I hadn't set out exactly to see this road.
It was a sort of convenient road, which looked interesting on the map, and turned out to be one of the best things I experienced on this trip.
I had gone out to Dismal Swamp to see the Tarkine Forest Adventures, and the following day I would be going on the West Coast Wilderness Railway, so I needed to be staying in Strahan to do so.
Interestingly if you put Tarkine Forest Adventures and Strahan into Google Maps you are presented with two routes, one that is all sealed roads, highways and the like and one that isn't.
The one that isn't is an hour longer, but as I discovered is far more interesting.
Regenerating trees.
Unlike other states, Google's street view car has covered a lot less of the roads in Tasmania, meaning that I had to guess the conditions of some of the roads based on satellite images and other photos I'd found around the internet, but I wasn't worried. I thought to myself; “It’s listed as a road and I have a 4x4“.
Arthur River is the last proper town until Zeehan, and Smithton I think was the last place with a proper petrol station until Zeehan as well.
Arthur River has a take away shop, that's about it in terms of shops, the rest of the town is houses or fishing shacks and other dwellings like that.
The fuel situation requires some planning, I'd filled up in Smithton as I didn't think there were many fuel options after that, but drove past the Redpa General Store on the Bass Highway which did sell fuel and there appears to be fuel at Marrawah. Neither of these shows up on a Google Maps search of this area.
The road is sealed all the way out of Arthur River along Rebecca Road. The Western Explorer Road (also known as the C249) is not sealed, well it is, in very brief sections where the gradient would make it dangerous to not be. But for the most part it's a gravel / dirt road.
The Western Explorer Road was amazing, it covered so many different environments and landscapes, and so many different elevations. It was so remote, yet there was the constant reassurance of direction. The road was almost never straight and occasionally quite challenging.
There was evidence along some part of it of the massive bushfires that occurred in Tasmania not much more than 18 months ago. Eucalypt forests that, from a distance looked petrified, like a bomb had hit them; stark white trunks against a darker landscape, but then as I approached and the road weaved through it, I could see, the eucalypts were growing again, leaves sprouting out from the trunks of the trees.
As I descended through and along the road, bigger trees sprung up, with the better availability of water; the landscape taking on an almost European feel, then much closer to rivers and sources of water it became more rainforest-like. Moss and lichen clinging to the trees, the local environment cooling as it darkened around me.
The day I drove this road it was around 25ºC to 30ºC, but it dipped down lower every time I went down into these grottos of trees and shrubs.
Barge instructions – Check for the bridge. Then panic.
Descending down, not just into these, but going and up and over and down hills in the landscape gave me pause to thank the people who designed my ute and the traction control systems that more than once kept me on the straight and narrow, safe, when I over estimated how fast I could be going around a corner.
At Corinna, at the end of the Western Explorer Road, there is a river.
There is not a bridge.
There is a barge, which you have to pay to cross, it's $25. There's not really any option either. Well, there is an option but while you still drive the Western Explorer Road, instead of heading towards Corinna instead you turn left, going a little back on yourself and adding another 100 kilometres to your trip.
The journey on the 'Fat Man Barge' is fine, it's a quirky way to travel across a river.
The rest of the road, after crossing the Pieman River is sealed, albeit with some significant pot holes near to the Pieman River.
Zeehan, when I arrived was...desolate and somewhat grim.
I did wonder, as I drove through it on a hot spring day, whether it was just a town that looks better overcast, or rainy. As on a hot sunny day, it didn't make me want to stop, it made me want to escape, perhaps just my mindset, but there was just something about the town, a grim remoteness which sunshine did not assist.
Driving into Strahan, it looked basically the same as the last time I had visited 5 years ago, although much sunnier this time around.