Mike was quite unwell and spent all day in bed. I went back to the IGA and associated pharmacy and got some more paracetamol and cough mixture as well as more dinner provisions.

There is quite a bit to Strahan. It’s spread out around this big bay but only has the one block of proper shops (pharmacy and IGA). There is also the cruise tour business, a sawmill with wood craft gallery and a knitwear store, as well as several eateries. On my circumnavigation I also found a school, police station, ambulance depot (may come in helpful 🤪) and there’s evidently a petrol place further along beside the airfield.

Most of the day was drizzly and actually perfect for recuperating and/or being unwell.

We had steak and veg for dinner. Mike got himself up for dinner and had a much better sleep. Not nearly so much coughing. I have a bad chest cough and headache but no temperature and also had a reasonable sleep.

We had a slow start, dealt with some work emails and then Fiona and Steve went off for a drive. The internet here is ok if just one person is using it but any more and things grind to a halt. Trying to connect to our work server yesterday was almost impossible and very frustrating.

I had a nice walk down along the beach. It was remarkably sheltered down there and great to get out in the fresh air. The tide doesn’t seem to move much at all and I was able to walk about 20 minutes along the sand flats, which are still visible some 3 hours later.

There is a scenic railway from Strahan. You cross it a couple of times on the road to Lettes Bay, which is where our house is. This morning I discovered the train goes very close to the boundary of this property, up through the trees, and the rail line travels along the side of the bay.

I think we are going to take the train tomorrow. It is a 2.5 hour journey which is probably more doable for me than the 6 hour boat cruise option.

Steve and Fiona drove to the town nearby called Zeehan. It is evidently a bit forlorn now but was once Tasmania’s third largest town and was a mining centre. On the way here we drove through Queenstown, which is also a mining town. It doesn’t look like our Queenstown except it’s down in a valley with high hills all around. Their hills are all open cast mines though with visible benches and no obvious remediation anywhere. It was originally a gold mining area but then was mined for copper and there is still an operating copper mine.

I’ve googled and it is in a valley on the western slopes of Mt Owen. Evidently a vocal group of locals have opposed remediation as they fear it would spoil the current moonscape of the eroded hillsides and rocky surface below. Go figure! They had some further prosperity in the 1990s when there were some hydro projects in the area but it all looks pretty bleak now those have finished. Evidently there is a train trip from Queenstown to Strahan also which looks spectacular but it’s not the one we will take, which begins in Strahan.