The river that mirrors itself

On Tasmania's west coast, there's a river so still that photographs of it look the same upside down.

The Gordon River runs through some of the oldest rainforest in the country, flanked by Huon pines that have been growing for centuries. We took a cruise upstream from Strahan — a small fishing village on Macquarie Harbour — and at one point the engines cut and the boat went silent.

Nobody spoke. Not because anyone said to be quiet, but because the silence felt like something you shouldn't interrupt. The water had no ripples at all. The sky, the clouds, and the trees were reflected so perfectly that the surface of the river disappeared — you couldn't tell where the forest ended and the reflection began.

Time stood still, though it lasted maybe five minutes. It's one of the clearest memories I have from any trip we've taken.

Strahan was one of our honeymoon destinations on a whistle-stop tour of Tasmania, and it gave us more than the Gordon River — fishing boats crossing the harbour at dawn, a Huon pine cheeseboard we still use, and the kind of quiet that only genuine remoteness can deliver.

I wrote up the full trip this week — how to get there, where to stay, and why the clifftop view of the harbour is worth the long drive from Hobart.

Strahan: The Fishing Village at the Edge of the Wilderness

See you next Friday.

— Robert