile environment with hand tools is mind boggling and the privations they suffered border on heroic.

King River gorge

The line hugs the edge of Macquarie harbour and King river until it gets to the river gorge and then the line goes up and over with a slope ratio of 1:15 wow! The train it basically wound up on a rack rail system. A mighty task taking 2 years to complete. It was a good day albeit long!

The indomitable Empire Hotel

At the turn around, we popped in to the historic Empire hotel for a massive typical pub lunch then it was 'all aboard' for the long trip home up and over the mountain again.