Day 4 Trip back in history. The Rack and Pinion Railway Queenstown to Dubbil Barril

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.  

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. 

"Cattle class" accommodation

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. 

Dubbil Barril Station sign

King River Gorge

Tomorrow it’s cruising the Gordon and off to Hobart.

Day 3 Strahan by walking track

Well today we woke to a great day with the morning a bit cool but the day ended up pretty warm. We had a couple of things we had planned to do but my luck continued to be nonexistent. The activities were to be a trip on the wilderness train and then a cruise up the Gordon River. Well the rail mob have lost our booking  and at first engagement was now fully booked so no cigar. Persistence and the great young girl (thanks Felicity) at the activity centre managed to get us on the train, in cattle class. That pushed us out a day as the only day they had bookings on the cruise was Friday. Friday we are due to head for Hobart.

View from the coffee stop

Anyway today we meandered the streets of Strahan and its a pleasant, friendly little town with coffee shops and eateries along the wharf area. Di and I had our obligatory walk and coffee this morning, took mum in for lunch and a bit of a drive then back to have a relax for the day.

 Life is hard I guess we could call it a preparation day for tomorrow. 

Day 2 Stanley to Strahan

Well we all slept well in our more than acceptable accommodation and dinner last night wasn’t all that shabby either. Unfortunately Di’s sleep was interrupted on a number of occasions by my snoring – must have been the wine I had with dinner. We headed off about 9ish and took mum on a bit of a tour of Stanley to show her some of the old buildings, the Nut and some of the other sites.  

Morning Tea on the Western Explorer road

From there we headed for Strahan. Now I decided that the bitumen road was too easy so I opted to go via Dismal Swamp, Arthur River, Corinna and Zeehan using the Western Explorer Road. That’s 250 km’s of dirt. Whilst it was a bit rough it was a great experience and showed a whole different landscape of Tassie. There is not much in the way of amenities including fuel along the route. We stopped at a gem called Corinna. 

Corinna Pub

There is a pub/general store with both free and normal camping on the river. You have to also take the punt across the river to continue your journey. We had lunch at the pub and I have to say (consensus of opinion) they were the best roast beef sandwiches I (us) have ever had. I would love to spend a few days here at some stage unfortunately I doubt it will be in Abby (new van) she is not an off roader.

Corinna Ferry (The Fatman Barge)

We never had a theme for this trip but it seems one has presented itself after yesterdays sign about irrigated roads. We have found a couple more today one about Warning of eagles on roads and the other, at first glance, indicated mating rites between cars and kangaroos after dark!!!!  You be the judge. I must have too much time on my hands. Di had a visual encounter with one of her nemesis’s  – a black snake about 1 ½ meters long heading across the road just before Corinna. We made Strahan about 3.30 and our digs for the next 3 days look pretty good. 

The mating sign ???

Tassie here we come. Melbourne to Stanley

Spirit of Tasmania docking

Our cabin

 Well today’s the day and we headed off Bendigo to Melbourne to catch the “Sprirt of Tasmania” to Devonport. It was with some trepidation given Di and boats normally don’t mix but ever the adventurer (and travel calm) we tested fate. I will say right up front she travelled better than the rest of us. She is now mumbling things about cruises to the islands. We arrived at our appointed time – to an empty pier. Apparently over the long weekend they have run day and night services. Once the boat had docked it took 2 hrs to actually get the car on and to our cabin. I must say the trip was pretty smooth. Another 2 hours to disembark and clear quarantine and we were on our way. Apart for a 20 km detour ( my fault) it was a pleasant trip from Devonport to Stanley. Good road and nice views. An interesting side note, the Taswegans have taken to growing roads – well at least I think that is what they are doing. We passed a couple of signs on the road side indicating "irrigated roads" . Interesting concept doomed to failure I expect. We deviated off the main A2 to Table Cape Light house.

Stanley Village in the old rail station

Table Cape Lighthouse

 It had some real nice views of the coast line and hinterland both east and west. Beautiful clear water and smooth as a table top. Stanley is a bit of a sleeper and we didn’t realize there was a bigger town till later in the afternoon. Very nice place and the caravan park looked magic. Sits right on the beach and well presented. We are staying at Stanley Village which is a mix of new accommodation and the old railway complex (Station, station masters quarters etc) we are staying in what I think is part of the old station masters quarters. I was wishing I had brought the rods the bay is beautiful.

The nut

Well a little under a week to go and as per murphy's law if it can go wrong it will and we will be in the firing line and it will be my fault it happened anyway, has kicked in. The Paj, which I have been less than happy with since the gas conversion, dumped half the contents of the cooling system on the road yesterday and was flat topped out to Bayden's for fixing. I won't bore you with all the other crap that complicate the issue, suffice to say it all turned to shit. Anyway just under a week and we head off to Tassie. The map shows our project route so we will see what happens. The weather was supposed to be ok but it seems my friend at the weather bureau is not so sure now. Life could be interesting.

Well Janyce has gone - first couple to see her took her so we hope they get as much enjoyment from her as we did. I never finished the reno's but the couple didn't seem to mind. Week to go before our Tassie trip but we aren't talking Abby with us just Shirl (mother). We are heading over on the boat so that should be an experience. Will keep you post on our travels and "adventures"

Farewell Janyce

Well today's post is a bit of mixed feelings really as we have put Janyce the Jayco up for sale. It was not really a planned thing -well not at this point anyway. We brought Janyce as a test to see if we still enjoyed caravaning as it was quite a few years since we had done it. And the short answer is yes we loved it and we had planned in the future to upgrade. Well the future caught up with us. We had been looking around at what's out there and developing a strategy about what we would like and what we really need when the time came. We saw an ad for van for sale which sounded pretty good so though it would be a useful exercise to have a look and that would help our future deliberations. Well there are no longer any future deliberations -we brought the van. (Thanks to David and wife the current owners of our new van). A 17ft tandem axle A Van Tayla which Di has already named Abby.

I haven't finished the reno's on Janyce yet so I guess that won't happen and she is not the prettiest or flashed van around but she did reinvigarate us and gave us the thirst for more travel and she served us well. I took a few photo's for the ad and Di rekons Janyce doesn't look all that bad. Pictures are of Janyce and Abby