Hell's Gates (Tasmania)

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Hell's Gates is also the name of a gorge on the Davey River in the south west region of Tasmania.

Hell's Gates, viewed from outside. Entrance Island is on the left. Bonnet Island lighthouse is visible in the distance.

Hell's Gates is the name of the mouth of Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast of Tasmania. It is a notoriously shallow and dangerous channel entrance to the harbour. The actual channel is between Cape Sorell on the west and Entrance Island on the east (the harbour is southeast of Hell's Gates). There is a wider area of water between Entrance Island and Macquarie Head, but it is too shallow to get a boat over.

The name of the channel is often correlated to the entrance to the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station which was based on Sarah Island and the outlying surrounds of the harbour, being the convicts claim that it was their point of 'entrance to Hell'. This correlation is taken further into the title of Paul Collins' book about Alexander Pearce, an escapee from Sarah Island.

Between 1900 and 1902 the Macquarie Harbour Entrance Works involved the building of a breakwater and the channel was dredged. Parts of the breakwater can still be seen despite the passage of time. The Strahan Marine Board was involved with the monitoring of the mouth until is absorption into the Hobart Marine Board.

[edit] References

Blainey, Geoffrey (2000). The Peaks of Lyell, 6th ed., Hobart: St. David's Park Publishing. ISBN 0-7246-2265-9.
Collins, Paul. Hell's Gates: the terrible journey of Alexander Pearce, Van Dieman's land cannibal. South Yarra, 2002. ISBN 1-74064-083-7
Kok, Arjan. A Pictorial History of Strahan. Hobart, No Date.
Pink, Kerry. Through Hells Gates ( A History of Strahan and Macquarie Harbour). Strahan, 1984. ISBN 0-646-36665-3
Whitham, Charles. Western Tasmania - A land of riches and beauty, Reprint 2003, Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown.