Silver City of the West
Things to do in Zeehan
Most people treat Zeehan as somewhere to sleep between Cradle Mountain and Strahan. That is a fair use of it, but it is also a town that was once the third largest in Tasmania, and it has the buildings and the stories to prove it.
- Zeehan wasTasmania's 3rd largest town
Photograph: Kim Dunstan
In late 1882 a man named Frank Long found silver-lead here, and the first samples ran at 70 ounces of silver to the ton. Within a decade Zeehan was the Silver City of the West and the third largest town in Tasmania, with a main street built for a population it no longer has.
What that leaves is a town where the scale of the architecture does not match the scale of the population, and where the country around it is full of tramways, tunnels and workings that the rainforest has been quietly reclaiming for a century.
You can see the best of it in a day, and most of it is free.
Practical
The short list
- The Spray Tunnel, hand cut in the 1800s, 10 minutes away and walkable straight through.
- The West Coast Heritage Centre, which is far better than the town's size suggests.
- The Gaiety Theatre, built when this was a boom town.
- Zeehan Golf Club parkrun, 9am every Saturday, free and open to anyone.
- The West Coast Council gym around the corner, recently refurbished, with access and membership through the Unlock West Coast app. Day memberships are available, so a single visit is worth it.
- The swimming pool at the same site, open in the warmer months.
- The gem and mineral fair on 7 and 8 November 2026, at the Heritage Centre, and the biggest weekend of the town's year. Worth booking ahead for, because Zeehan does not have many beds.
Stay the night at the Heemskirk
Stay in the middle of it rather than driving in for the afternoon.
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