About
Strahan Wharf at a glance
West coast wharf berthing at Strahan on Macquarie Harbour, with fuel available 24 hours by card; key stop for west coast circumnavigators.
Service area: West Coast
- Marina type
- government/transport wharf-marina
- Operator
- TasPorts
- Region
- West Coast
- Water body
- Macquarie Harbour
Facilities and services
- fuel
- 24-hour card fuel
- anchorage
- sawmill
- seaplane base
About Strahan Wharf
Strahan Wharf is the working face of Macquarie Harbour's only town: the Esplanade waterfront where cruise catamarans, seaplanes, fishing boats and the occasional cruising yacht share a strip of wharfage that has served as the west coast's front door since the 1890s. In that decade Strahan was a genuinely busy steamer port, landing passengers, mail and supplies for the Zeehan mineral field and shipping ore and timber out; the waterfront's surviving buildings and the Regatta Point railway station at the far end of the bay walk preserve that era in plain sight. The wharf precinct today is operated under TasPorts arrangements and mixes functions in a way marinas never do: the two big Gordon River cruise operators load hundreds of passengers a day in season, floatplanes lift off for the Franklin and the southwest, a sawmill on the quay still saws Huon pine salvaged from old river workings, and West Coast Yacht Charters' Stormbreaker ties up here between overnight expeditions. For the cruising yachtsman, Strahan Wharf matters out of proportion to its size because of geography. It is the only refuelling and reprovisioning point on Tasmania's entire west coast, sitting almost exactly midway on the Hobart-to-Hobart circumnavigation, and every yacht that rounds the island stops here. Berthing is alongside port wharfage or on anchor off the town, arranged casually; there are no pens, no marina office and no club. What there is, uniquely, is a 24-hour fuel facility on the wharf itself, and behind it a small, walkable town with a supermarket, bakery, two pubs and a century and a half of maritime history.
Marina facilities
The wharf's defining service is fuel: a 24-hour, card-operated diesel facility on the main wharf, inshore of the berth and near where the seaplanes are based, accepting credit and debit cards at any hour, which MAST's cruising fuel tables confirm as available around the clock. For yachts arriving off a long leg from Port Davey or down from the north coast, being able to fuel at two in the morning without call-out fees is the whole point of the stop. Berthing itself is alongside the wharf by arrangement with TasPorts (office 1300 366 742), or yachts can anchor off the town in mud with good holding and dinghy in, leaving the main wharf face clear for the big cruise cats whose schedules dominate the waterfront. There is no pump-out, no shore power grid for visitors, no laundry or showers on the wharf; the town's laundromat and accommodation houses cover those needs. Water can be arranged at the wharf. Everything else is steps away on the Esplanade: the bakery and the pub are directly on the foreshore, the IGA supermarket and pharmacy are up the hill beside the service station, and The Crays shop sells Trevor Norton's harbour and river charts plus fishing tackle. The Huon pine mill beside the wharf runs demonstrations and sells timber, and the West Coast Visitor Information Centre and its nightly play sit just behind the waterfront. Seaplane operations from the wharf mean skippers should keep clear of the marked operating area when manoeuvring. In short, the wharf supplies the two things a west coast passage-maker cannot improvise, fuel and alongside access, and leaves the rest to a town accustomed to travellers arriving by sea.
Local sailing knowledge
Every approach to Strahan Wharf runs through Hells Gates, and the local knowledge for the gate bears repeating: it faces the Southern Ocean directly, the outflow can run hard against incoming swell, and the combination of wind, pressure and Gordon River Power Station releases matters more than the tide tables. Cross in daylight, in settled weather, favouring the rock wall side, and wait at Pilot Bay if conditions are wrong. Once inside, the run up to Strahan is straightforward until Town Point, where the submerged reef marked by the number 12 red buoy has caught enough rudders to be famous; give it its sea room. Anchorages if the wharf is full include the mud off the town itself, the quieter water across at Risby Cove, and Mill Bay a short distance east, which is snug but crowded with local boats. The wharf's rhythm is set by the cruise boats: early morning departures for the Gordon and Sarah Island, afternoon returns, and seaplane movements between, so the calmest alongside hours are late afternoon onward. Ashore, the foreshore walk runs from West Strahan's swimming beach to Regatta Point station, where the rack-and-pinion heritage railway climbs to Queenstown; Morrison's mill demonstrates antique sawmilling gear; and the story of the last convict escape from Sarah Island plays nightly beside the visitor centre. Provisioning is easy at the IGA, and pubs at the wharf and Regatta Point serve meals. For circumnavigators, the pattern is well worn: rest, fuel by card at whatever hour the weather window dictates, buy the Norton charts at The Crays, and leave on the tide for the gate, Port Davey 90 miles south or the long haul north.