Travelways

Strahan is busy.
Perhaps this little fishing village's transformation into a buzzing tourism hub is best summed up by the presence of parking meters on the Esplanade.
The sense of activity is reinforced by the way that sound carries up the hill to the balcony of my room at Strahan Village.
In the evening, the sound of laughter carries several hundred metres from the dock-side set of long-running play The Ship That Never Was; in the morning, the public announcement system of a luxury catamaran heralds a journey to the Gordon River.
Sea planes and jet boats complete the picture.
This late-March afternoon I've arrived in Strahan aboard the ketch Stormbreaker after several days rafting the Franklin. Our bus drops me at Queenstown, where I pick up my car and have a final snoop around Queenie.
On one of Queenstown's back streets a black kitten jumps in front of the car, pauses, stares then bounds away. It starts me thinking about luck and whether we were fortunate during the Franklin adventure. It  was exhilarating without feeling dangerous.
Bob Dylan contributes to this theme of mortality with Knocking on Heaven's Door as I drive back towards Strahan and come to the conclusion that driving on any public road is more dangerous than adventure tourism.
It makes me concentrate on the drive, which is just as well. An oncoming truck rounds a corner, its load of tyres bouncing like a big, black jelly, and delivers a perfect roller straight at my car. This is a Hollywood action-movie snapshot: stunt men would take hours to set up such a scenario. I swerve and the speeding tyre brushes the back of my car. There's no harm done and my thoughts on safety have a perfect full stop.
An executive room at the Strahan Village is another perfect stop. The two-tier suite has a bathroom and king-sized bed on the top deck and a living area spilling on to a balcony on the bottom.
It's from this balcony that the buzz of Strahan becomes evident. These hillside suites are on the same level as View 42, the buffet restaurant where I meet Federal Group West Coast general manager Greg Astell.
The former Devonport hotelier says he has been hooked on Strahan since arriving five years ago. As Federal Hotels' point man in the West, Mr Astell has driven the development of three experiences marketed under Federal's Pure Tasmania brand.
Research is behind all three. The West Coast, Mr Astell says, attracts 160,000 visitors a year and most want a wilderness experience.
On Piners and Miners, a hybrid four-wheel-drive rail car straddles the Abt Railway before going off-track to the Bird River. Visitors walk seven kilometres to the old river port town of East Pillinger for a gourmet barbecue in the rainforest.
"Our research told us that people wanted a small-group experience where they could learn about the history and the wilderness _ they didn't want to sit in a bus,'' Mr Astell said.
The second experience is the Gordon River Paddle, where kayakers are dropped off at Heritage Landing by luxury catamaran Lady Jane Franklin II and spend hours being guided around the river.
The third and most recent is a trip that watches the dusk arrival of penguins and shearwaters on tiny Bonnet Island at the mouth of Macquarie Harbour.
We break to sample the buffet and I can see why they don't do a la carte at View 42 _ the buffet has it all. Salmon tabouli salad, baked ocean trout, ling in cream sauce, oysters, mussels, scallop salad, salmon frittata, marinated scallops, shaved fennel and orange salad and Black Russian beef.
I run up a white flag at dessert and call it a night.
There's a train leaving early next morning and I don't want to miss it.



IF YOU GO
For information on Strahan Village, Bonnet Island, Piners and Miners and Kayaking the Gordon, see puretasmania.com.au or call 1800 420 155.

The writer was a guest of Pure Tasmania.

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