Today was a trip to Queenstown and to take
mum (and us) on a trip on the wilderness rail. The trip normally runs Queenstown
to Strahan and return. The package is normally rail in one direction and bus
the other, however, Mother Nature had stepped in and a landslide has closed
part of the track so it was Queenstown to Dubbil Barril and return. As luck
would have it this is actually the best part of the tour. Now to explain
straight up about Dubbil Barril that is our sign for today and there is a story
to it, which is too long for the blog. That is actually the spelling as accurate
as the sign says.
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| Queenstown Wilderness Rail station |
The train runs from
Queenstown to Lynchford, Rinadeena, Dubbil Barril and terminating at Strahan and
is a rack and pinion rail system designed by Roman Abt . This helps the train
transverse the 1:16 grades through the hills along the King and Queen rivers. This
is the steepest gradients in the southern hemisphere and well above the usual
1:40 most rail systems are happy with. The history of the rail link and its
life is amazing and is a testament to the developer's. The Lyell mining and
rail company was formed in 1892 to put a rail or tram car from Queenstown to
Strahan to service the Queenstown mines with the rail being completed in1896.
To say that living and working was difficult is an understatement and the
completion was a significant feat. Their motto was “we find away or make it”. We
would have liked to go premium class but unfortunately we could only get “cattle
class” (thanks Gavin can’t get that out of our heads) but in fact it was quite
good.
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| "Cattle class" accommodation |
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| Our little loco's |
The workmanship in the carriages was fantastic especially when you
consider these are reproductions of the original carriages. Our orator for the
journey was Tom and he was brilliant as a story teller/showman keeping us
entertained. We would recommend this to anyone and is well worth the money.
Queenstown itself is recovering from its early years with a lot of work being
done to recover the Queen river and the hinterland. Apparently there is still
about 50 years supply of copper in them thar hills.
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| Dubbil Barril Station sign |
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| King River Gorge |
Tomorrow it’s cruising the
Gordon and off to Hobart.
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