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Pieman River
Cruising along |
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Pieman Heads The old Huon Pine
boat |
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Pieman Heads Driftwood at
mouth of river |
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Pieman Heads More Driftwood |
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Pieman Heads Funny Gum Tree |
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McGraths Track Crossing Whyte
River near the tunnel |
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Day 8 –
Pieman River boat cruise
 
Today we had a bit of a lazy day. We went on
a nice cruise up the Pieman River. It was a smallish boat made
of Huon Pine, the last Huon pine boat surviving that was built
with the old methods. The boat had been used in the war over in
china, and in New Guinea as a transport vehicle, and had even
had machine guns fitted at one stage. It has recently had a
make over, costing about 150,000, largely because of the cost of
Huon Pine. After the repairs which were completed in
Launceston, it had to be sailed back into the Pieman River
through the heads, which could only be done on a calm day, the
captain had a bit of a tense time coming through because of the
tight squeeze. We were also told about how Corinna is being
‘upgraded’ with new cabins, and advertising for their cruise,
also a Tavern is coming. I h ave a feeling that the nice
secluded atmosphere could be partly lost.
There were two other
couples on the trip, all retired Queenslanders who were very
nice. One couple from Cairns and one from Brisbane. One of the
guys was a retired Uni lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, and
the other did something else that we never asked about. They
were good examples of the Grey Nomads, retired with lots of
superannuation money, touring around Aus with their caravans.
The cruise was smooth and coasted past the
ferns and forest up the windy deep Pieman River to where it met
the sea. We saw some huon pines, tall skinny tree ferns which
are rare, and some small waterfalls and some floating
‘logadiles’ as the Captain called them. One of them was seen at
the last minute and we just missed it. The captain said they
were safe for humans, but not so good for the tinny. At the
river mouth we spent an hour at the beach for lunch. There were
a few shacks there where people have set up little holiday tin
shacks. They reach their shacks either by boat or by 4wd along
the beach. We stopped and had a chat to one of the ‘locals’ who
was collecting firewood.
The boat ‘captain’ was nice. He has lived in
Corinna for about 4 years, and used to live in Strahan as a hand
on the Cray boats. He seemed to know the area pretty well and
loved his boat.
 After the boat trip we went back down
McGraths track to have a look at the long tunnel we missed
yesterday because the weather had improved from rainy to sunny.
The walking track to the tunnel was a bit difficult to follow as
it wound its way around the hills. The only indication of the
correct direction were some coloured ribbons, which had often
fallen off. At times we could make out an old track cut into
the hill leading down to the tunnel, and found some old bottles
on the ground from the old days which had very thick glass and a
funny shape. We reached the tunnel which was as the book said,
about 4 m wide and tall, and had some old log supports inside
which had now deteriorated, and some of the entrance had
collapsed. The floor was covered with water but to me did not
look good enough to divert the river like it was originally
intended back in 1931 It’s a shame the tunnel was a wast of
time for the miners who only uncovered 28 ounces of gold!
It was a good walk. We drove back over the
river to a small cleared area we could use as a camp site. I
decided to use some river water to wash the salt water off the
car from the beach, and also had a shower, all using my in car
shower setup. It did a pretty good job cleaning up the car.
We had set up camp a little early, so took it
easy and cooked up some spag and sausages for dinner, lit a fire
and reminisced over another nice day!
4WD Travel Holiday Camp Tasmania Tent
Toyota Landcruiser |
