The West Coast Wilderness Railway, Tasmania

Queenstown was a gold rush town, founded in 1883, after an Irish prospector had found gold in the nearby Queen River Valley.  Although this wild-west frontier town rapidly grew to over 8,000 inhabitants the gold rush was short lived and it was only the fortuitous discovery of copper in soil

samples sent for analysis that ensured the town continued to burgeon as a mining community.  At one time Queenstown was the richest copper mining town in the world and although the mines were worked out before the end of the 20th century, they were reopened in 2002 by Vedanta Resources such is the price of copper and the increasingly sophisticated means of extracting the mineral from the seams.

The railway was built in the late 1800's to carry copper from Queenstown to the west coast port of

Strahan 37km away, this despite the fact that surveyors said the task was impossible.  A rack and pinion system ( teeth and cogs on a third rail) was used to haul engines and their cargo over the steep

1in 20 inclines on the final run into Queenstown.  The railway fell into disuse in 1963 but was reopened in 2002 as a tourist attraction with massive federal government funding. Only over breakfast did we make the last-minute decision to join the morning wilderness railway tour, and we were pleased we did.  As VIP passengers we enjoyed a glass of champagne upon arrival and travelled in the luxury leather seats of the Wilderness carriage with its own open air viewing balcony.  We were treated to an engaging commentary as we listened to tales of resilience of the railway and it's people, whilst being pulled by an original 1898 locomotive.

Excursion over we motored for four hours over the Central Highlands back to Hobart, re-packed our suitcases and prepared for a day of air travel via Sydney to Singapore.  The next report will be from somewhere completely different!