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Zeehan

We just had to stop in Zeehan as this is where Rob's sister lived for some years. We found her old house though I think it has since been painted. Many people drive straight through the town, not realizing there is an excellent museum at Zeehan which I would recommend to anyone to visit before passing through town.

Gaiety Theatre

Zeehan Post Office

Zeehan School of Mines (now the museum)


The main street of Zeehan is a beautiful feature of the town. Points of interest around the town include the old Gaiety Theatre (built in 1899), and apparently once the largest concert hall in Australia; the West Coast Heritage Centre, which is in the old School of Mines building and now encompasses the whole block as the museum including the theatre. I believe it is one of the best regional museums in Tasmania if not Australia, it houses early pioneering memorabilia, mining equipment and steam locomotives. You will need a couple of hours easily to see all of it. The entrance fee is quite small being something in the vicinity of $15.

Rob admiring an exhibit

It is certainly much larger than one would think from the outside. There are rooms dedicated to mining and minerals. It is reported that their mineral exhibition is considered world class and was certainly extensive.

I enjoyed the fashions of the day

Upstairs the heritage centre houses a rich and detailed pictorial history of the West Coast with many photographs recording the region's mining, timber milling and convict histories extensively through quite a few rooms.

Early photography equipment

Out the back you have a much larger area and one can enter the Masonic Display, the Police Station, Court House and the Gaiety Theatre and Grand Hotel. The Masonic Display demystified Freemasonry ... without giving away any of its secrets! The theatre included an interesting display dedicated to some of the pioneer women of Strahan.giving a history of each building and the what and why fors of each building.

A jeep?

Further back there are boat sheds, a blacksmith shop, a motor vehicle display, a marine display, a machinery shed, an underground mine simulation and some railway exhibits.

Steam engine
I must admit I was on information overload. In hindsight it probably would have been better to stop overnight if you really wanted to get as much as possible from the museum.

A couple of trains

Zeehan itself is a remote mining town that has gone from being the third largest town in Tasmania to a deserted ghost town it is slowly clawing back as a prosperous mining town again, thanks to the relatively nearby Renison Bell tin mine.


Happy travels until the next time

Michelle & Rob

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