Queenstown to Strahan road

Queenstown to Strahan Road

Tasmania
TypeRural road
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Queenstown to Strahan road (also Strahan to Queenstown road) is a road that connects Queenstown with Strahan in Western Tasmania.

It was preceded by the Mount Lyell railway (now known as the West Coast Wilderness Railway) which from the 1890s to the 1960s was the main means of transport between the two towns. Earlier tracks existed, but were not in any way suitable for vehicles[1]

It was proposed and petitioned about in the early 1930s[2] it was opened in the late 1930s,[3][4] but required maintenance work in the 1940s[5]

The road leaves Queenstown by rising to Howards Plains where it has a junction with the Zeehan Highway. A little further south west of the junction it runs past the Queenstown airport

The road runs on the ridge that divides the catchment of the Tully and Henty River to the north, and the immediate King River tributary creeks to the south. At one point, it runs very close to the alignment of the Mount Lyell Railway as it descends into the King River gorge.

  1. ^ see for instance page 180 and 181 of Binks, C. J (1980), Explorers of Western Tasmania, Mary Fisher Bookshop, ISBN 978-0-908291-16-8 or descriptions in The Peaks of Lyell about the haulage of equipment over the tracks in the early 1890s
  2. ^ "QUEENSTOWN TO STRAHAN". The Examiner (Tasmania). Vol. LXXXVIII, no. 197. Tasmania, Australia. 18 August 1930. p. 5 (DAILY). Retrieved 14 October 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ "View archived webpage". Trove. Archived from the original on 22 May 2015.
  4. ^ "QUEENSTOWN-STRAHAN". The Mercury. Vol. CXLVII, no. 20, 856. Tasmania. 28 September 1937. p. 2. Retrieved 14 October 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ^ "REPAIRS TO STRAHAN QUEENSTOWN ROAD". The Mercury. Vol. CLXV, no. 23, 803. Tasmania. 22 March 1947. p. 19. Retrieved 14 October 2016 – via National Library of Australia.