Zeehan

Zeehan is a town of 702 (2021) in the West Coast Tasmania. It was a mining town, but is now a quiet sleepy mountainous tourist town a few kilometers off the A10, one of Tasmania's most scenic highways.

Understand

Zeehan was the town of the West Coast in the years before the First World War. Then the silver lodes ran out, and it has struggled since. It carried on from its legacy of the early 1900s. The buildings, the stories, the ruins, and the struggling hinterland. There never has been the rush or the volume of people that were around in the early days.

The passenger railway service to Burnie was closed by the 1970s, and when Mount Lyell needed to export copper it trucked from Queenstown, and went to Melba Flats, east of Zeehan, to be delivered to the port of Burnie.

There were reprieves for Zeehan in various stages: in the 1970s the rise of the Renison Tin company increased the usage of the town and its facilities.

Most nearby mining ventures tend to be much smaller operations requiring fewer employees, and no new major mines have started, despite a range of deposits of minerals being uncovered every decade in the area.

The emphasis upon tourism on the West Coast has resulted considerable expenditures for maintaining historic surviving buildings and streetscapes.

Get in

From the north

• Murchison Highway (A10) - from Burnie, through Tullah and Rosebery

From the south

• Henty Road (B27) - from Strahan

From the southeast

• Zeehan Highway (A10) – from Queenstown

Get around

The town is small enough to be navigable on foot.

See

The historic Gaiety Grand Theatre

• Spray Tunnel, Fowler Street. (updated Nov 2015)
• 1 West Coast Heritage Centre, 114 Main Street, ☏ +61 3 6471 6225. Daily 9:30AM–4PM. A small history museum that gives you an insight into what life was like in West Coast Tasmania in the early 20th century. The entry is designed similarly to Zeehan's streetscape in the late 19th century but with dedicated sections for Strahan, Waratah, Queenstown, and Rosebery. (updated Apr 2023)

Do

• Fossicking. Rummage about or prospect for gold, precious stones, fossils, etc. 

Eat

• The Pit Stop, 134 Main Street. 7AM-9PM. (updated Nov 2015)

Sleep

• 1 Heemskirk Motor Hotel, 1-25 Main Street, ☏ +61 3 6471 6107. Check-in: 2PM, check-out: 10AM. (updated Apr 2023)
• Zeehan Caravan Park, Hurst Street, enquiries@zeehancaravanpark.com. Cabins, caravans and powered sites. Close to the town centre. (updated Nov 2015)

Go next

• north - Rosebery
• southeast - Queenstown
• south - Strahan

Routes via Zeehan

Strahan ←	SW B27 NE	→ A10 jcn
Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area ← Corinna ←	NW C249 SE	→ END
Somerset ← Rosebery ←	NE A10 SE	→ Queenstown → New Norfolk (Hobart)